Hello All:

I've joined recently and have seen that most of you consider the Rancilio Silvia the best entry level machine, but even used, these now cost $300 and above. Before finding this site, I bought the following equipment and have made a recent discovery that may interest you:

1) $129 Saeco Magic Cappuccino Plus refurb espresso machine; 2) $199 refurb Lelit PL53 grinder; 3) $7 tamper; 4) $20 digital 0.1 gm scale; 4) $12 Krups frothing pitcher -- all for a whopping $367 so far or about $1/day.

I've gone online and watched videos of temperature surfing Silvias and the pump on the Silvia sounds EXACTLY the same as my Saeco. Granted that other components, such as the portafilter, are different, although one of you advised I shouldn't get different extraction from a 53mm portafilter compared to a 58mm one. Also, there's no PID offered specifically for my Saeco. But the controls otherwise look the same. I've removed the pressure valve in the portafilter but with the Saeco's design, it's not practical to make it bottomless.

Still and all, for those who are entering this hobby with a strict budget, I wonder if the Saeco Magic cappuccino Plus and others like it might be closely equivalent to a Silvia as starter equipment.

What do you think?

I currently own a Saeco Via Venezia which will probably be similar as your machine.
Down side is that you have to make some investments in a low budget machine to be able to make nice coffee.
De-pressurizing your PF or a buy a new one, get a tamper (prolly 53mm). Although this doesn't have to be expensive you still invest in such a machine.

What I did was searching a good 2nd hand grinder and I ended up with a La Cimbali cadet.
From what I understand is that lower end machines might make nice espresso but it sure will be a alot harder as many variables might not be the same. In the end you don't want to be to do everything correct and still get very different results right?

I have no idea if a Silvia is less temperature stable then our cheap Saeco's (should be based on specs), I do know that it has quality parts, having a larger and brass boiler, 3 way solenoid valve, commercial size portafilter. How about a Gaggia classic? A new one is almost 2 times cheaper then a Silvia V3 and its better out of the box then our Saeco's. I wish I started with a Gaggia classic.
But then again I first bought an espresso machine based on ratings given by 'normal consumers' and then stumbled upon home-barista/coffegeek and other resources. We also could have bought steam toys with bladegrinders, grinding stale supermarket beans.

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the interesting info about the Silvia and Gaggia Classic. I'm hoping this thread will help others who are starting off as you and I have been.

I have depressurized the portafilter, which is quite easy. Someone else on this site put up instructions on how to do that and it works.

Another member has written about how to cheaply measure the temperature at the brew group. He put a thermometer through the side of a styrofoam cup and then used this to experiment with temperature surfing.

The quality parts in the Silvia like brass boiler and so on? The normal consumers who also guided my decision on Amazon.com write they've been using their Saecos for 5 years without problems. So I think as long as we descale, we're in good shape.

If someone with a starter machine decides they want to make a ristretto, which seems to require low pressure pre-infusion, or if even a newcomer doesn't want to learn to coax the best out of a starter machine, then it seems you're looking at something like a machine with an E61 brew group where overwhelming mass of the metal holds temperature steady and computerized controls (PID) keep temperature very precise. Such machines also allow control of pressure, I believe, so you would need a good pressure gauge. With something like that or even a Silvia, enthusiasts can create a naked portafilter to adjust their manual skills when it comes to fineness of grind, dosing, tamping. We can't easily do that with these Saecos because the handle attaches differently to the portafilter and has a plastic part on the bottom. But even there, I can see a tilted tamp or channeling as well as blonding, even though the portafilter isn't bottomless.

But on this web site, we have many people who are trying to make the ultimate espresso and are pursuing this like wine enthusiasts. There may be some of us however who are trying to make a decent cup of coffee and once we've achieved that are satisfied. I'm in the latter group. I also cannot drink unfiltered espresso because of its cholesterol raising properties, (see The effect of espresso drinking on cholesterol ) so I make my espresso for milk drinks and don't worry so much about drinking it directly.

There's a minimum standard any 1 to 2 ounce coffee drink has to fulfill to be considered an espresso -- a thick, luxurious mouthfeel of heavy bodied coffee and crema, along with a powerful flavor that's balanced enough to be pleasing.

After a few months practice and using a good grinder, you can bat around 0.600 on a Silvia, and maybe 0.450 on a Gaggia. On a Saeco with a portafilter, getting to 0.200 would show talent. If this thing is a home superauto, it will never make real espresso, although it will produce drinkable results.

Some people tend to underrate equipment, saying it's all skill, and some tend to overrate it, implying there are levels of experience unavailable to those who haven't spent a bundle. But the truth of the matter is that as your gear improves, your shot making becomes more reliable, with your average shots improving some, and your worst worst shots improving a lot.

In my opinion, the Saeco's batting average for decent shots is not up to par; you can do better for the same money using a Gaggia.

Very helpful. Thanks for the honor of your 4444 post!

(Written later: Jim, can you describe briefly the differences in machines that make the difference in batting average? Is there an article on this site making some of these direct comparisons? I'm asking this for others more because I must filter my espresso anyway and am more generally interested in tasty, filtered, concentrated coffee for milk drinks than something deemed by definition to be "espresso.")

After considering Jim's educated guesses of what batting average you can get with a Saeco versus a Gaggia or a Silvia and not hearing back from him as to the basis of his guesstimates, I'm still not convinced that the Saeco is that different from a Silvia. As a work colleague liked to say when faced with doubt, "show me." In all, I'm seeing a lot of focus on the high end on this site and would love to see the application of such educated thinking to challenge the claim that one needs a Silvia at least as starter equipment versus other choices that are available. So I'll keep the faith and continue my efforts as I play with this and already get much better results than my local Starbucks or Peets coffee houses.

It costs me nothing to try and refine the results I get with that machine versus hundreds of dollars of upgrade that I can't currently afford. At this point I've been batting closer to 50% once I get the machine dialed in to a particular bean. I'm still refining my tamping and dosing and at times the grind. I've found that temperature surfing doesn't help. I do pre-heat the group. And I'm following Jim Piccinich's fundamental rule and other similar guidelines.

The pump seems to be the same as the Silvia. I've yet to test the temperature as described above. The controls are pretty much the same. The only difference is there's an Illy e.s.e. pod function that is not relevant to pulling a good shot using good beans and a good grinder and a portafilter that's no longer pressurized. It doesn't have a steel housing and may not have the same quality boiler, but let's see if that makes a real difference beyond the satisfaction of having a chromed engine under the hood of a hot rod. I'll keep you folks posted about any new discoveries with this and would appreciate some more basis for estimates like Jim's to educate those newbies coming to this site who are trying to decide on starter espresso equipment they can afford in these difficult times.

Gary

Edited old posts don't register as new, so I missed your question

The basis for my estimate has been using all these machines and reading the posts of thousands of others who also have.

I've also read hundreds of posts in which people seem to ask questions, but are really fishing for an answer they already know. So real espresso is out, but have a nice life otherwise.

I don't think you necessarily have to spend $600 on a Silvia to get good espresso, but you may have an easier time pulling good shots with at least a Gaggia ($200-$500 depending on the model) or Lelit (about $400).

The main differences between those machines and yours is not the pump or the skin, which won't make any difference to the espresso anyway, but the larger commercial style brass portafilter, larger brass boiler (at least with Lelit and Silvia, Gaggia uses a small aluminum boiler with powerful heating element that works pretty well), better steaming power, etc. Yes, you can pull a pretty good shot with a Saeco if you depressurize the PF and everything lines up just right, but it's more likely to happen with a better machine.

If you really want to be convinced that there's a difference between a lower end machine like a Saeco and a mid-level machine like a Silvia, find someone with a Silvia and a good grinder who knows how to pull a good shot, then try their espresso. Better yet, go to a good cafe like Blue Bottle, Ritual or Four Barrel and try their 'spro. Chances are, you won't be as happy with your machine. Then again, sometimes it's better not to know.

drgary wrote:In all, I'm seeing a lot of focus on the high end on this site and would love to see the application of such educated thinking to challenge the claim that one needs a Silvia at least as starter equipment versus other choices that are available.

As a member of the site, I would imagine that you're encouraged to fill in the gaps where you see them. Don't see it? Do it, post your results, and let's talk about it!

drgary wrote:The pump seems to be the same as the Silvia. I've yet to test the temperature as described above. The controls are pretty much the same. The only difference is there's an Illy e.s.e. pod function that is not relevant to pulling a good shot using good beans and a good grinder and a portafilter that's no longer pressurized. It doesn't have a steel housing and may not have the same quality boiler, but let's see if that makes a real difference beyond the satisfaction of having a chromed engine under the hood of a hot rod.

The machine that you reference, the Saeco Magic Cappuccino Plus, is a thermoblock machine. At the very least, this is a significant difference in design when compared to the Gaggias or Rancilios that are commonly recommended on HB as entry-level. One needs to understand the difference between a thermoblock and a boiler in regard to the delivery of ~200F water that is considered one of the foundations of espresso. If you haven't already, I strongly recommend looking at the thread on CoffeeGeek that explains the differences between a boiler / heat exchanger / thermoblock.

In short, A thermoblock is a hunk of metal that has a heating element attached, and has a small tunnel running through it. The design is such that the heating element warms the hunk of metal, which in turn warms the water passing through the tunnel, and in theory, the exiting water is at the prescribed temperature.

In practice, it doesn't work out as well, at least in consumer-level designs, to which Krups, Capresso, and your Saeco can attest. Simply, the design is poorly implemented; the button thermostats that are commonly used to control the heating elements have a wide deadband. This means that they may click "on" at 190F and "off" at 210F, but that's being generous. Even if the deadband is 199-201F, you still have to contend with overshoot. Turning off power to the element doesn't make the element automatically go cold, just as turning on the element doesn't immediately get to 210F. The result is poor responsiveness, which means water temps all over the board. This has a significant effect on the end product.

It appears that, in your post, you minimize the difference in how water is heated. I'd strongly urge you to try some experimentation and see if you can tell the difference between machines.

drgary wrote:I've found that temperature surfing doesn't help

Exactly. Thus is the implementation of a consumer-level thermoblock on a machine whose price point is designed to be competitive in a market where the consumers are largely less knowledgeable with respect to the finer points of "water-heating design".

One of the selling points for the Silvia is its boiler. For a machine in this class, Silvia's boiler is big and heavy, which promotes temperature stability. Its 10 oz. brass boiler is larger than the comparable Le'Lit PL041 (brass 7 oz. capacity) or any of the Gaggias (aluminum 3 oz. capacity) The Gaggias compensate for a small boiler by using a more powerful heating element (1300-1400w). By comparison, the Saeco doesn't use a single boiler design. It uses a thermoblock that holds 5 oz. according to literature. Its heating element is 980w. Given the price point, it most likely uses an inexpensive button thermostat, which isn't a problem in and of itself, but does become problematic when paired with the thermoblock.

drgary wrote: As a work colleague liked to say when faced with doubt, "show me."

It may be due to the hour, but I find this last comment to be arrogant. Let's make a deal. You "show me" that you've done some research, and haven't come by just to seagull. Do some Googling, learn what a thermoblock is and how it differs from a single boiler design with respect to delivering water for espresso. Read some more on HB. Learn about the importance that many users here, place on consistent temperature and stability. Then, let's have a good discussion on the merits of thermoblock vs. boiler implementations.

When you're done with that, we can talk about the inclusion/exclusion of various convenience features (3-way valves, ESE adaptors, pannarello wands, etc.) and how they inflate the prices, and which of them, if any, are truly necessary for producing good espresso.

Then, you "show me" that you've tried any of the other machines in this class (the aforementioned Le'Lit, Gaggias, or Silvia) and describe what, if any, difference you observe.

drgary wrote:I'm still not convinced that the Saeco is that different from a Silvia.

Given the subjective nature of espresso, you may never be convinced. That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. If you end up never being convinced, then be happy that your palate finds those two equal, but don't go out and declare that it cannot be so since you didn't find a difference.

I own a Silvia. I've pulled shots on Gaggia Babys, Classics, and Coffees. I've pulled shots on consumer level thermoblock machines. The pump isn't the differentiator in the cup; the boiler is. The best shots on the Gaggias come close, if not equal to the best shots on the Silvia. The thermoblock shots went into the sink after a sip. I'm convinced.

It's not anyone's job to convince you. This site is a wealth of information, and on the relative merits of that information, you make your own decisions.

-s.

You come into home-barista.com and tell us that you already bought a machine, and then ask us if it is better than some other machine... then when you get an opinion from someone who knows you question it.. Here's another one to question:

A past good acquaintance of mine in the past was one of the very most knowledgeable people I have ever met when it came to refrigeration, electricity, electronics, and the repair of any appliance you have ever seen. Around this time he was working at servicing, installing, and repairing commercial espresso equipment as well as being a commercial coffee roaster (and a good one at that). At that time there was a trouble maker online who, among other things, claimed he was a certified Saeco service person for warranty work. My friend said, "Great... not that we needed another reason not to buy Saeco." So there's another opinion.

Your espresso machine cost you less that replacement burrs for my grinder. Yes... really. There is a lot more.. A LOT MORE to an espresso machine than the pump and the portafilter. You can compare all the specifications and watch all the videos you like to help with a purchase, but none of that will tell you whether the espresso created with the machine of choice was pleasing to you. None of us know what your standards or preferences are, nor your exposure to really good espresso... the sort of espresso that brings a tear to the eye when the last sip is gone... the sort of espresso which lingers on the palate for twenty minutes after the last sip, and forces you to avoid swallowing with the thought that the taste may linger just a little longer... Espresso that flows like warm butter or honey from the portafilter and coats the palate in much the same way.

But coming here and asking these questions post purchase makes us wonder what the point is...

Let's see.. my 1969 VW bug has two doors, four wheel independent suspension, four cylinders, aero shape.. your '69 Porsche 912 has 4 cylinders, four wheel independent suspension, two doors, and aero shape.. But my bug seats 4 people! Seems like I got a great deal.. what do you think?

OK.. not quite a fair comparison to what you were asking, but you did walk into the Porsche agency and ask the staff about the deal you got on your VW.