New La Peppina owner

[lino]

Hey all,

I'm the new (proud?) owner of a la peppina lever machine. Anyone know anything about them?

I don't have it yet, still needs to be shipped. I expect it will need help. At very least a power cord.

Also, anyone know anything about the MicroCimbalis?


thanks

lino

[srobinson]

I believe that another_jim is an owner of a La Peppina. Sure he will get to any questions posted. With regards to MicroCimbalis, I was doing some research on them last night. They seems to have an Achille's heel with their boiler construction. Anything specific you needed?

[lino]

Yeah, I'd read about the aluminium boiler issue. I can't say I'm terribly concerned about that. I'm thinking it's nothing a good cleaning and an anodize job wouldn't fix (though I've been wrong before).
I saw mixed reviews on the coffee it could make... do you have any experience?

Jim, what's the basket size for the La Peppina? Looks like I won't have one of those either... Are there any current models that could act as a replacement?

Can't really think of any other specific questions right now except one that applies to all levers...

What is the volume output for one "pump" on a lever?
I'm sure that varies by brand, if not model. I'm just curious about that in general, say, what's a pavoni, a elektra, and a olympia put out per pump?

Thanks,

ciao

lino

[srobinson]

As Dan introduced the new lever forum I was described as the keeper of all things historic on these machines. So I have to live up to that or will lose my LMWDP number.

Here is the schematic for you new toy



and here are links to the two page manual

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b279/robinsonsj/FE-AR_La_Peppina_manual_1.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b279/robinsonsj/FE-AR_La_Peppina_manual_2.jpg

[luca]

Rather than starting up a new thread, I thought I'd shove my photos of my newest setup here. There is precious little information available on the machine, so if anyone wants any specific photos taken, please speak up and I'm sure that Jim, Lino or I will be able to oblige.

The machine arrived only an hour or so before I was due to leave for my Spanish exam. Any thought of studying went out the window as I unwrapped it and poured over it. I could see a lot of white lime scale in it, so I decided to just give it pride of place in Luca Central until I had it fixed up.



I thought that it would require all kinds of work, especially when I was completely unable to force any water through. So I just mixed up a few relatively strong batches of citric acid to descale and ... tada; functional, just like that. The thermometer seems to fit in nicely like that, for the time being.



Hint/Warning: We often mix up batches of acid and other solutions in the lab. When using hot liquids to dissolve powders, we are always advised to mix a little bit of water, preferably relatively cool, with all of the powder, then top it up slowly. The rationale for this is that if the physical change is exothermic, adding the powder to a large mass of hot water might result in it bubbling and splashing. If it is endothermic, then you've lost nothing. It was then a curious convergence of my degrees when I learnt that one of Australia's landmark product liability cases was the result of a guy trying to unplug his drain with caustic soda by tipping the whole container down then chasing it up with several litres of boiling water!



It seemed to require a finer grind than my Silvia. This shot ended up being probably about 30mL from two pumps of the lever (droplets starting to appear after the first pump). I was impressed ... incredibly smooth. I pulled the shot with my thermometer reading 93C, which might have been a tad cold at the group. Like Jim said, La Peppina makes temp control almost trivial!



Apologies for the lack of focus ...



... these photos are just to show the dispersion screen setup. Note the pitting in the puck and the clinging texture of the espresso in the cup. The mouthfeel was really something ...

Cheers,

Luca

LMWDP #34

[luca]

Quick question for lino: I took a look and noticed that there is actually still quite a lot of scale buildup on the element of my machine. On the PID lever machine thread, you posted a photo where you had removed the kettle to expose the element. Any chance of a 'how-to'? I'd love to be able to just sandpaper the bulk of the scale off ...

Cheers,

Luca

[lino]

Hey Luca,

It's quite easy.

If you look in the kettle, there is a rod sticking up, the one the lid screws into. About 1/3 of the way down there is a hole thru it (sideways). The rod screws into a stud in the base and holds the kettle in place by clamping it down with the metal disk/screen that you see at the bottom of the kettle.

Mine was hard to unscrew (not possible by hand). I put the short side of a small allen wrench thu the hole in the rod and used it for leverage. Ta-da!

Then it all kindof falls apart...

Also be careful because there is a 30 yr old o-ring between the kettle and the base.

All my scale came off with cafiza, didn't need to sand. There is a thin coating on the elements, and the base is chrome plated aluminium, so be careful if you do sand it. You don't want to cut thru the coating.

Did that make sense?

ciao

lino

[lino]

Hey,

while I'm posting here...

Anyone know where I can get a plug for La Peppina?
I think I remember Jim saying that it was a waffle Iron standard, but after some searching I cannot find a match...

Mine is "hotwired" right now, I'd love to change that...

ciao

lino

[luca]

Anyone know where I can get a plug for La Peppina?

I remember seeing the exact part in the hardware store where I bought my euro -> australian adapter (yeah; cop-out; should've just rewired the plug ;P). It was on my way today, but they were closed, so I couldn't snap a photo or anything. I think that it was literally labelled 'old-fashioned appliance lead' or something like that! I'll try to check next time I go past. Who knows; maybe only Australia is backwards enough to still have them!

All my scale came off with cafiza, didn't need to sand

Sure enough, an hour or so with a few different batches of citric acid and some scrubbing with a skewer did it. Sparkling clean. Not even any need to remove the top part, but I can see how that would work now from the parts diagram - thanks, Lino!

Funny thing was that we had a winemaker over for my stepfather's 51st yesterday whilst all the descaling was going on. He was fascinated by it, so just before he left I had a quick go with some Timor Maubese that I'd roasted the other day. Of course, I was careful to warn that I'd only had the machine working for a day or so, seeing as he has a sensational palate Anyhoo, turned out to be as good an espresso as I've ever had from anything! ... so I'd better quote Jim's initial review (a must-read for anyone who is interested in these, or similar, machines):

I got very nice shots from the get go. Since I sincerely doubt I'm any sort of lever prodigy, I'm guessing this is a fairly simple machine to use.

I had some really excellent Sulawesi Kalossi from a newly-opened local roaster the other day. Can't wait to try it through this machine! Might be that a less chocolatey and full-bodied coffee might be in order ... like the Australian Mountain Top from last year's WBC ...

Cheers,

Luca

[luca]

I sent Lino a brief PM about this and he pointed out that, of course, this would be something better just posted on the forum.

La Pep. is a perfect candidate to be PIDded. The only problem is that there is nowhere to put the PID, like in the empty-shell-with-a-boiler that is Silvia. I thought that an elegant solution might be the gooseneck mount idea. The photos below are directly from the webpage - go take a look.

The question, though, is where do you put the SSR? Maybe jam it in the box with the PID? Drill a hole in the base for the gooseneck, another hole at the back of the base to run the power cord and the probe through ... I'd love to see a mutant peppina with a gooseneck on the opposite side of the lever and a brew pressure gauge ...

Cheers,

Luca

[danno]

Stupid question, perhaps, but the La Peppina is so bizarre and compelling that I just have to know how it does what it does.

Does pulling the lever load the piston spring in the bottom, introduce water into the cavity, and then force it up through the grouphead via spring pressure? Do you have to maintain lever pressure all the time? How do you know when the water is at the right temperature?

I love the design. If it were orange it would remind me of a Seventies fondue machine gone askew on th' treadle. Oops, sorry for letting a little Monty Python sneak in.
d

[another_jim]

Stupid question, perhaps, but the La Peppina is so bizarre and compelling that I just have to know how it does what it does.

Does pulling the lever load the piston spring in the bottom, introduce water into the cavity, and then force it up through the grouphead via spring pressure? Do you have to maintain lever pressure all the time? How do you know when the water is at the right temperature?

I love the design. If it were orange it would remind me of a Seventies fondue machine gone askew on th' treadle. Oops, sorry for letting a little Monty Python sneak in.
d

They also come in that 70's orange.

The water goes down into the column, entering the cylinder at the bottom when the lever is pulled down, and the piston clears the entry holes. Then the piston pushes the water up into the group.

Apparently, there were quite a few gravity fed lever machines made, for instance, another home model by Gaggia and a commercial one by Conti. These have the advantage of allowing a perfect temperature control since the tank can be regulated. The big killer on dual boilers is that the boiler refills with cold water when the shot is made, requiring complex preheat piping. Since these machines don;t refill, the temperature is dead stable. On mine, the shot temperature is about 1C below the tank temperature when the group has been preheated with a flush. The disadvantage is they require a second boiler for steaming.

The original Peppina version had no steamer-attachment, that was added for the US importer. A few years later, the models were upped from 700 to 1100 watts, since the steaming pretty much sucks on the 700 watt version.

[lino]

The water goes down into the column, entering the cylinder at the bottom when the lever is pulled down, and the piston clears the entry holes. Then the piston pushes the water up into the group.

Actually, once I took it apart, I found it was a little different than that.

The inlet is at the top of the cylinder there is a flap valve (one way) there so water is drawn in by suction and gravity on the downstroke and then the valve seals for the up stroke and the water is pumped out the group. Also there is (must be) another valve at the group so that the downstroke suction pulls water from the boiler, not air backwards thru the group.

Valves in the diagram above are 1130 and 1134

ciao

lino

[another_jim]

Thanks for the correction. This is a bit more elaborate than I expected. Many of these machines had no valves, just holes at one end of the cylinder, once the piston was past them, the exit was sealed.