Hi there,

I have espresso making experience for about a year and just purchased the new Rancilio Silvia 2009. Together with the earlier bought Rocky, I am able to make much better espresso and latte than before when still using Saeco Aroma. However, I am not very satisfied with the taste of espresso made and the microfoam made. After having an extensive research on the web, I found most of the opinions were made around the old Silvia. Hence, I want to seek advice from those who have successful experiences with Silvia v3.

Here is my espresso making routine :

1. Turn Silvia on for an hour (or use Mark Prince's cheat Silvia trick) to heat up.
2. Grind, dose and distribute using Stockfleth's move. Rocky grind level 7.
3. Tamp with Espro clicking convex tamper, which is calibrated for 30lb.
4. Cool flush and reverse temp surf. I have tried, not systematically, the following time to pull the shot in 25 sec :

1:30 min -- too bitter
60 sec -- a little bitter
50 sec -- better

I have to say that I don't know if I've tried any nicely made espresso so got no idea if the taste is okay. But the crema is not like what the others say being 50% of the shot. There is a layer of crema on top but that's it. I already use pretty fresh beans, roasted for about 2 weeks. The roaster runs his own cafe and makes really lovely coffee.

When it comes to milk frothing, after bleeding the steam wand twice, I can make okay foam after changing from a bell shaped pitcher to a straight walled one (600ml). But the bottom part is always hot milk so when I pour, the hot milk comes out first and make the rosetta look like a withered one. I find the 3 hole steam tip difficult to use and it is not easy to maintain the whirlpool in the pitcher as the holes burst steam in 3 different directions.



Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks!

cksaurus wrote:However, I am not very satisfied with the taste of espresso made and the microfoam made. After having an extensive research on the web, I found most of the opinions were made around the old Silvia. Hence, I want to seek advice from those who have successful experiences with Silvia v3.

The changes were mostly cosmetic: fancy driptray, steam knob, portafilter handle. The only functional difference I recall is an adjustable over-pressure valve, which is to say the mountains of advice and videos dating back for years should be applicable to your 2009 model.

Mark's video as part of CoffeeGeek's updated First Look.

cksaurus wrote:I have to say that I don't know if I've tried any nicely made espresso so got no idea if the taste is okay. But the crema is not like what the others say being 50% of the shot. There is a layer of crema on top but that's it. I already use pretty fresh beans, roasted for about 2 weeks. The roaster runs his own cafe and makes really lovely coffee.

Just a guess, but you might try lowering the brew pressure. A lot of espresso machines ship with the pressure set to ESE pod standards (11 bar). Reducing the brew pressure to around 8.5 bar will reduce bitterness and the likelihood of channeling.

cksaurus wrote:But the bottom part is always hot milk so when I pour, the hot milk comes out first and make the rosetta look like a withered one.

It doesn't look bad, but if you post a video of your routine, I will try to offer specific suggestions.

If you just made the switch to the Silvia in the past few days I would not worry about the milk too much yet. I have used 4 machines and each machine required a slightly different technique. Each time I got a new machine it would take a couple of days to get used to the steaming characteristics in order to achieve a good texture. In the end they all produced latte art foam. Some were better some were faster, but they were all capable. I have never used a Silvia, but I did have a Silvia wand attached to my Gaggia Classic and it produced very nice milk, the best of all the configurations I had tried up to that point.

I would agree with HB and say that you should try adjusting the OPV down almost a full turn. Or it would be better to make a sort of pressure gauge to find exactly what your particular machine is running at.

I also feel that your wait time for your reverse temp surfing may be a bit long. But you might have come to this conclusion already looking at the data you posted.

It depends on too many factors to list, but if you are running a cooling flush longer then 1 second the boiler temp can drop rather rapidly. I have been doing two pulse cooling flushes of about 1 second (maybe slightly more). Lock my portafilter, wait roughly 30 seconds, and pull.

I have a hard time telling between bitter flavors of high temp shots, and sour flavors of low temp shots so i am by no means an expert on Miss Silvia. I just got my PID in the mail, and hopefully i can refine both my tastes, and my shots.

I have an older model Silvia and had similar problems frothing milk with her in the begining. I am now using a straight walled, slightly tappered pitcher, and have minimal problems. I still get a little bit of milk at the bottom of the pitcher, but i attribute this to letting the pitcher rest for a minute while i wipe the thermometer down.

-Donovan

I would agree with HB and say that you should try adjusting the OPV down almost a full turn. Or it would be better to make a sort of pressure gauge to find exactly what your particular machine is running at

I would strongly suggest getting or making a pressure gauge before fiddling with the OPV. Older Silvia's OPV's were set at 11 but more recently the pressure has been set lower so 1 full turn would be too much. My is a 2008 model - about a month old (picked up on sale as '09 models were now available).

My OPV was set around 10. IIRC the OPV nut is 6 sided - I turned mine down 3.5 sides (just over 1 half of a full revolution) to get the OPV to 8.6 BAR with water running.

If you are using a blind pressure gauge (easier to assemble) then set it to get 9.0 BAR. With water flowing there is an approximate decrease in pressure of 0.4 BAR.

Thanks all of you for sharing your experiences!

I am thinking of changing the brew pressure but am a bit hesitant since the Silvia user guide does not depict the process clearly. Is there any webpage with photos showing how this can be done step by step?

The cool flush I made to Silvia goes on until the boiler light turns on again. Then I wait until it is off and start counting the time. Perhaps I should try pulse cooling flushes and wait for a shorter time and see what happens.

The new Silvia steam wand has 3 holes which makes the milk frothing too fast to get good microfoam. Maybe I put the tip in the wrong position but it is quite difficult to master than those with one hole tip. The hot milk at the bottom usually amounts to about 1/3 of the pitcher. I guess I should further hone my skill at this.

I will post a video later to show my routine.

Sorry to hijack your track. I got mine a few days back and I noticed that there're 2 water tubes in the water tank. Why 2? 1 is longer than the other but the funny thing is that 1 is with a V cut at the end and the other shorter 1 is without. Why so? Care to enlighten?

One tube is the pump inlet (V), the other is the return from the over-pressure valve. For the longer answer, see Adjusting brew pressure of vibe pump, Vibe pump's OPV (over-pressure valves) explained and I still don't get it: Why adjust the OPV?

HB wrote:One tube is the pump inlet (V), the other is the return from the over-pressure valve. For the longer answer, see Adjusting brew pressure of vibe pump, Vibe pump's OPV (over-pressure valves) explained and I still don't get it: Why adjust the OPV?

That means to say the other tube without the "V" cutting (return from OPV) can be left above the water level, right?

Right.