I've been using my Gaggia Factory for a few days now, and i'm noticing the boiler tank flex a little when i pull the lever, trying to aim for 30 lbs. of pressure on the lever. Has anyone seen this? Is this normal, or am I putting way too much pressure on the lever.

Do you have the 8-cup or the 16-cup model? I would think the 8-cup base would flex a bit more.

I have the 16-cup and it probably is flexing as well (haven't paid it much attention), but I am leaning into it pretty hard.

I've got the 8-cup and sometimes lean into it when I pull a shot. It does flex a little bit, and at times I may even hear a creaking noise coming from the machine as I pull on the lever. They can take a lot of pressure.

shark15994 wrote:I've been using my Gaggia Factory for a few days now, and i'm noticing the boiler tank flex a little when i pull the lever, trying to aim for 30 lbs. of pressure on the lever.

According to Steve and others, 40 pounds of pressure equates to 9 bar. From Elektra/Pavoni side-by-side:

srobinson wrote:

One thing that has become clear is that this machine is hard to use well if you are very small. You simply don't have the ability to really control the pressure when you're having to work that hard.

This got me thinking about how much pressure it actually took to get a really good pull. Since the wife was out to dinner, I figured I would stage one of those very sophisticated HB tests that women would categorize as a genetic male flaw should they observe it. I decided to do a pull using the bathroom scale.

Now for this task we place the Pavoni fully warmed and primed on the scale to get an initial reading: 11 pounds starting weight.



Now the fun begins to get a full pull underway, trying to maintain form and snap a decent picture: max downward thrust reading was 51 pounds for a delta of 40 pounds required for a good shot.



This is about as sophisticated as I am going to get on the measure, so if any engineers in the audience want to convert that to bars, please knock yourself out. (I am happy to give lever lengths, cylinder dimensions and attack angles)

However, he didn't comment on how much the Europiccola flexed under this pressure.

shark15994 wrote:I've been using my Gaggia Factory for a few days now, and i'm noticing the boiler tank flex a little when i pull the lever, trying to aim for 30 lbs. of pressure on the lever. Has anyone seen this? Is this normal, or am I putting way too much pressure on the lever.

Have you noticed any difference of flavor for different amounts of pressure on the lever? Do you think that it is necessary to really lean on it to get the absolute best espresso? Will continued flexing of the boiler cause premature failure?

These are not rhetorical questions as I've gone through various phases with the Factory. I'm sure I'm not doing 30-40# of pressure on the lever and yet the flavor of the Behmor roasted beans are magnificent.

It's probably best to work up to more pressure, but be careful with the grind and tamp.

jesawdy wrote:Do you have the 8-cup or the 16-cup model? I would think the 8-cup base would flex a bit more.

I have the 16-cup and it probably is flexing as well (haven't paid it much attention), but I am leaning into it pretty hard.

I have the 16 cup. I've lightened up on a few shots, along with lightening up on the amount of coffee i'm packing into my double portafilter basket, and lightening up on my tamp pressure, and i'm getting some good shots.

I'll be very curious to see how this thread shakes out. I also feel as though I haven't been pulling the Factory lever down especially hard, though granted I've only had the machine for 2 weeks now and don't really know what I'm doing (I also don't own a bathroom scale, but that would clearly be a cheap investment now that I've sprung for the Factory and the Rocky).

My experience so far has been that the most important factor is the distribution. The first couple days, I played around with the grind and choked the machine several times (what a mess! ), but eventually settled in to a setting of about 7 on the Rocky. That plus a firm tamp led to lots of nice-looking crema, but it tended to fade before I was done frothing milk. So then I started playing around with a lazy version of the WDT (I skip the yogurt container and just gently break up the clumps with a toothpick), and that seemed to make a big difference in terms of the amount and persistence of the crema.

For the most part, I've just been thrilled with how good the stuff coming out of this machine is compared to my old Breville. I've been using Jim's Organic Ethiopia Sidamo beans from the market, but will get some fresh-roasted beans from M.E. Swing in downtown DC to try out next week.

Jake