I like Cafe Americanos. When I use the hot water dispenser on my Bezzera Strega I get a lot of sputtering of steam with my water to the point it can hurt my hand a bit holding the cup. My machine is less than six months old and has always done this. The gauge reads 1.25 BAR and it pulls great shots. What am I doing wrong or is this normal?

Sadly, this is normal for machines that take their hot water directly from the boiler; the water is at about 240 to 260F, the boiling point at boiler pressure and flash boils to get down to 212F.

You can get a little relief by letting some water run into the drip tray, to get over the initial surge, and then using it. If that doesn't work, you can reduce the boiler pressure down to the 0.9 to 1.1 bar range. This will not impact your shots; but it will slow down your steaming performance. At this pressure, the water wand is somewhat calmer.

What Jim said...but don't expect miracles by changing pressure. My Magister Stella is set to .9 bar and has the exact same 'problem' as you describe. Suggest you not bother with the pressure change and just get used to it. It's how HX machines work.

Maurice

Thank you Jim and Maurice,
That sets my mind at ease. I will develop workarounds as suggested or just boil a kettle of water. Otherwise this machine rocks!

Or, in addition to reducing your boiler's pressure, you can simply take water from the group. Let the first second or so of flow clean the screen and then use the rest to make your drink.

When I take 8oz or more from the water wand I usually turn it off the side away from the drip tray. That allows me to use the tip valve without the steam hitting my hand. Once dispensed I move it back over the tray for any drips.

If I don't have need to flush the boiler I put water in a steaming pitcher and then steam it until it's as hot as I want, even boiling. This produces far less steam and it's quick enough for my needs.
(I probably use more water from the wand and heated by the pitcher when I work with InstaMorph thermo plastic. Espresso machine works great to keep the water hot for those molding and shaping projects; heating up to 1qt of water to boiling at a time.)

I drifted into erics' method when making an Americano. A pull on the lever to clean the screen and drop pressure, then use the hot water wand to first heat the cup then to add the desired amount of water for the drink. My wife likes sugar in her Americano so it goes into the cup. The shot is pulled on top of the hot water followed by a gentle stir. I used to start with hot water in a spare steaming pitcher that was poured into the cup after the shot was pulled. But that is more fiddly, the coffee cup needs heating anyway and, after a few shots, it was easy to tell how much water we liked in the coffee.

I also had this problema in the begining, but I took out the pointer, washed the screen well and screw it slowly in, while tightening I kept testing the flow till arriving to a point were the flow was quite behaved and the pointer well fixed. Works nice, all my morning (I'm on a lactose free diet, for the time being) americanos are pulled this way ...

I put fresh water from the tap into a pitcher and hit it with 25 or so seconds worth of steam. Now you have fresh hot water.