Is there something wrong with my Vetrano - less than ideal steam

[Fr. John]

I'm wondering if I have a flaw with my Vetrano. It seems to me that I'm getting less than ideal steam. Here is the scenario:

8oz. Milk, 20oz. pitcher

Machine at idle: 1.1 bar
Bleed steam wand: dips to about 1 bar for 2-3 seconds bleed
Start stretching: immediately drops to about .9 bar
During the stretch: progressively drops from .9 to .7
Heating the milk: staggers between .7 and .5

This happens every time. The strange thing is (or maybe not?) that I can draw 16oz. of hot water off the water dispenser without the boiler dropping more than .1-.2 bar but steaming seems to kill it. Furthermore, twice now I have done two 8oz. of milk back to back with the boiler dropping below .5 on the second pitcher, making it obviously useless since below .5 it has almost no oomph.

I would think I should be able to steam until I'm blue in the face without this machine losing much pressure at all.

[JonR10]

I have no personal experience with that machine and I STRONGLY advise contacting the vendor for support.

That said, it's very difficult to believe that you can draw 16 ounces of hot water from the boiler using the tap and have the boiler pressure not be affected more than that. Think about it, you're replacing more than 1/2 of the fluid volume with room-temp water.

Of course, when you open the steam valve you're venting pressure directly from the headspace inside the boiler so it's natural for the pressure to show a marked drop. My machine has a larger boiler, and a HX for hot water (so my water tap does NOT use boiler water). If I draw 16 ounces of water then the boiler pressure drops from 1.1 to maybe 0.8 but if I open the steam wand it almost instantly drops to that (0.8 bar). But the steam pressure is strong (on my machine) at that gauge reading.

You might want to consider changing the fluid volume inside the boiler. There is a probe that can be adjusted, the height of the tip of the probe determines the water level inside the boiler. Again, and I can't say this strongly enough, contact the vendor for support.

[miKe mcKoffee]

I'm wondering if I have a flaw with my Vetrano. It seems to me that I'm getting less than ideal steam. Here is the scenario:

8oz. Milk, 20oz. pitcher

Machine at idle: 1.1 bar
Bleed steam wand: dips to about 1 bar for 2-3 seconds bleed
Start stretching: immediately drops to about .9 bar
During the stretch: progressively drops from .9 to .7
Heating the milk: staggers between .7 and .5

Doesn't sound like anything wrong with your Vetrano, I may of course be wrong. As I understand it steaming power is a function of boiler size, heater size and steam tip size. My Bric' has a 0.2L smaller boiler but ~30% more heater power. With the stock 4 hole mega steam tip it'll dump boiler pressure while steaming eventually running out of umph. Since I normally only steam 3oz at a time for a cap' I don't use a monster tip, but rather the GP2. With that tip I can literally steam forever no problem with the heater keeping up actually toggling on and off, albeit at a slower steaming rate. (Until autofill kicks in dumping boiler pressure) Using this more restrictive tip also allows me to pull a shot and steam at the same time without dumping boiler pressure and hence maintaining shot temp while steaming. Vetrano isn't designed to steam non-stop at high steam pressure like a commercial machine with multiple gallon boiler and zillion watt heater. Try bumping up your boiler pressure. (Which will of course also change both your initial cooling flush and shot temp surf) If that doesn't give you the steam power longevity you need go to a more restrictive tip.

The strange thing is (or maybe not?) that I can draw 16oz. of hot water off the water dispenser without the boiler dropping more than .1-.2 bar but steaming seems to kill it.

That doesn't quite make sense unless the Vetrano uses HX for hotwater rather than boiler water. Drawing that much hot water from the boiler always triggers autofill on my Bric' with corresponding drop in boiler pressure from incoming cold water. I thought the Vetrano used boiler water for hotwater not HX hotwater but another Vetrano owner would need to confirm that. You of course observed what you observed. Then again come to think of it a single autofill doesn't dump the boiler pressure as much as continuous steaming with a high volume tip so that may very well likely be normal behavior.

[Nickel]

I have a Vetrano and the boiler pressure is set at 1.2 at the top. I have plenty of steam as far as velocity and volume goes. When you pull 16 oz. of water through the hot water tap, do you hear the auto refill turn on? The reason I ask is that Chris has had some machines that were assembled in a manner that caused the autofill probe teflon sleeve to be broken. This causes a short circuit making the Gicar control unit fail to refill the boiler.

This has happened to me and did not notice it until I went to steam some milk only to run out of steam really fast. When I pulled hot water the boiler failed to refill. A quick shut down saved my heater. A call to Chris and a new probe assembly was sent out. All is well now.

Just a thought!

Nick

[HB]

I'm wondering if I have a flaw with my Vetrano. It seems to me that I'm getting less than ideal steam. Here is the scenario: 8oz. Milk, 20oz. pitcher

Ignoring the boiler pressure gauge for a moment, how does the elapsed time compare to the review (30 seconds for 8 ounces)?

I would think I should be able to steam until I'm blue in the face without this machine losing much pressure at all.

That would be true if you had a restricted volume steam tip ("cheater"), but not with the stock tip. It will progressively lose ground as it heats. The Vetrano's 'sweet spot' is around 8-10 ounces. You'll be disappointed if you try steaming buckets-o-lait of 24+ ounces on any modest boiler, 15A machine. I exclude the performance stats for 16 ounces from the Buyer's Guides if the machine's elapsed time is beyond one minute figuring few would have the patience.

The strange thing is (or maybe not?) that I can draw 16oz. of hot water off the water dispenser...

I wouldn't draw off that much water at one time. You might expose the heating element and it will melt very quickly (don't ask how I know ).

[cannonfodder]

I was going to argue Dan's point about the steam. I have pulled and steamed 5 double cappas as fast as I can on my Isomac and never had the pressure drop below .8-.9 bar with the pstat set at 1.3 with a .1 deadband, buuuut, I have a gold pro tip on it, not the stock tip.

[Fr. John]

OK, it looks like I need to do a couple more tests and make sure my results are out of the norm (I'm pretty sure they are). If I still get poor results I'll give Chris a call. Steam, afterall, was one of my main objectives in upgrading. I'm not complaining, I know that if everything is functioning correctly I'll have enough.

You've got me wondering if I shouldn't try a different tip though. I was just starting to like the stock one. On the other hand, if a different tip steams slower will I be gaining anything, it seems the wait will either be during steaming or waiting for the boiler.

[Fr. John]

Ignoring the boiler pressure gauge for a moment, how does the elapsed time compare to the review (30 seconds for 8 ounces)?

I haven't timed it but I'm guessing 30 seconds sounds really close. I know it's fast. My concern is that I know from reading that my boiler pressure should most likely not be in the .5-.7 range steaming 8oz of milk.

[Fr. John]

After talking to Roger (excellent) at Chris Coffee he decided that my problems sounded like they stemmed from my boiler not filling. A couple tests later and we determined that indeed the boiler was not filling at all (I can't believe I missed this this and thanks Nickel for suggesting it). He sent me a new probe and viola she is refilling perfectly now.

Needless to say this has made a huge improvement on pretty much everything including steam. I haven't as yet done any real milk tests but I did bleed off 30 seconds of steam with the pressure not dropping more than .3 bar during and only a bit more than this when the refill kicked on. The deadband seems also to have dropped from .2 to .15 which is also an improvement.

So everything is copacetic now.

[JonR10]

So everything is copacetic now.

I am very pleased to hear that you're up and running fine again!
And it sounds like a call to the vendor took care of your troubles, thank goodness for good service!

Cheers,
Jon

PS - Glad you were able to find the microfibers at Wally's!