After reading the reviews here I decided to purchase the Elektra Semiautomatica. I am in love, but alas unhappily so After experimenting I have managed to pull some very nice first shots. But the really strange thing is that the second shot is useless.

Although I use the exact same weight (15.0 g for a double) and grinding, the second shot does not get pushed through. It seems like the pump loses all its force. I have tried with and without flashing, with and without letting out steam in between, but nothing works. Second shot needs 90 - 120 seconds or so to get the volume of a double (while the first shot needs 25 - 30 seconds). The steam power seems to be up and running all the time.
I am completely bewildered. Any suggestions?

Very thankful for any thoughts,

Oren

Is this a brand new machine or a used one purchased by another user before you?

It is a brand new machine!

It sounds as if your pump is being starved of water. Describe and/or preferably post a few pics of your water system upstream of the machine.

maybe a defective pump?
the path from the water tank to the pump is really simple in the semiautomatica.

I had problem with my ulka pump less then a month ago.
My problem was due to the plastic inner ring of the pump that had been damaged during the replacement operations by screwing too deep the T connector

alberto

erics wrote:It sounds as if your pump is being starved of water. Describe and/or preferably post a few pics of your water system upstream of the machine.

The water tank in the Elektra Semiautomatica is on top of the machine. You just lift the lid (with the eagle) and pour water into an open tank. There is certainly water there, and certainly there is water coming through when I flash without the portafilter to cool down to the right temperature. So I don't believe is is starved.

algue wrote:maybe a defective pump?
the path from the water tank to the pump is really simple in the semiautomatica.

I had problem with my ulka pump less then a month ago.
My problem was due to the plastic inner ring of the pump that had been damaged during the replacement operations by screwing too deep the T connector

alberto

Hmmm, that sounds interesting. It's brand new so I haven't touched its inner parts. But of course the pump may just be faulty in some way. Is there any way to check the pressure of the water pump? The boiler certainly seems to have the right pressure (needle on green and steams nicely).

Oren

Does this happen for the first & second shot of the day?
You might want to double check your grinder and make sure you don't have coffee grinds that are retained and are different from your fresh ground coffee.
You can typically test this out by running a full shot of coffee through the grinder, set that coffee aside for use later if you wish. Consider this a grinder flush test.
Now grind another shot of coffee, this time making and espresso. How does that work? Is it slow like your normal second shot? If so you likely have stale coffee on your normal first shot.
Now grind another shot and make another espresso. Is that the same as the last one?
If the issue seems to be the same with the last 2 shot then it's likely that your grind is too tight.
Make all your adjustments with fresh ground coffee and see what happens.

Earlier this summer someone was having problems like this with their espresso. The issue turned out to be coffee grind retention in the grinder. If I remember correctly the solution was to grind out a small dose and toss it before grinding espresso shots. I think the user might have started weighing and dosing beans for individual shots too.

If you only use the grinder infrequently then weighing out doses and grinding shot by shot works really well in keeping moisture out of beans if that is an issue in your area.

DanoM wrote:Does this happen for the first & second shot of the day?
You might want to double check your grinder and make sure you don't have coffee grinds that are retained and are different from your fresh ground coffee.

If you only use the grinder infrequently then weighing out doses and grinding shot by shot works really well in keeping moisture out of beans if that is an issue in your area.

I don't believe it is the grinding as I am measuring the beans before grinding to 15,0g, and making sure it is all gone through the grinder. So there are no retained grinds left. Both 1:st and 2:nd shot are exactly the same beans of course.

The really weird thing is that 1:st shot is fine while second and all the following trials are choked. Just doesn't make sense.

15g in and 15g out doesn't necessarily mean you have the same 15g. If all the successive shots are choking the machine then the first shot is the anomaly, not the 2nd shot on. The other guy that had problems with grinder retention also had the same issue, he was weighing in and out, but new grinds knock out the old grinds and that was his problem.

I'm not saying you don't have a machine problem, but it sounds like you might want to double check your grinder by either running more tests or opening it up and verifying there are zero grinds retained anywhere including inside and around burrs and through the chute.