I have a La Pavoni Pro which I got on ebay a few months ago. I've enjoyed the learning curve with it but I think it needs new gaskets since I am getting no resistance pressure not matter what technique I try. I am using a Pe De Dienes grinder with it. I don't yet have a very good tamper...only a cheapy.

Hey Welcome Trix...
When you say "no pressure"... you mean - No resistance to your pull or "no pressure" as you can't get boiler pressure to build up?

I meant no resistance in the pull...no matter what I try...when we first got it I had a couple of pulls that were were way too hard to pull (we thought)...I think we may have tried to force it....thus blowing a gasket...seal?
I bought gaskets for it but they haven't been put in yet.

The lever stays up on it's own when not in use as I believe it should. Everything else seems normal. The machine seemed fine when we got it. It is a pre-millennium model (mid-90's) and I doubt it has ever had seals replaced or had regular maintenance. It didn't look like it had heavy use. I descaled it when we got it.

My husband home roasts the coffee.

There is plenty of steam and I am able to froth milk...

Also, espresso starts to drip out before the pull and doesn't stop...before the lever is all the way up.

I'm guessing tamp or grind, actually. If you're getting drip before you pull the puck isn't offering any resistance to the water pressure.

I suppose it is possible, but in practice you can't blow a seal by pressing down too hard on the lever. I suspect the first thing to give would be the screen gasket. If you're getting good pressure (and no hissing) it sounds like it's well sealed.

Typically the first gaskets to go are the boiler to base (the machine starts to rotate) and the group seals (the lever is very stiff both up and down but gets better s the machine heats up).

Grind and tamp and keep fine-ing up the grind, watching your shots.

It would be worth replacing the seals though. It's relatively easy to do (there are great directions on this site for your model).

mayhew wrote:I'm guessing tamp or grind, actually. If you're getting drip before you pull the puck isn't offering any resistance to the water pressure.

yep, i totally agree.

the solution: a real tamper, ASAP. and a grinder capable of grinding fine and even, even ASAP-er. in the meantime, see if your hand grinder can be adjusted to grind fine enough such that the grinds choke the machine (so much pressure to the pull that you can't pull the lever down, nor get any espresso out). if so, then slowly back off on the grind until you hit black gold.

I'm not too familiar with the hand grinders (though many members here are *very* familiar), but I recollect that some hand grinder owners have questioned their ability to grind fine enough for espresso. This is not a general statement by any means--I think peacecup uses a hand grinder exclusively--but I think others have wondered about the adjustment range on a grinder-to-grinder basis, even of the same brand and model.

I had two Dienes manual grinders. I just sold one of them...(some regrets about that because it was the smaller of the two and easier for me to handle...) but, I had set both to the finest they would go....by all appearances the grind seemed very evenly fine. I've tried course to fine, hard tamp, to light with no difference.

I hope to be ordering a new tamper soon. What about all the talk about fine grind/light tamp I've been reading lately? I suppose we'll need to save for a electric grinder to rule that out.

What about the piston...could we have damaged that? I do want to rule out the machine.

Neither my husband nor I have any other espresso machine experience except an inexpensive Delonghi pump machine which seems to do a fine job and gives us decent crema. We've gotten crema once or twice with the LP early on, when there was still resistance.

I've been trying the LP more than my husband (he had been traveling a lot)...maybe he will have more luck. I've read everything I can find...he hasn't. He is going to try to pull one right now.

You didn't damage the piston. I believe they're metal on that version. I have the newer model with the plastic piston and have done every bit and worse to mine.

WRT to light tamp, I don't think I buy it. I watched almost every shop owner in Pittsburgh use my machine and i told them *not* to tamp lightly. They did just fine with the machine. (One guy did over tamp, everyone else was fine).

One quick test is to get your hands on some store bought Illy pre-ground. It's close enough to a good grind to get you in the ball park.

So, we brought the LP pro to MMSI to replace the gaskets/seals. Since I neglected to leave the portafilter with them the first time they weren't actually able to properly test the machine.

We still have the same problem. We still don't have a great tamper (I should be ordering a new one soon) and we are still using a PE DE Dienes manual coffee mill set to the finest setting. We have been using fresh roasted coffee. We get little to no crema.

When I heated it up the first time the lever remained up and if I hadn't caught it in time all the water would have flowed out of the portafilter spouts before putting in the coffee. That never happened before.

My husband thinks we should bring it back to them.










-Lucy

I just made some espresso and after I took the coffee out I wanted to put some water through it to clean it. There was more lever resistance without coffee in the portafilter than with coffee. Why would that happen? I am baffled. What actually causes lever resistance if I can have more without coffee?

This last time I used coffee ground finer than Illy.and a firm tamp.