This is my first post. I purchased a Rancilio Silvia back in 2003 along with a Rocky grinder. I use the machine on a daily basis and three times a day when I am home. I have updated with a Version 3 Steam wand and Auber PID. The machine has been back-flushed regularly and descaled a couple times a year.

I have been frustrated with the consistency of my shots. I have thought about purchasing an adjustable OPV valve and measuring the pressure at the group head. When I asked a supplier about the upgraded part I was advised to quit spending money on the machine and upgrade.

My machine is now 8-9 years old but in perfect condition. I have been researching machines and it looks like the Quickmill Alexia would be a good fit. I drink 50/50 Caps and straight shots. I brew both blends and SOs. I like the different characteristics of different beans and want to get the most out of a shot.

Does it make sense to upgrade the grinder and upgrade the OPV valve or move to a new machine?

Thanks for your input.

Upgrading the machine is a good idea. there is only so much you can get out of a Silvia. there is more to espresso than pressure and temperature. BUT...

You will also most likely find that Rocky really is not up to the task of feeding a quality espresso machine - at least to say, it will work OK, but you will not get the best for the $$ you spend on the new espresso machine.. The reality is that Rocky is a nice entry level grinder, but once you get your hands on a "real" espresso grinder you will wonder why you didn't do it years ago..

Randy G. wrote:The reality is that Rocky is a nice entry level grinder, but once you get your hands on a "real" espresso grinder you will wonder why you didn't do it years ago..

Randy, you're being silly; the Rocky is a perfectly capable grinder. I have a Rocky and a Super Jolly, and the only significant advantages of the latter over the former are grinding speed and burr life.

David R. wrote:Randy, you're being silly; the Rocky is a perfectly capable grinder. I have a Rocky and a Super Jolly, and the only significant advantages of the latter over the former are grinding speed and burr life.

I never said it was incapable, and it's perceived performance certainly depends to what machine it is paired. I can only base my comments on the one I used for about 8 years or so, but the problem with it was the relative lack of grind range for espresso. In the many years I used it, it was always at one of two click settings, with one click being around five to seven seconds or so of extraction time iirc. I never did the Teflon tape mod, so cannot say if that would have made a difference or not. The burr mount threads are quite low-tolerance as evidenced by the amount of slop in the adjustment threads. Over the last decade or so it has often been referred to as an (the..?) entry level espresso grinder (the bottom end of what is considered sufficient for espresso). If Rancilio would make it stepless (an easy change for them) and put some sort of load on the upper burr mount to remove the slop (look at Mazzer's simple solution) it would be a nice grinder for the money.

But as I said in my post, "...once you get your hands on a "real" espresso grinder..." Everything is relative.

Just a little remark on silvia quality and tank-like simplicity
I had a customer that send one in after using it 12 yes 12 years
without backflushing or descaling it
needless to say the machine was a disaster
BUT
my point is that it lasted this long without maintenance

After a couple months of early struggle, I think I can now say that I get extremely reliable, extremely tasty, coffee from my Silvia and Rocky combo, easily on a par with the regular drinks I get out of our local roaster's GS3 + Mazzer (I think) combo.

I too experienced what I think most people call Silvia's "finickiness" -- at first. I had TERRIBLE shot-shot consistency and chased everything under the Sun to try and get it under control.

And that (chasing everything under the Sun) was a large part of the problem.

For me, getting shot-shot consistency under control was accomplished with three primary things:

1. Getting the right grind setting out of Rocky. I think there is a natural reluctance to "dial down" Rocky because you want to believe there is a lot of headroom between the proper espresso grind and the burrs touching. There isn't. Although my Rocky isn't as bad as another poster here, I do have to set its grind only five "clicks" above the zero point. But note, the zero point I use isn't the point at which you start to hear "chirp chirp." It's the point where you can't close the burrs any further (i.e. can't turn the hopper any more).

I was consistently grinding too coarse and getting terrible shots as a result. Once I accepted that the correct thing to do was close Rocky down almost as far as he would go, things dramatically improved.

2. Getting the right beans for my palate. This was, in my experience, much harder than I expected. I went through a lot of different beans from a lot of different specialty roasters before I finally had an epiphany with a standard "espresso" dark roast from a local roaster (the same one with the GS/3). Absolutely the best tasting I've had and I don't even have to leave the county to get them.

3. Learning how much coffee to put in Silvia's basket. I routinely over-dosed the baskets at first because a) I used the stock Rancilio basket and b) I believed all the pictures I saw of people filling their baskets even above the rim, so I did likewise.

What I am pretty sure was happening was that my puck was cracking when inserted into the machine and the cracks did what cracks do and I got terrible-tasting coffee as a result.

Once I replaced the Rancilio basket with a ridgeless "Synesso" basket ($11) and stopped putting 20 grams of coffee (going, instead for 15-16 grams), it was like flipping a switch.

Oh, and as for all the other stuff I tried. Like brew temperature (I also have a PID), tamping force (I broke down and bought a $100 calibrated Espo tamper), brew pressure (I put a gauge on Silvia), ensuring a level tamp, etc. None of that stuff makes a lick of difference if 1-3 above aren't right. And some of them (like tamping force) don't make any difference even if 1-3 are perfect.

Since all that, I pull beautiful, consistent, shots from Silvia day after day after day -- and my wife does too.

Now I do think that there are perfectly good reasons to upgrade from Silvia and one of them, I think for you, is that you are drinking a lot of steamed milk drinks (like cappuccino). A single boiler machine, like Silvia, just isn't any fun for making steamed milk and I can probably count the number of times I've made a latte or cappuccino on four hands. And I like a good latte or cappuccino and have been thought about relegating Silvia to the office for that reason alone.

Randy G. wrote:I never said it was incapable, and it's perceived performance certainly depends to what machine it is paired.

You said it wasn't "real". I don't know what that means if it is not meant to be an assertion that it is a very different animal from the commercial grinders.

I've paired both these grinders with a wide variety of machines, from vibe-pump home machines to lever machines to the rotary pump Techno. The differences are inconsequential compared to the differences between the machines themselves. While the SJ is certainly a better grinder in many ways, it is not a portal to a categorically different espresso experience.

My experience with the Silvia/Rocky combination is limited to using friends' setups, and I know that Silvia has a reputation for being extra-sensitive to the grind, but I didn't have any problem finding a grind/dose combination that was OK even without having owned the machine for years.

The OP's complaint was about consistency, and I don't think that the Rocky is the limiting factor here.