I bought my Andreja Premium in April, and it has been a dragon -- pressurestat cycling between 1.3-1.4, lots of steam power. My morning cooling flush was taking almost 4oz before all the flash-steaming had dissipated. I was fine with all of that, getting great shots (instead of flush, wait, brew, I was able to flush & immediately brew and get the taste I wanted).

This morning I did my cooling flush and barely got any steam, so I looked over at the pressure gauge is all the way down at 1.25 on the high end. I did a blast of steam, which used to go from 1.4 down to about 1.2. This time, it dropped down to 0.8 then rebounded a bit. When the steam knob was shut, the pressure went all the way back up to 1.4, but just as quickly settled back on 1.25.

I should also add that I mix my own water, usually around 3/4 distilled (0ppm Total Alkalinity), and 1/4 or less Brita (125ppm Total Alkalinity). Also, I will sometimes pull one mug of hot water, but have the reservoir tube in a cup of distilled water for the refill to try and keep mineral content in the steam boiler even lower.

A quick call to Chris Coffee and all they had to say was "1.25 is fine for coffee", but the sudden and drastic change is worrisome to me. Doesn't it indicate a problem with a sensor or the pressurestat?

I made a video last night. Sorry that I'm not very stable with my phone, but the boiler kicks on at 1.20, rushes up to 1.4, kicks off, coasts to 1.45, then drops back down to 1.2, repeat. This cycle takes about 38 seconds

https://youtu.be/oGg7l1GGBA8

This cycle takes about 38 seconds.

That is waaaaay too short. It should be around 115 seconds so it seems you have a leak.



I believe your pstat should be set lower - like maybe 1.20 bar MAX but this has nothing to do with your assumed leak.

So what's the problem? Seems normal to me (as long as the cycle is during warm up, otherwise it does seem short for once the machine is up to temp as Eric mentions). But 1.2 to 1.4 seems like a high setting, but I'm not familiar with that machine.

keno wrote:So what's the problem? Seems normal to me (as long as the cycle is during warm up, otherwise it does seem short for once the machine is up to temp as Eric mentions). But 1.2 to 1.4 seems like a high setting, but I'm not familiar with that machine.

This is after maybe 15 minutes powered on. Does that count as "warm up" still? It was still cycling after an hour on but I didn't go back to re-time it. I will do that Friday morning.

erics wrote:That is waaaaay too short. It should be around 115 seconds so it seems you have a leak. I believe your pstat should be set lower - like maybe 1.20 bar MAX but this has nothing to do with your assumed leak.

Shoot. Any ideas where to start looking, or should I just call Chris Coffee with this information and have them run me through it? Do leaks usually mean shipping it back, because that gets expensive really fast.

The graph I posted is for a fully warmed up machine, i.e. 45-60 minutes as per this:



So, let the machine fully warm up and then time your cycle. Your 38 seconds on a partially warmed up machine could be proper.

I have an update -- after 30-35 minutes of being heated, the cycle time was ~1:55 seconds (approx I can't remember from a few hours ago to the second). This is right in line with Eric's graph.

But what about the larger than expected pressure difference between high and low (deadband?)? It's still 0.25 versus the 0.15 in the graph above and is more than it used to be.

And what about the fact that, while the group was plenty hot, twice now I didn't get flash boiling like I would normally when performing a cooling flush. Could that indicate vapor lock or a leak? The descriptions of that condition usually say the group isn't hot but mine is.