I just got a Cafelat bottomless portafilter for my Europiccola Millenium. Trying to improve my single shots and finding that it really depends on the beans.

Here are some examples for your enjoyment. Comments are welcome since I'm new at reading the pour from the bottomless portafilter and need all the help I can get.

First the Good: 7.1g of Ottolina Maracaibo approximately 3 weeks past the roast date.
Now the Bad (or "less good"): 7.2g of Kimbo Extra Crema roasted approximately 7 months ago.
And finally, the Ugly: 7.3g of Illy Medium Roast (red can) with an expiration date of 07/2017.

Hi: My Pavoni needs service. Can you recommend a pro to assist? Thanks, smayfein

It's hard for me to tell because I only make doubles, but the shots seem to blonde very early. (Maybe I'm wrong because I don't make singles.) The tiger-striping looks great on the first two.

Ever since I started using the MCAL double baskets, I get more spritzers and uneven flow. I'm using 16 grams of a medium roast in the basket.

smayfein wrote:Hi: My Pavoni needs service. Can you recommend a pro to assist? Thanks, smayfein

You should probably start a new thread for this question.

Singles are notoriously hard to pull on some machines, I might do some doubles and see how that goes.

You have to use fresh coffee. Three weeks is already past optimal imho.

Depending on the coffee, day 3-10 is a good range, with things usually peaking between day 5-7.
Before day 3, you may have to much problem with off-gassing.
After day 10-12 (or there abouts) you probably find the flavour starts to drop off.
Somewhere in the middle is a good compromise between being able to pull a shot and still having full flavour.

Note: I'm speaking in averages here. There's tricks you can do to pull fresher coffees, and some coffee's last longer.

I'm jealous of the first two shots, I can't seem to produce any or very little crema with my Europiccola. I recently purchased my LaPavoni from eBay about 2 months ago to get the feel of a lever machine until I finish my LaCimbali M15 lever project, unfortunately I haven't been able to produce shots as nice as yours. I think my grind is too fine, and even with a light tamp it's a bit too much for the pre-infusion to establish itself without starting to pull the lever to start the shot. I need to experiment a bit more with my setup, your videos are inspirational because I now know what to strive for when using my machine.

One thing I have noticed with the LaPavoni Europiccola is that regardless of the absence of crema, my shots taste sweeter than the ones I pull from my LaCimbali Junior and Rancilio Silvia, both of which produce great shots. Is what I'm experiencing with taste somewhat common when comparing a shot pulled from a lever compared to a pump machine?

Thanks again for posting the videos, those are the best shots I've seen pulled from a Europiccola on YouTube!

Espresso absolutely requires freshly roasted coffee. It deteriorates quite rapidly after about two weeks. Unless you live in an area with a coffee roaster in the near vicinity, you should consider roasting your own coffee. Green coffee costs about half what roasted does, and you have control over how it gets roasted. Green coffee will remain in perfect condition for literally years, whilst roasted only days! My brother insists on roasting coffee on what we call the "atomic cooker", an outdoor wok stove, but he lives near the Mexican border with the US where it is not cold and you can roast outside without freezing! He uses a wooden spoon to stir the coffee in a large wok.

There are some small roasters, perhaps the Nesco and Fresh Roast are best known. To me the Nesco is slow and you have little control and does not provide enough heat. Earlier Fresh Roast models made uneven roasts, at least when I dealt with them, but the newer Fresh Roast SR500 solves the uneven roast problem with a stronger fan and adjustments. Both roast about 125 grams at a time. The Nesco takes about 28 minutes, the FR about 6 or 7.

I normally use about 1 kg of coffee beans each month, and I normally purchase green coffee about once a year, and get a big variety. You can find several good places to purchase green beans that will ship them to you.

mrtwobits wrote:It's hard for me to tell because I only make doubles, but the shots seem to blonde very early.

Yes, I was wondering if they were blonding too early also. But it's hard for me to tell as most of the videos posted online show doubles. I prefer singles though so I want to get better at them.

nickw wrote:You have to use fresh coffee. Three weeks is already past optimal imho.

The Maracaibo in the first video is blended at Ottolina in Italy, and then shipped green to a local roaster here in Calgary. They roast it here in town so I can get it very fresh. However, the roaster indicated that with this blend, you need to wait a few weeks after roasting for the flavours to develop. Maybe because there is some robusta in it, but I'm not sure.

rpavlis wrote: Unless you live in an area with a coffee roaster in the near vicinity, you should consider roasting your own coffee.

Someday I might get into roasting...it sounds like the next logical step. Probably not the outdoor wok method though

LaCrema wrote:I'm jealous of the first two shots, I can't seem to produce any or very little crema with my Europiccola.

Thanks for the kind words. The first two blends (the Maracaibo and the Kimbo) have some robusta in them, so I think that's a big factor in the crema production. In fact, the Maracaibo produces almost too much crema sometimes.