Hi all,

I'm new here and a total newbie at this. I just took delivery of a Gaggia Classic. This machine is for my wife's birthday. She used to work as a barista years ago and have always longed for a home espresso machine. So she'll be in charge of making the drinks while I'm the "technician". =) So, I'm doing my research and studies on its operations. Anyhoo, I read that the Classic comes from factory set at 12 bars for the ESE pods and that I should set it at 9-10 bars. So, I want to check and adjust the OPV down. It looks like building my own pressure gauge is the way to go. So I bought the gauge and parts from Home Depot. However, I'm a bit apprehensive about messing with my only portafilter. Would screwing on the 3/8 adapter onto the portafilter spout thread damage it? Do most of you, that use this method to check pressure, have a second portafilter set up with pressure gauge or do you just swap the pressure gauge on and off as needed?

Thank you,
Tom

Tom, when I had a Gaggia Classic, I removed the spouts on the stock PF to make the gauge, just be sure to well pad the jaws of a vice or you will mare the finish on the spouts. Once the pressure is adjusted, it shouldn't really need much messing with after, so you can put the spouts back on and you're back to normal. The spouts are very difficult to get off, just be careful and take your time.

Thank you for the tip, gophish.

gophish wrote: The spouts are very difficult to get off, just be careful and take your time.

Yeah....think vise and cheater bar hard....))

I took off the spout by running an allen wrench through the hole in the middle and used that to leverage it out. was pretty easy that way. I have a gauge in my gaggia portafilter currently and its pretty useful.

Would doing the allen wrench or screwdriver through the hole method damage the spout? or is the spout pretty sturdy?

Hasn't on mine. You can wrap cloth around it if you're worried

I just did this the other week. My spout was stuck on and it took a lot of force, I wish I had a bench vice. I ended up taping the spout and jamming it between some shelved and twisted it off eventually.

This is nice too

http://www.pidsilvia.com/spoutremove.htm

That said, I ordered

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006JJ7D9W

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003OYJF46

and with some teflon tape I was able to adjust the OPV.

if you have money burning a hole in your pocket these are nice too...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IQNMQU

Why not simply remove the steam arm tip, attach a suitable hose with screw clamps, and adapt this hose to your pressure gage with a barbed fitting ? This would be applicable to the Gaggia and Silvia and other single boiler machines. Simply open the steam valve and brew away as you normally would with a coffee loaded Portafilter.

The gage you bought from Home Depot may not work too well unless it has a pulsation damper in the inlet so count on returning it.

Doh! Eric is very smart. So possibly my adjustment with that gauge is off?