Of course the guy you bought it from would say it's working fine... right? Eric's point is well made. If the gage really is broken, you're pump is set way too high. You need to replace that gage... if it's really broken. What the gage reads when the pump isn't running will tell you a lot. If the

I love the K10 Conical grinder. It does, however, have lots of space inside of the grind chamber that coffee oils and fines can build up (like many other commercial grinders). This means that you may find you need to occasionally remove the top of the grinder and clean out the grind chamber. I was l...

This is a new one. I like the idea of running straight water and tasting a sample after it cools. I'd do one pulled through the portafilter as well as straight from the group. You won't get the same amount of contact with the gasket, so this may not test your theory but it'll at least eliminate upst...

The part in your picture is a two piece assembly (I guess 3, if you count the chrome bezel). The bulb just slides in to the back side of the lens assembly, though it may be stuck in place by some sort of buildup. Try to carefully pull the glass bulb out from the back of the lens assembly

The best way to build your espresso tasting skills is by building your everything tasting skills. Try to work out the spectrum of flavors in everything you eat and drink. Keep your goals simple, don't force complex and impressive sounding descriptors - that part can be hard if they don't jump out sc...

That's around the same proportion that I use, maybe a little light. I haven't measured before today, always just dumped until it looked right. I do a heaping teaspoon (5ish grams) and top with around .5L water in a 32oz straight-sided steaming pitcher. This fits a portafilter, basket, and screen ver...

Agreed with previous posts. One note - Cafiza seems to work best and fastest with very, very hot water. I've noticed that the soak is way more effective when the solution is just below the boil vs. solutions that are just warm. With solution this hot, a 5-10 minute soak is adequate

The Rancilio basket is small. I'm not sure you can get realistically get 15g in there. Changing screws still doesn't let you dose more than that. If'n you want to dose more, buy a bigger basket. I'd venture to say that this (flat head conversion) was NOT a mod worth making. For the record, all Ranci...

(Digging out my old Machine Design text...) There's a general recommendation that, for solid bolts going into tapped holes, thread engagement should be at least equal to the nominal thread diameter. If that is followed the bolt will snap before the threads fail. Not sure that makes sense in this app...

This assumes your machine either lacks a vacuum breaker, or yours no longer works. I'd also be concerned about milk residue contamination. Looking at the cap/safety valve on my MCAL, it looks like the number of male threads and female threads match, so it's not like there are "extra" sticking throug...