HELP!! Rancilio Silvia and Vario grinder

Need help with equipment usage or want to share your latest discovery?
Aras6
Posts: 3
Joined: 13 years ago

#1: Post by Aras6 »

I'm a newbie but a latte and coffee lover .....

I just got a Vario grinder and Ive had my Silvia for awhile now. I LOVE my Silvia! So I grinded my own coffee for the first time ever today right into the portafilter. Then I inserted the portafilter and told Silvia to throw me some shots and.... nothing came out. :? No coffee poured in my cup at all. :shock: :cry: The Rancilio Silvia just made a bunch of noise. The machine was on, warmed up, has water in it, and all good to go..... So does anyone know what I did wrong. I tamped as usual, all the same techniques as always but the only difference is I grinded my own coffee. I don't know at all what settings to use for the Vario yet I just planned on experimenting to find out. Any tips or pointers for the pair would also be awesome! Thank you everyone

Oh and... I tested the portafilter with no coffee in it and water comes threw like normal so I know Silvia is not broken... Thanks everyone.

JimG
Posts: 659
Joined: 18 years ago

#2: Post by JimG »

Aras6 wrote:So does anyone know what I did wrong.
The coffee was ground too fine. Try a slightly coarser grind setting.

Jim

Aras6 (original poster)
Posts: 3
Joined: 13 years ago

#3: Post by Aras6 (original poster) »

Really?! Hahahaha! That's all? Well good then :D thank you Jim I figured it would be some crazy thing that involved tools or water pressure settings. I was not looking forward to that. Ha! :mrgreen:

robca
Posts: 33
Joined: 13 years ago

#4: Post by robca »

Your grind is too fine and/or you tamped too much (grind size and tamping pressure can be combined in a variety of ways to produce a puck that presents a certain amount of resistance to the water flowing thru).

So you now have a puck which can resist more than 9 bars of pressure, and there's a valve in your Silvia that open at 9 bar and shunts water back to the tank. the OPV valve, as it's called, it's there to ensure an optimal extraction profile at 9 bars.

Result: the pump pumps water, the puck behaves like a blind filter, and all the pumped water goes back to the tank.

Grind coarser, and/or tamp with less force, until you find that perfect combination of grind size and tamping pressure to achieve 25 ml flow in 25 seconds or so

Aras6 (original poster)
Posts: 3
Joined: 13 years ago

#5: Post by Aras6 (original poster) »

Okay! Thank you Robca! Thanks for explaining how it works too :D I guess I've been lifting too many weights lately tamping too hard. (I know.. I'm corney) Ha!

Okay I'll try not tamping too much and a more coarse grind. Thank you