I am enjoying my new Lelit PL042LET, but the documentation that came with it is miserable, and the people who sold it to me don't seem to know anything.

If someone could steer me in the right direction on any of the questions below, I'd appreciate it:

1) I live in Colorado Springs, CO. Water boils at about 200F here. It seems the machine occasionally gets hot enough that water turns to steam in normal mode. Is this a problem? Any way to do deal with it?

2) Are there any PID kits designed specifically for the PL042?

3) Where can I get a blind portafilter insert that will allow me to backflush the machine?

4) I bought a 57mm tamper, since the portafilter is supposed to be 57mm - but the tamper does not seal perfectly at the edges of the basket. It seems like a 58mm tamper would fit better. But everyone says 57mm is the correct size for this machine. Is it normal to have a millimeter of clearance around the tamper?

5) When I am finished steaming, the manual says to refill the boiler by running the pump until water comes out of the steam wand. Is the boiler adequately refilled when the steam wand starts to "splutter", i.e. very hot water sprays out in addition to steam, or should I wait until a stream of totally liquid water is coming out?

1) Espresso machines for high altitude

2)googlebingyahoo

3) http://espressocare.com/Qstore/Qstore.c...flush+58mm
http://espressocare.com/Qstore/Qstore.c...ush+Insert

4) 57mm is fine, especially if you want to down dose and / or nutate.

3) The blind basket from 1st-line is probably your best option. It works great for me, although it is a tiny bit loose in the portafilter.

4) My 57mm tamper is not extremely tight either. I've often read that a perfect seal makes no difference in espresso quality. Smaller tampers may allow you to use more types of baskets, as well. Truth be told, very few tampers are exactly their listed sizes, as documented in the HB Tamper Roadshow. So yeah, it's normal.

5) I usually just run the boiler until it sputters as well. If I then run water through the group, there is almost no delay. Since the steam wand pulls from the top of the boiler, and the group head is downstream of the steam wand, I think it's fine. I can't imagine that covering another 2% of the heating element with liquid water would make a difference.