I have a La Pavoni pre-millenium (the one with the I/II switch on the side).

My question is this:

With high $$ pump type machines, when I see people pull a blank shot through the group head, it seems to be just hot water flowing out (not much steam involved). However, if I do the same thing on my La Pavoni (with the switch in the "I" position and warmed up fully), I get a tremendous amount of steam. I understand the La Pavoni is partially steam driven, but I'm not sure if I'm seeing too much steam or what.

Take a look at this quick video that I uploaded to youtube:



Is that much steam out of the group head normal? I would expect only water to be pushed into the group head from the pressure in the boiler, but it seems like there is a huge amount of steam involved here. Can anyone else with a La Pavoni try this and see if they get the same results? All I'm doing [in this video] is pulling the handle to the top of the stroke with the portafilter out of the machine.

When I took the temp of the water in the measuring cup (after making this video), it was only about 180 degrees F. I'm just wondering if steam is getting into the group head where it's not supposed to or something along those lines.

Any comments / insight would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Ray

Ray-
Looks like an excessive amount of steam to me. Try pulling the lever at a lower temp, sooner.
Also, after re-reading your thread:
These 2 switch models, as you may know, have no pressurestat, so it's a no go on adjusting boiler pressure.
There will be a significant force of steam out of the group, that is normal. In addition, the measurement you took isn't accurate to the actual brewing temp (pressure), so I wouldn't really go off that. How do the shots taste? If too hot there will be a significant scorched and bitter (the latter not to be confused with acidity) taste. Also, see here for some possibly useful bytes. Good luck Oh and BTW how do you like your Kyocera?
B

Thanks for the info Brian, I will check that link.

The Kyocera is great, once you get the hang of it. I feature it a bit in some of my other videos on youtube there. The biggest issue I had with it was being able to repeat the grind each time. Originally, I was screwing the burrs down until they couldn't go any further and then trying to back them off. However, that method didn't work very well. I have since changed to using a different approach that works much better. For one, I have marked some of the parts so I can keep my reference points. I have also modified the little adjuster so it has more settings (I show a picture of it in the Tips & Tricks for the La Pavoni video). That has helped quite a bit. Also, my "base line" reference is now based on when the burrs make enough contact so that they no longer rattle back and forth. That's the "zero point", as it were, and then from there (for each different coffee bean, etc.) I have a setting that is like "zero point" +1 turn CW or CCW, etc. This allows me to reproduce the grind each time, right on the money. By being able to do this, I am able to avoid wasting shots and can get the grind right on target to within typically 1/16th turn of where it works best for the La Pavoni.

As far as the grinder, it's great as far as clean up. I like the ceramic burrs, although you have to be careful with them. I did accidentally chip the edge of the smaller burr the other day when I was mocking up the burr on a 10mm screw (I'm thinking about building an arbor for it and making my own grinder along the lines of the Versalab M3 - although I need to buy a CNC lathe first

Anyway, the grinder is very good and as long as you don't mind cranking it about 180 or 200 times per shot, then it produces very good grinds. I don't have anything really to compare it to (besides a cheapie $25 grinder), but the powder it produces works great for the La Pavoni. I'm not sure how it stacks up against like a $600 or $800 grinder, but at some point a burr is a burr right? Once you get the setting dialed in, then it's just a matter of me turning the burrs or a machine doing it. For $500 or $800 savings, I can do a lot of cranking

The only thing I will say is this: if you have to make a lot of coffees (such as for a dinner party), then you may want to invest in a faster grinder. The Kyocera is great for 1 or 2 shots, for like you and your girlfriend or something. But if you need to do a lot, it takes some time. Even so, I have routinely pulled 8 or 10 shots while testing and have no problem grinding the beans. Once you get into the habit of using it, it goes real fast. I don't even pay any attention to it any more. It just takes me maybe 30 or 45 seconds to grind the beans, then you can dose from the little plastic cup directly into the basket real fast.

The overall construction of the grinder is very nice. The only problem is the cap on the crank handle. It breaks after a while - typically because as you crank, it's common to lose control of the crank handle and have it go flying across the kitchen . And you have to modify the little notch adjustment nut, as it grinds itself down pretty fast (and then you no longer have any adjustments). I ended up taking a knife and cutting my own (larger) notches and now it works a lot better as far as setting and holding the adjustment you give it.

Overall, I'm very happy with it though. I love using it for coffee and it does a fantastic job. I suspect the powder is on a par with probably a machine that costs north of $400 or so dollars. The $600 to $800 machines might have a slight more consistency as far as the grinds, but overall the Kyocera is no slouch! It does a great job for about 1/10th the cost and probably gets you 90% or 95% of the quality of the big dollar machines.

Ray

I say normal, more or less. It does seem like the amount of steam you'd get from leaving the machine on for awhile and/or running a lot of shots.

The water in the boiler is just slightly hotter than 212F and the grouphead cools the water as you pull a shot. If you're just opening the valve and letting water run it's really not going to cool the water, hence the steam. You can do the same thing by opening the steam wand or loosening the boiler cap a tad.

Also, the amount of steam can depend on the room temp and humidity, just as you can see your breath under the right circumstances.

Thanks for the info!

The machine is making some darn nice shots these days, so I figure it must be pretty much okay It just seemed like an awful lot of steam. I was expecting more like water running out of a faucet, but as you point out, when you open the steam wand, there is a lot of steam there as well.

Ray

Don't worry too much about that, worry more about temperature management. For example, depending on shot # from heating up cold, you should know about what pressure you want the boiler at. You can also temp surf by heating until the steam valve closes and then waiting a number of seconds. Those number of seconds change depending on shot number (and if you cooled the group actively in any way).

Good luck!

Thanks for the info Andre. Yeah, I'm seeing more and more that temperature control is critical. I'm actually going to hook up a variac to my machine soon and use it to control the "I" setting heat. I think this will help quite a bit as far as keeping the machine from over heating and producing bitter shots. We shall see.

Ray