Man - tough crowd on this forum. Tougher than the Harley forum I use quite a bit. Ha ha. Thanks for everyone's responses. I'll get some fresh beans and go from there.

Remember Denver's nickname, too. Boiling water does some odd things under pressure at over five thousand feet, and if you're any higher, it just gets weirder. There is a guy up there that specializes in altitude and espresso, called 'Espresso Smith'. If you can't get the thing to work at all, and you suspect that the altitude might be screwin' witcha, give Tal a call and tell him that Psyd sentcha! You'd have to be pretty up there before Silvia gets too outta hand, but if you are...

I am far from an expert but I have recently gotten the same setup as you.

I never weighed my dose but if I were to make a wild guess I would say your over dosing. I just fill my basket and use a straight edge to scrape the extra off the top. As you over dose you might be making contact with the screw and screen to the point you get channeling. I would imagine you could see that with the naked portafilter. I do believe the double basket that comes with the silvia is a 12gram basket. Now if you got a new double basket with your naked portafilter it might be a 14gram. Try a 12gram dose and see how it does.

Also make sure you get the edges well when your tamping as thats another area I can get a bit of channeling especially with the stock rancilio basket with the ridge on the side. Do you see any pits in the puck when you look at it? Unless I really grind too fine I dont get a soupy wet puck.

Good luck, once you get things set right you'll get a good/great shot 90%+ of the time.

CoffeeGuy wrote:Man - tough crowd on this forum. Tougher than the Harley forum I use quite a bit. Ha ha. Thanks for everyone's responses. I'll get some fresh beans and go from there.

The adage "be careful what you ask for" applies in spades on H-B. If you ask for espresso help, you'll get it!

CoffeeGuy wrote:Man - tough crowd on this forum. Tougher than the Harley forum I use quite a bit. Ha ha. Thanks for everyone's responses. I'll get some fresh beans and go from there.

Not really, just trying to provide some guidance to get started. I guess it would be like posting that your new Road King handles bad and you just cant get the mechanics working correctly, then mentioning that to save money you had them put 5 year old used, hard, bald tires on it.

From one newbie Silvia owner to another... I just got a slightly deeper ridgeless double basket (I guess there is no real standard to these things?) and now using the same amount of coffee, 14.2 grams, the puck no longer hits the screw even post shot. Makes cleanup easier and I know the screw isn't interferring with the shot. On the other hand I can't totally level the coffee bed via my finger swipe as I did before unless I want to try adding more coffee.

What you probably have is a 16g basket. they will work better more similarly to the 14g you used to use if you dose them according to their relative sizes.
Try 16g-16.5g, and adjust for two ounces in 15-30 sec. and see how it compared to what you have been used to.

Silvia will not forgive stale beans; unless they're fresh, she'll just hiss and gush all over the place. This I know from experience. As far as your grind, Rocky should do the job reasonably well (it does for me). My zero on Rocky, where the plates meet, seems to be around 3 also. With fresh beans, I usually start at around the zero point plus 8, so I grind at 11. I fill the basket til it's a little peaked in the middle, level it off with my finger and tap it a couple times to settle, then give a good press with the tamp, followed by a lighter press and a slight twist. Make sure you have consistent tight coverage in the basket because if you give the water an opportunity to channel it surely will. Silvia doesn't take all that long to heat up, around a half hour is enough. I send a shot through the hot water line, then hit the steam button and wait a few minutes as the machine's boiler kicks in and give it a steam shot to clear it. About half the time i do a latte, so i heat the milk before grinding. I then run a blank through the group and blow off some steam. This seems to bring the temp down to optimal for espresso. Then, lock in the portafilter and run about a 27 second shot. Don't be religious about time, use your ears and eyes. One poster mentioned listening to the machine. This to me is very good advice.