Coffee Appreciation

What he said. I had exactly that once with the GC.
Not hard to dismantle and inspect/clean the solenoids and manifold bit.
(Well it was actually as IIRC had to drill and tap a new thread for the solenoid mount but yours looks to be in way better order than mine was)

@giles337 & @rpm - Thanks very much, that's great to know.
Will give it a go tonight

Well if I'm honest I've not been that impressed by this

Starting with 60g/litre and what I'd class as pretty coarse for a clever dripper, it tastes roasty and over extracted, not like the pink bourbons I've had before. There's definitely a fermented ricey aroma when brewing but it's not in the cup. Will play around obviously, but disappointed at first try.

I’ve just taken ownership of a Rancilio Silvia. I tried to dialling in using my Feld 47 this afternoon. I’ve used nearly 300g of coffee to get to a drinkable espresso and totally failed.

I’ve also never used a bottomless portafilter until today. It’s really difficult.

The beans were god awful. Ash tray smoothie is how I would describe them

I’ve never bothered with home espresso, what’s your recipe and what beans are you using? And what extraction times are you getting?

The bottomless portafilter is showing you the problems. Once you get it running nicely you’ll enjoy it.

If it’s running too quick grind finer. If it’s getting stuck or too slow then grind coarser.

Worth using decent (not super fancy) beans to remove them as the source of the issue.

I’ve gone back to my old beams that I have on subscription now.

Bean Brothers Light roast
20g of coffee
The coffee is coming through very quickly 5-7 and the shot is pulled.

Seems very watery, no crema

Wowsers yeah you need it much finer, also because you might need the dose more like 18-19g, so see how much finer you can make it. It’ll be harder work to grind!
Also make sure you’re tamping nice and firmly, and don’t do any swirls or spins with the tamper as you might dislodge the puck

Grind it finer in that case

5-7 seconds?!

Did you even grind the coffee or just put some beans in your portafilter??? 5-7 seconds?!

Hahaha definitely ground.

It’s a feld 47 hand grinder. There’s a lot of dicking about to get it dialled in.

Another thought; what is the basket capacity and what does 20g look like in it? If it’s quite shallow, it might be far too fine and just massively channeling

That’s the weird thing. Even with 20g it’s got room for more coffee in the basket. Not up to the line

And is the coffee almost powdery like baking powder? If so maybe that’s it, I’d say try it on the “stovetop” grind setting and see if you get anywhere near 25-35 seconds.

With my feld it takes me about 2min + to grind 18g for espresso

Ah ignore me misunderstood lol

I’ll have another go tomorrow.

It’s either too fine and or too course.

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It’s definitely not both :)
Nice reflecto portrait.
Good luck

Looks like channeling and too coarse

If it’s choking due to being too fine you would see some coffee come through but very dark and slow small drips. Also ive never seen the coffee come through like your first picture. Is the screen attached ok? Is the machine second hand? And have you pulled water through the portafilter without coffee ?

First cup of Strawbs this morning and it tastes great, I can definitely taste that strawberry juice in the mouth. First time having a yeasted fermentation coffee I think glad I tried

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Steaming of the milk takes a further 4minutes

Just catching up with this thread and how does it take you this long?!

I thought it seemed very long so timed myself this morning - two minutes from flicking steam switch to finishing steaming. Giving the jug a few whacks on the counter then a bit of swirling to make sure it's properly combined and the actual pour adds another minute, max. I long ago gave up on justifying a dual boiler based on time to make a drink!

Do you have a PID or some other way of knowing what temp you're steaming at?

Anyway I agree with @JB - you use it a lot and have had it a long time so if you want to upgrade base your 'girl maths' on that.

Shower plate cranked down too tight so water can’t disperse behind it maybe?

Anyone using a lever machine? Getting a little tired of vibe pump noise after 10 years on a baby class and 7 years on an appartamento. Can be tank or plumbed.

Everyone says the londinium but I prefer the look of the profitec. Looks aren’t everything, sure, but they are something.

Has anyone on here done the pid mod on the rancillio Silvia?

Yeah. I followed these instructions and bought the parts from AliExpress. The actual PID was £20 but you also need the case (£10) and the other bits so it ended up costing ~£40.

I also fitted a Shelly Plus 1PM inside which is connected to Home Assistant so I can include it in automations. It turns on 20 minutes before we get up in the week to get it up to temperature, we've got an Aqara smart button by our bed to turn it on at the weekend and it turns off automatically after an hour in case we leave it on.

While I had it open I did a wider refurb, replacing the chassis as we had one of the old pig iron ones that go rusty (orange one in the pics) and replacing seals/o-rings/pump as a preventive measure. I also redid some of the wiring with spade connectors and heat shrink because the original plastic connectors were end of life and took the boiler apart to remove the limescale (check the picture below - everyone with a Silvia should do this every few years IMO!). I've had it 11 years and we bought it secondhand so this was all par for the course.

The PID isn't beautiful, it's true, but I bought it to improve my espresso consistency and make my espresso process easier and it has. It also massively improved my steaming, which I didn't expect. It can't control the steam temperature but just knowing what it is does it - I purge the wand at 115° then start frothing at 125° and this has massively improved the consistency of my flat whites (see last pic).

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