If your coffee is fresh, we should try to learn the cause(s) of the poor extractions.

If you dose to 10g in the double basket, and tamp very lightly, just enough to level the coffee and to get ~6mm of headroom, how long do two pulls take? If less than 25 seconds, try grinding a little finer. If more than 30 seconds, try grinding a little coarser.

What grinder are you using?

There are many coffees to recommend; but if you want to know which roasts I've been using most recently with the Lusso:

Rocket Daterra Reserve Espresso
Rocket DarkStar

They are 100% arabica. Sometimes robusta has the smell of a mangrove swamp -- not unpleasant once your nose adjusts to it.

Regards
Timo

Hello timo

At this time, i've only one single basket. Next week, i'll buy a double basket in UK.

I'm going to buy also a grinder like the Rancilio doserless ( what do you think ?) because i think it will be better
to do the job mysef instead the coffee shop. they don't find the good grind for my espresso machine.

Anyway, the pressure of the machine is only 1 bar and i think to myself that is a little bit low ?

Maybe 1.2 will be a good choice.........i'm going to change the rate today if i can.

So my next steps will be :

1 Increase the pressure
2 to buy a grinder
2 a double basket
3 looking for great beans


Best regards

jmequipe wrote:Hello timo

At this time, i've only one single basket. Next week, i'll buy a double basket in UK.

I'm going to buy also a grinder like the Rancilio doserless ( what do you think ?) because i think it will be better
to do the job mysef instead the coffee shop. they don't find the good grind for my espresso machine.

Anyway, the pressure of the machine is only 1 bar and i think to myself that is a little bit low ?

Maybe 1.2 will be a good choice.........i'm going to change the rate today if i can.

The Lusso's single basket is very difficult to work with. The double-basket, on the other hand, is very forgiving. Your coffee will improve when you have a grinder and a double basket.

Coffee ground at the shop is OK for drip and press, but not for an espresso machine. One must make slight adjustments to the grind from day to day as the roast ages. A change in humidity might require an adjustment to fineness of the grind.

The Rancilio doserless is a very popular grinder. You might also look at the Ascaso i-2 grinder. I prefer stepless adjustment, and use a Nuova Simonelli MCF. This grinder is manufactured for Nuova Simonelli by a company called Conti Valerio and is sold in Europe under the Eureka brand name.



The NS grinder is more expensive than the Rancilio Rocky but much less expensive than the Macaps and the Mazzers.

For boiler pressure, the factory manual recommends 1.0 - 1.2 Kg/cm².

Regards
Timo

My this thread has moved on since I went away!

Some extra info on the Sama variants-
and with apologies for adding this quite late in the day - Vis comparisons of springs and pressure generated a couple of caveats: my Sama could be anything up to 20-25 years old so over that time I would expect that different spring batches would be ordered/supplied which could easily lead to differences in bar within the SAMA performances - less likely for the PVs as they haven't been around under that name for the same amount of time. Plus, who's to say I have an original spring as the machine is at least 2nd hand, and quite probably more?

You may also find these models under the name Musette (slighty prettier finish with water/steam knobs front located, though I've only seen one such).

Be aware also folks that older Sama "Lussos" have a Bezerra-alike grouphead, complete with bearing mounted lever arm (Peacecup tipped me off on this and I've seen photos of a couple of examples), so who knows what parts were borrowed/canibalised etc in the transition phase.

keep up the good work guys,
Sneaky.

sneakymagic wrote:My this thread has moved on since I went away!

Some extra info on the Sama variants-
and with apologies for adding this quite late in the day - Vis comparisons of springs and pressure generated a couple of caveats: my Sama could be anything up to 20-25 years old so over that time I would expect that different spring batches would be ordered/supplied which could easily lead to differences in bar within the SAMA performances - less likely for the PVs as they haven't been around under that name for the same amount of time. Plus, who's to say I have an original spring as the machine is at least 2nd hand, and quite probably more?

You may also find these models under the name Musette (slighty prettier finish with water/steam knobs front located, though I've only seen one such).

Be aware also folks that older Sama "Lussos" have a Bezerra-alike grouphead, complete with bearing mounted lever arm (Peacecup tipped me off on this and I've seen photos of a couple of examples), so who knows what parts were borrowed/canibalised etc in the transition phase.

Sneaky,
I have not been able to find on the web a photo of the Musette. Would you happen to remember where you saw them?

Regards
Timo

Hi Timo,

Italian ebay was the picture source - having trawled the Italian pages of google to see what I could find I drew a blank (or at least for the 12 or so pages I checked!).

The machine was clearly of the Bezzera "Family"/OLympia Club/ Sama or PV Lusso style and despite the location of the controls was closes to the last 2 in my memory, not having a bearing mounted lever a la the Bezzera.

Not much help I know, but there you go.

P.

That is helpful. I can exclude US pages from my search.
Thanks
Timo

I've seen a couple of non-Sama Family-like machines on Ebay Italy as well. Can't remember their names. Have not seen any lately. Good thing the Lusso is still in production.

Timo,
You've had your Lusso for about 2 months now. Any further, up to date impressions? Are you still happy with it? What's your current impression of the ease/consistency of pulling good shots? Does it still compare favorably to the Cremina? Steaming issues? Any annoying aspects? Thanks. Michael

mgwolf wrote:You've had your Lusso for about 2 months now. Any further, up to date impressions? Are you still happy with it? What's your current impression of the ease/consistency of pulling good shots? Does it still compare favorably to the Cremina? Steaming issues? Any annoying aspects?

Yes, Michael, the Lusso is still making very good espresso.

I have been using it twice a day, three times a day on weekends, and there have been no reliability problems.

The Lusso heats up quickly and can be left on for hours, if desired, without any overheating issues whatsoever. The absence of conducted heat from the boiler accounts for this. The self-regulating convection of the thermosyphon loop keeps the group at optimal temperature.

The Lusso has good intra-shot and inter-shot temperature stability. Between shots, the group cools off by itself, again because there is no heat conducted to the group from the boiler. The group has to dissipate only the excess heat it sinked from the brew water.

Steaming is great--very easy to produce microfoam. Also, the ability to steam milk while the extraction progresses and without any impact upon temperature stability has proven to be very convenient. The Lusso is always ready to steam, and recovery after steaming is instantaneous.

All of these strengths make the Lusso a good choice for a personal machine but also a good choice for those who would like their machine to produce drinks for guests. With the Lusso, you could easily entertain half a dozen guests. However, the Lusso is not a catering-class machine that can produce a drink every 60 seconds; but caterers need such machines; a home-barista does not.

With the consistency of the spring, it is very simple to dial in the grind. With the spring-lever, when you make a small adjustment to the grind, you know it will have an effect upon the extraction. With a manual lever, muscle memory is much less consistent, and so your tweak to the coarseness or fineness of the grind might be undone by variations in muscle power.

The Cremina is made to much tighter tolerances and to me is aesthetically the more pleasing of the two machines. But a new Cremina costs over $3000 and the Lusso costs under $800. Even a used Cremina on eBay these days is likely to cost more than a new Lusso and could very well need replacement parts that drive the cost up and delay one's gratification.

Regards
Timo

P.S. What I do not like about the Lusso is its drip tray grate: drips from the spouts form puddles on the surface of the grate. If it were mine, I'd have enlarged those holes a few mm with a drill already. That's all it would take, I think, to eliminate the annoyance.