Bluecold wrote:I've never heard of such a beast. I've thought about making a new group bell ring to accept PV portafilters, which are much nicer chromed brass, are available in bottomless and accept the same filters. The whole endeavor would cost about 100 Euro's (i figured at least 50 for the group bell ring and the PF's go for 50) and that was too much for me.

The Peppina's group and pf are made of aluminum for a good reason -- when the water leaves the boiler|kettle at the right brew temperature, not superheated, you don't want a big hunk of brass sinking heat away; rather you want metal that doesn't draw much heat from the water, such as aluminum or stainless steel.

yakster wrote:I just picked up a La Peppina and am immediately missing the bottomless portafilter I was using on my previous machine to help me troubleshoot my technique. This thing is a whole different animal then my toy pump was, and I'm trying to dial in the grind, dose, tamp.

Does anyone have a bottomless portafilter for a La Peppina they'd be willing to lend? I could send it back with some locally roasted (or home roasted) beans when I'm done.

Thanks.

Heat the water to ~2 degrees F above target brew temp.
Fine grind. Ultra-light tamp.
Pull a couple of warming flushes before you L&L.
Preinfuse with manual assist.
That's all there is to it.

I think a lot of the technique on a La Peppina has to do with controlling the valve functions. One can actually snap the big piston valve washer shut with the proper technique more or less at will. Some people describe a number of small puming motins when the lever is at the counter and others use a manual preinfusion as Timo describes, as there really is no force to preinfuse with the gravity feed, simply a wetting of the top surface of the puck. Since the machine operates on the path of least resistance principle one generally guides the water here and there with a firm but calm hand. I always appreciate the Zen like qualities of the La Peppina, much like the Caravel, when one focuses the mind and arm on the pull. I never occurred to me that using the La Pep doulbe basket could be considered up-usage of coffee. Try a 21 gram triple basket in a commercial lever and watch the beans evaporate!

yakster wrote: I don't think I've been preinfusing long enough.

Can you describe your method? I've been pulling down the handle, letting it rise up about 1/4 the way, and coming back down, but I should probably hold it on the second down stroke for longer. Maybe I should switch back to the double basket until I get more comfortable with this but I like the idea of the single basket so I can pull and try more shots in one session. I was really having much more luck with the double basket I started with.

If you pull singles, what's your target dose? I've tried from 6 to 7.5 g and I like the higher doses better.

I still would love to see a bottomless portafilter for this. If I ever go crazy and make one myself, I'll post to the forum about it, but I don't have any plans to do this in the near term.

-Chris

Chris,
Although I would pull singles almost exclusively with the Cremina, with the Peppina I would use the double basket. The 45mm shallow single basket is not very forgiving. The 45mm deep double basket is. I recommend that you switch to the double, at least for now.

On my Peppina, I replaced 50-year-old rock-hard washers with very thin nylon-reinforced EPDM washers, doubled-up. They were very supple, and I could do either a languid quarter-pull or a series of one-eighth pulls (approximate). You pull the lever all the way down, and then raise it, with your hand still on it, part of the way, either 1/4th or 1/8th of the way. The less distance you allow the lever to rise, the more of these partial pulls you'd do. You can even do a series of tiny 1/16th pulls, if the washers are supple enough.

When the piston retracts, water flows down from the kettle into the piston cylinder, and only a trickle makes its way out, laterally, to the basket from the force of gravity alone. The series of small pumps pushes water out to the puck under (restrained) spring pressure.

A 10-second preinfusion, give or take 5 seconds, worked for me. It will vary with your roast and dose.

The deep double basket is very forgiving of dose variations. As long as you leave at least 6mm of headroom after your ultra-light tamp, you will be fine. Lower the dose to suit your taste.

With an ultra-light tamp you can do more than one pull without the danger of "fracturing the puck" -- there's nothing to fracture because the contents of the basket remain quite inchoate. And there's far less danger of stalling the extraction from over-compaction.

Despite its hefty spring the Peppina delivers about 6 bars of brew pressure because the cylinder also has a fairly wide diameter. Cross-sectional area of the piston cylinder is on the bottom of the fraction:

Pressure = Force/Area

The bigger the area, the lower the pressure given a constant Force.

Moreover, the pressure wanes as the spring decompresses. You must adjust your barista technique to the machine's pressure profile.

Regards
T

The Ponte Vecchio portafilter is a 45mm. Not sure if the tabs would match up to the LaPeppina grouphead. Chrome plated brass. A while back Espressme converted a stock into a bottomless. Has stood up to almost daily use. Another option for purchase might be one of the Espressme bottomless that are available at Orphanespresso. Looks to be identical to the group buy units many of us purchased several months ago. Real nice solid portafilters.