I am a beginner and got a Rancilio Z11 for cheap from an hotel. I changed the electricity with an electrician and now this 2 groups beast is connected to my 220v outlet, and heats up in 40 minutes. Pressure in the boiler is 0.8 bar max and a lot of steam goes to the cup warming plate. Now I am not sure if this means leakage or feature to warm the cups. somebody has a suggestion here?

The water pressure gauge shows 7.5-8 bar, not that bad, as there is no external pump connected. It is the pure pressure of my water system...

Now the coffee comes out very fast, 5-9 seconds, even on the finest position of my cheap cuisinart burr grinder and a lot of tamping and overfilling. I suspect it is the grinder and yes I am looking for this super jolly mazzer on the used market

but what should be my strategy? There are several things to change, but I need some ideas. Is an espresso machine without a pump but nearly 8 bar on the gauge a useful starting point to change the grinder etc... Or is it anyway obligatory to buy this pump and go on with the grinder afterwards... ?

the coffee / espresso is not that bad, a little whitish crema and a flavorish taste which is better than my ama milano...

thank you for your advices,

kind regards from geneva,

hubertus

You are going to need a good grinder.. that is for sure.

Also important factors are the coffee you are using! Is it old? where is it from?

As far as the pump, if your line pressure is 8 bar you could do without it.. you are sort of in between the pressures achieved by pump and lever. It all depends on your taste.

Any photos of your R11?

8 bars of mains pressure is way too much. Most machine spec an input pressure of 2-4 bars. Pressure that high could cause issues. I would recommend getting a pressure regulator to lower your line pressure and put a proper pump on the machine. 130 psi mains can cause a lot of other problems as well. You may want to put a regulator on your house mains and drop the pressure. It will ware out all the seals in all of your faucets/toilets/etc... and a lot of appliances have a maximum input pressure. Exceeding it can cause solenoids to fail and internal plumbing to fail/burst.

Thank you for your replies... We are renting the house and the pressure comes from a line who has a pressure regulator just before the valve connecting it to my machine. Might the regulator augment the pressure? not sure if he can do this...

here are some photos... I just made another espresso, 14 seconds, far to short but the taste is not bad. I think next step will be a proper grinder. here in france are a lot of santos grinders (they are from lyon, 140 km to the west). santos makes very good orange juice presses, I have one. but the quality of their grinders, I cannot judge. The reviews on the board are not bad, and there is some one offering this grinder used for 120 dollars.... I will see and let you know !

It does sound strange that it works without the pump. Imagine trying to make a shot of espresso only from the pressure from your faucet. Pehaps this regulator you speak of makes pressure? When you push the shot button is there any pump noise? Perhaps there is an internal pump?

I have the exact same machine sitting in my garage waiting for me to get tired of my lever machines. This may never happen, but I am curious to try it. I too need to get the electrical set up before I can do so. Mine came with the flowjet pump too.

Keep us updated on the progress!

pc

yes it is somewhat strange. I think I will look for an external pomp.

What do you think of the boiler pressure, should it not be a little more than 0.8 bar? Is it normal that steam comes from the machine or is this normal for heating the cup holder??? It is mostly the noise which makes me doubt (I would not like to have this in my kitchen, the machine is in the cave

The beans were fresh by the way, bought at a local coffee roaster, but I will try to have really fresh ones (I mean will ask the guy when they were roasted)...

the vacuum breaker valve probably needs to be rebuilt.

You can unscrew it and soak it in citric acid to descale it and that should stop the problem.

would this be around point 15 on this image (vacuum breaker valve) ?



thanks

No, that is the emergency pressure release valve. If you boiler pressure gets to high, say from a stuck pressurestat, that will pop to vent the pressure in the boiler so it does not explode. the vacuum breaker is the entire assembly marked 1. On a machine that size 0.8 bar is plenty for the boiler. I use to run 0.7-0.8 on my two group Faema.