I recommend reviewing this La Pavoni Millennium Owners, Are Temperature Problems Solved? thread for ideas about temperature management with a La Pavoni.

Basically, with the La Pavoni, the boiler provides the pressure to steam milk and fill the group before you start your pull, but the metal of the group should cool down the water temperature enough to get a good espresso shot. Typically that has meant timing the shots and getting one or two good shots before the machine has overheated, but using the ideas in the thread referenced above you should be able to continue to pull good shots with a good setting of your pressurestat and additional group cooling by putting your portafilter in a cold-water bath and locking it into the group or in extreme measures using a cold towel to help cool the group. I'm finding with my Gaggia Factory that lately I have to use a cold towel in addition to my portafilter to sufficiently cool the group, but my portafilter has less thermal mass to absorb the heat since it's a chopped, bottomless portafilter.

You will probably want to get a temperature strip to put on your group to make this process easier, don't worry you can pull great shots on a La Pavoni.

Hi John,

Chris M (yakster) and I will double team you here and get you going. If you have a pressure gauge, you probably have a Professional or Stradivari. Did you buy it new? If you bought it new, your dealer should be able to advise you on proper pressure and can set that up for you. I didn't buy mine new and it has no pressure gauge but it is a Millennium model with a similar group to yours. I let it heat for 13 minutes, and I'm ready to go. I think the proper pressure for pulling a shot is at about 0.8 bar, isn't it Chris?

Now if you're burning coffee even after cooling a stock portafilter in water, it could be that the pressurestat is set too high. There are some threads on this site about setting that PSTAT, which may vary depending on the vintage of the machine. If for any reason the PSTAT is malfunctioning, the one for the Riviera may be better quality, but in any case if you're not sure and you've got a used machine, the people at Orphan Espresso would know what to recommend. FYI, yakster's Gaggia Factory is a rebadged La Pavoni.

Back to which, I soon met Christopher Cara, whose father was the first to import La Pavonis and other fine lever machines to the U.S. I interviewed him and posted a thread that you may find useful. It's not just his instructions but others commenting on them and me finding my own way, too. See: A Lesson from Christopher Cara in Using a La Pavoni Home Lever Espresso Machine

Like yakster, I've found this machine very easy to use, and it makes great espresso. You're in for some good coffee!

+1

These machines work quite well once they're set up right. Just dial in the PSTAT.

homeburrero wrote:I agree about checking the coffee first before getting too carried away with temp and fussing with the pstat.

I'm certainly no expert, but have gone through this fairly recently with a millennium Pavoni. You're in LA, right? I would suggest going to one of the coffee bars listed here:
http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/locations/view/Los+Angeles+Roasting+Works+%2526+Training+Lab
and having an espresso or two, and buying a bag of recently roasted Black Cat. When you get that home, grind it really fine, overfill your basket a little, stir with something pointy, then level it off with a knife or credit card before giving as level a tamp as possible. 5 lbs, 30 lbs, just make sure it's even. Lock it in and raise your lever slowly and smoothly, when it reaches the top hold it there for 10-15 seconds, then give it a strong smooth pull.

If it streams out easily without having to pull really hard, then try again with a finer grind.

On the other hand, if you can't pull the handle, then you have to turn off the machine (leave the lever down a bit) and patiently wait while things cool and depressure, then SLOWLY turn the portafilter. These things can sneeze hard an hot when you choke them. Then coarsen the grind a tad and try again.

With fresh black cat and hard slow shot that is nearly choked I think you will get a shot comparable to what you were served by the pros. From there you can experiment with coffee blends, group temperature, dose, grind, and tamp refinements to get a coffee that is perfectly to your taste.

Nice! That would be a great way to go about it too by checking if the coffee is up to snuff for dialing in your machine.