Trimethylpurine wrote:Best is to do the upstroke until you get water out of the group, let it back down a little, THEN put the portafilter in.

T

I have been remembering that part. Then raise the handle, wait for a few drops to come out, start down to that place where the water shuts off, raise it again gently for the Fellini, then down to extract.

forbeskm wrote:Any possibility the gasket on the top of the piston rod needs lube or is damaged. Shouldn't be hard on the upstroke.

It's not hard to take the grouphead apart. I need to reset the P-stat a little lower maybe too. It's not so much that it's difficult to raise the lever as it feels like there is a resistance to the pressure coming out of the boiler.

Ok, I'll go with that and say thats normal. Compared to my gen 1 la pavoni's the cremina has more resistance on the upstroke. Down though should be like the Pavoni, a good straight pull that is much harder than the up. Looks like you have a pharos coming your way so you should be good.

I dose 17 grams and use the pharos or lido, but its a lot finer than the pavoni.

I have had my Cremina about a month now. I had a La Pavoni, sold it, then went to a Technika. I have been able dial in the Cremina much faster than I did the LP. But, that's probably due to experience. While I have had some astounding shots from the Cremina, the Technika is really easy, very consistent and everyone who pulls a shot with it loves it. But for some reason I like the feel of the lever.

What I notice with these problem reports Is no description of the shot coloring. The one thing I focus on with all of these machines is to have a pretty good idea of group head temperature the association with the color of the espresso. With the Techika I need a 10 sec cooling flush. With the Cremina I preheat 30 min, then lift the lever a few times over 20 sec, then pull the shot. Interestingly- to me anyway, is that my tastiest shots on the Cremina have a nice brown color, but no striping - with the E61 and it's larger basket I see more striping.

On occasion I will do the hokey pokey and turn myself around, but that's only when the beans are near end of life.

I used to think my problem was that I needed to grind finer, but that is definitely incorrect. That's where the feel of the lever and your technique come together - if it's too stiff you know you need to go coarser. As a ballpark, I also do the 25 sec 1 oz baseline check too. The FAQ page has info on this.

Progress report. I decided to take one last gamble with the LP before tearing it down again to give it a new base. I had been working down from grinder settings that worked with my pathetic Krups pumper to no avail. So I decided to deliberately choke a dose. The pull actually turned out not too bad. Lots of caramel colored crema, not quite three layers but it was trying to separate, and the proper "cold knife through cold butter" lever feel. I actually drank it. I've had better but it was a step in the right direction. Hope lingers eternal.

There you go. Choking a machine and backing off of that is a good way to quickly get to a good pull. Once you get the feel of it the fine-tuning is much easier!

I am in the learning process myself with the Europiccola....and unfortunately I haven't had a lot of time to dive in. However, since creating my first shots last week, improvements have been noticed. Not much improvement, but at least some I have not installed the group thermometer yet, and I am learning the ins and outs of my new HG-One. Damn..so many new variables!

My shots yesterday were not as bitter, but still had too much tang... and one had a miniscule amount of crema. My issue is that the lever went down too easily and went fast..probably 10-15 sec, so I adjusted my tamp pressure. The lever still came down easily, and so I think I need to create a finer grind with more tamp force.

I wish I had more time this week to play...

You might concentrate more on grind and less on tamp. If the flow is a little fast, try keeping the grind the same and increasing the dose as measured on a gram scale. These are a couple of ways to limit variables. Also I like to freeze my coffee at peak and take out of the freezer the amount I want to use in that session. This way you're not working with coffee that's also changing. Dare to try and choke the machine and back off of that. If you do choke it, give it time for the pressure at the coffee cake to dissipate before removing the portafilter. Otherwise you'll sneeze coffee grounds all over the machine. If you dose too high you'll start to get channeling that shows up as an uneven pour. Then it's time to grind finer.

If you don't easily have time to install a group thermometer you can try the temperature strips offered at Stefano's Espressocare. That way you'll be able to see if group temp is in the ballpark.