I just acquired one of these in mint condition. I have pulled a few shots and they all come out with zero crema and tasting more like strong coffee than espresso. Using 5 day old home roast that pulls and tastes good on my livietta. I've tried 12-14 grams and I'm already grinding finer than the livietta (getting proper extraction time but still no crema). Light tamp. Pre infusion. Running the kettle at about 203F. I've tried single and double baskets with the same results Any idea what my problem is?

How long do your shots take to pull? The usual 30 seconds or almost forever on the fine grind?
Maybe your Peppina, even though it's mint, has a weak spring. Just random guessing here... You could try to assist the spring manually to increase pressure. Just push the lever upwards during the pull, while steadying the machine with the other hand at the base. If the increased pressure gives you proper crema, then maybe your spring really is too weak. I've got two Peppinas, one that needs a bit of assistance for a good shot, and one that seems to be doing better just by itself (although I've not had that one for very long, still experimenting).

Cheers,

Roland

must be something seriously wrong with either your technique, the machine or the beans if you get zero crema... Peppina certainly produces good crema when working OK. How is the water temperature?

A coarser grind and a bit faster flow gives me more crema in most cases.
Do try to updose a bit, I have the experience that more than a few mm of headspace doesn't really work in La Peppina.

I typically float around 14.5g ground fairly fine by espresso standards and tamp lighter than I would on a pump machine. You can always hold down the base of the machine with one hand and assist the extraction by aiding the lever in it's ascent. I do this lightly if the flow of the shot is not where I would like it to be, and once I like the flow rate I will let the spring take over again.

Is it black and did you get it at a garage sale last week? If so, I was going to by it the day before the sale and they preferred not to ship it.

Warrior372 wrote:I typically float around 14.5g ground fairly fine by espresso standards and tamp lighter than I would on a pump machine. You can always hold down the base of the machine with one hand and assist the extraction by aiding the lever in it's ascent. I do this lightly if the flow of the shot is not where I would like it to be, and once I like the flow rate I will let the spring take over again.

Is it black and did you get it at a garage sale last week? If so, I was going to by it the day before the sale and they preferred not to ship it.

No but I did see that one. Out of curiosity though, how much were they asking for it? Mine is black though. It came from a very nice gentleman who collects random machines.

So a bit of an update. I kept going finer until I could barely crank my grinder and i had to really put my body into assisting the lever and getting a 90 second shot. EEK! I decided that couldn't be right (although on a pump machine this would still produce crema as long as it wasn't completely choked. I guess levers are a bit different?) so I backed the grind off, like Bluecold said, to just slightly finer than the Livietta likes, still 14 grams, slight assist and now its starting to look right! Still not as much crema as I've seen in some videos (beans are a bit gassy at 2 days young, still perfecting my lever arm!), but I don't really care about liberal amounts of crema. A fair amount is good for texture, but the flavor is the most important aspect by 10 to 1, and I think it tastes decent for my (maybe) 10th pull on the pep! I took a video of my prep but the battery died before I pulled. The main concern was about the machine's operating condition. If it is technique/settings, that can be (cheaply) fixed, but if it is in need of new washers or something, my wife might leave me ... you know the story about the camel and that little tiny piece of straw holding such finality

p.s. embarrassing confession: just discovered the smily/post limit.

It was a great deal. They were only asking $200 and it looked like it was in great shape. More than how much crema you are getting, how do the shots taste?

Same deal I got. Maybe it was the same one! I would say they taste as good as I have had from the pump. Mellower? Smoother? I think I have to get used to the difference of lever espresso shots. I do think there is still plenty of room to improve though.

When you pre-infuse, do you pump water until a few drops just start to come out and wait about 10 seconds? I find that with doubles, pre-infusion is critical with the La Peppina.

My shots on the La Peppina are lighter and less crema-laden then the shots I've been pulling on my Gaggia Factory (La Pavoni Pro). They have more clarity, but you can increase the body by assisting the lever and/or updosing. You might want to review the What Else Tastes Like a Peppina thread for ideas in this direction, but after I tried it, I went back to unassisted spring shots and am happy with the results, especially for S.O.

The other avenue to explore is the age of your coffee... stale coffee won't give good crema, but you probably already know that.

Chris, thanks. At first I was just holding the lever down for pre-infusion like typically done on spring levers but have now changed to some pumping of the lever like I notcied on several YouTube videos. I will have to mess around with some different techniques. My beans are home roasted 95% of the time, so often times if I have an issue, it is due to improper rest. Although, the beans I started using when I first tried the peppina, were about 14 days post roast, so that may have handicapped the crema even further. But like I said, I care way more about the flavor than the amount of crema just so long as it's not an issue with the equipment or ignoring poor technique. I'm excited to proceed and see what she has to offer!