There have been so many, but here's another guide. I thought i would add mine since there seem to regularly be people saying how hard and unpredictable this machine is to use.
Don't be put off buying one -anyone can make great espresso with one, as long as he has a good grinder, a well fitting tamper, access to You Tube and the forums, and time to experiment and ponder. It isn't difficult in the end. It took me a few days to get reasonable espresso, a week to get good stuff, and a month to get great shots.
My first tip is to buy a thermometer strip, to stick on the brew head. I got one from Orphan Espresso. It allows you to time your shot pulls so they are at the correct brew temperature. I stuck mine to the side of the brew head. A quick bit of trial and error showed me the correct reading to wait for on the thermometer strip.
Other items i have bought are a knock box, a stainless steel jug for frothing, and a board to work on, to save my counter top.

I begin by letting the machine reach its target temperature/pressure.
Vent dry steam into a cup.
Allow the heating element to work and shut off again.
Pull a shot of water to clean the system through.
Remove the (double) filter basket and fill with the coffee dose. I use 16g but you should decide upon your dose by experimenting. Experiment by using a middle ish dose, with a medium ish tamp, and a grind that is just below that which might choke the machine. Then alter the dose so you get a reasonable flow time and lever resistance, (not too hard or too fast). When you have that, experiment for flavour by altering the tamp force and grind, but always changing them in tandem so the flow rate and lever resistance aren't thrown off.
Then use a dinner fork to evenly distribute the coffee, and fluff it evenly through.
Warm your cup with the steam wand, or with any water flow that you are using to raise the brew head temperature.
When you have the dose tamped into the filter basket, wait for the critical thermometer reading that you have noted to give good brewing in the past, then insert the basket, raise the handle to just under the point at which water is allowed into the brewing head, lock in the portafilter and completely raise the handle.
I then wait seven seconds, but you must experiment for flavour to find the best time to suit your tastes, and beans. Try different timings, and even a little wiggling of the lever.
Then i gently lower the handle until the first drop of espresso appears (which is streaked like a tiger eye), usually around a quarter off the top position on the lever's stroke.
Then back to the top slowly, and perform the main pull.
Some people do no pre-infusion pull, some a more substantial one, others even a double main pull. Experiment for flavour.
If you find the lever comes half way through its travel before meeting much resistance, your brew head is too cool. This means the super heated water comes in, expands and forms steam, but does not heat up and pressurise enough to make good espresso. A hot brew head will draw more water in from the boiler, and hence pressurise and fill with water, giving almost immediate lever resistance to the pull, and greater shot volume in your cup.
With regards to the amount of force required to pull the shot, this depends upon the flavour you are going for, but can range from not much more than hand weight, to a gorilla pull. Be careful not to break your machine, but at the other end of the spectrum, don't worry about insufficint force. You can still get great espresso from a soft pull. Espresso is not produced by pressure, but by hot brewing. The pressure is there only to raise the boiling point of the water. The water in the brew head is slightly pressurised to allow it to be super heated and not boil, then force is applied to push the water through the coffee puck in the correct time for an extraction.
This method gives me what a pump machine would call a single shot, but might more accurately be labelled as a double ristretto.
I'm no expert at milk frothing, and don't often do it, but You Tube is your best resource for the technique.

Any comments anyone?

Hi Adam,

And thanks for contributing.

uyeasound wrote:Don't be put off buying one -anyone can make great espresso with one, as long as he has a good grinder, a well fitting tamper, access to You Tube and the forums, and time to experiment and ponder. It isn't difficult in the end. It took me a few days to get reasonable espresso, a week to get good stuff, and a month to get great shots.

+1

uyeasound wrote:When you have that, experiment for flavour by altering the tamp force and grind, but always changing them in tandem so the flow rate and lever resistance aren't thrown off.
Then use a dinner fork to evenly distribute the coffee, and fluff it evenly through.

Lots of people are trying Orphan Espresso's slapshot technique, which is to grind very fine and just tamp with almost no force but to level and distribute. http://www.orphanespresso.com/OE-SLAP-SHOT_p_2416.html Sometimes I use their slapshot device, sometimes not. I like that it catches stray grounds in the limited desk space of my office.

You can still vary dose and grind, of course. But it works for me. I don't think there's one right way to grind and tamp except for avoiding channeling and such with the guidelines on this site. Distribution is important.

uyeasound wrote:Try different timings, and even a little wiggling of the lever.

I don't see what wiggling of the lever will do. Maybe some partial pumps if needed to help with pre-infusion.

uyeasound wrote:If you find the lever comes half way through its travel before meeting much resistance, your brew head is too cool. This means the super heated water comes in, expands and forms steam, but does not heat up and pressurise enough to make good espresso. A hot brew head will draw more water in from the boiler, and hence pressurise and fill with water, giving almost immediate lever resistance to the pull, and greater shot volume in your cup.

This doesn't make much sense to me, especially "super heated water comes in, expands and forms steam, but does not heat up and pressurise enough to make good espresso." If water hasn't entered the group, your pressure setting may be low or the machine may be warming up so there isn't enough pressure in the boiler for water to flow into the group. If the group is cool, since it's attached to the boiler, the machine in general isn't heated. Once it is heated up, even if you insert a cool portafilter for temperature control or as some people do, cool the grouphead with a wet towel, say for a darker roast, this won't change the pre-infusion. Also sometimes you won't get good pre-infusion because you haven't vented off false pressure through the steam wand.

The nice thing about these manual levers, whether Pavoni or -- added, rebadged Pavoni (Gaggia Factory, aka Tin Man, what yakster has) -- or Olympia Express Cremina, is you can do almost infinite variation to coax the best flavors from your coffee. It's a long and fun learning curve.

I only do one pull. Softly at first until the first drops come, then full pressure down. A really neat little trick I've found is leaving the steam wand open while pulling up on the lever before during and after locking in the portafilter, and only closing it once the bell has filled with water. The reason for this is because I was noticing that it almost seamed like different amounts of water were going into the group head for some reason, and sometimes it would feel like the water was entering the group violently. By leaving the steam wand open during locking in the portafilter, I've found the water fills more gently, and more consistently. I have to say, I really recommend this.

Nice thread, I like all the ideas.

I only do one pull, and I wait ten seconds for the water to fill the group before the pull... I can usually see the espresso start to bead up on the bottom of the filter basket just before I start my pull. The amount of time will probably vary depending on your pressurestat setting.

I'd never heard the idea of leaving the steam wand open when locking in the portafilter and filling the group. That is interesting and I've often felt that I've needed to be very careful about my tamp and distribution to avoid the violent filling of the group from disturbing the puck too much and causing channeling, I'll have to give this a try.

Thanks.

Anybody else use the thermometer strip stuck to the brew head?
If not, what warm up procedure do you use?
I always found it a bit hit and miss before i got a strip. (usually a miss on the first shot, and hits on the next couple.)
But now with the strip i just make the temperature the same each time for a good brew.
Either way, does everyone agree that with persistance it is not a difficult machine to master? There are just so many completely different ways of making great espresso with it.

I find the temperature strip unnecessary. I let the machine come up to full heat, which it does in about 13 minutes. Then my machine can idle for hours without getting too hot. I adjust the temperature setting reliably by dipping the stock portafilter in water if I want anything but the highest temperature and see if it is room temperature, warm, very warm or hot by touching it. For light roasted coffees that need higher heat to tame the brightness, I may even do a heating flush and not cool the portafilter at all. Using it this way, I almost never have a sink shot. I did temperature testing of my Millennium Pavoni and posted it here: La Pavoni Millennium Owners, Are Temperature Problems Solved? Doing that test taught me how to heat flush my machine.

I know, now you're going to suggest I get the temperature strip to report the heat on my group! What I may actually do next week, though, is take the pressure gauge I got from Orphan Espresso to my office and get a read-out of the PSTAT setting through the steam wand, since a proper pressure setting keeps the temperature well-regulated on my machine.

BTW, you may be interested in the how-to instructions I posted earlier by interviewing Christopher Cara, whose father was the first to import Pavonis into the U.S. He's old-school and not everyone may agree with how he does things, but he knows these machines thoroughly and has been fixing them for a living for decades. I figured I would shorten my learning curve by getting him to tutor me, and I wrote it up. Many others then commented, and I even wrote that I changed my technique to suit my tastes. Here's that thread: A Lesson from Christopher Cara in Using a La Pavoni Home Lever Espresso Machine

Does anyone double pull; or most of a pull, then back up for a proper pull? I consider my quarter pull a pre-infusion pull since no volume comes out, but i guess there is a lot of grey area.
Anyone any comments after experimentation?
What a fantastic machine this is - just had a great shot.

I feel like I'm disturbing the puck if I were to pull the lever back up after bringing it down any. As well, I don't make any drinks over 6 ounces, so one full pull is enough for tastyness at that volume.

I'm happy with a single pull and even go the other way, using the single basket sometimes. If you're going to try more than one pull, try shifting to another shot glass, taste what your first pull is like, compare it to your second pull and see if you would like those added together. An overextraction will tend to taste watery and bitter and is more than likely on the second pull.

About disturbing the puck, others using a bottomless portafilter will be better able to comment than me because they would see the signs of channeling or other extraction problems. I prefer a stock portafilter because it gives me almost complete temperature control.

To understand extraction problems, see http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-guide-diagnose-extraction-problems.html. And for your own experimentation of dose and grind and over- and underextraction by taste, see: Espresso 101: How to Adjust Dose and Grind Setting by Taste.

I've never even tried the single shot basket. Is it worth trying?

P.s. I've just ordered a hole saw for metal. 51mm diameter. I think you might be able to guess my next coffee related project...