Hi Everyone!

I've been following this forum for ages but have only just registered. I LOVE great coffee and have a good personality to make decent stuff at home but have never had the ££ to bite the bullet and get a machine. Someone recently gifted me a new 2013 La Pavoni Professional and it's spurred me on to get the rest of the gear. I hope to have great results further down the line.

Whilst i'm still deciding about grinders (I want a hand grinder), tampers, sourcing a bottomless portafilter and just about everything else there is to think about I decided to give the machine a shot -- no pun intended -- and see what my first results were like. My friend down the road has a Mazzer grinder which I'm used to using with his Rocket, so I prepared three variations of fine grind that I thought might be good based on my experience with his machine (all of them finer ground than what he typically uses). I pulled three shots and the last and finest of the grinds yielded a pretty decent shot with crema and flavour (see pic). It was quite short, however.

Here are my first impressions of the machine:

- everything gets really hot to the touch. take care!
- the equipment included with the machine is junk. The tamper is awful, the portafilter doesn't stand up on its own because the spouts are at a weird angle. It's horrifying how little they thought about these little things.
- the plastic drip tray looks cheap so i took it out and put the chrome plate directly onto the chrome basin. I will cut a small thin sponge to fit in between and soak up any spills. It looks much sexier.

A few points and questions:

1) I had too many things to think about on my first few tries to try any Fellini stuff or fanciness but it seems to me that this is necessary to pull a decent length shot -- all of mine were quite short, probably because of air in the machine. Fellini should sort it.. any other suggestions?

2) the boiler and whole apparatus twists slightly clockwise (independent of base) when i screwed in the portafilter. Is there any way to tighten this?

3) has anybody thought of clamping the base of the machine? Or found a way to attach it? I think that would also be useful.

Round two tomorrow.... Thanks for your time!

Matt

The supplied La Pavoni tamper is truly trash! I think stainless steel the best material for the part of them that contacts the coffee.

The present La Pavoni lever machines have a vacuum relief valve built into the pressure release valve, so you do not need to bleed the air from the boiler at each start up. (It is basically like most pressure cookers.) You do need to get the air out of the group, however, by raising the group handle after the boiler reaches its final pressure, you must allow several millilitres of water to escape when you do this. Otherwise you are apt to have a "spongy" and low volume pull. You also need to wait a bit after it reaches final pressure for the group to get hot enough so that the vapour pressure of water can drive most of the air out of the space below the piston as you raise the handle to allow the cylinder to fill.

You can also reduce spongy and low volume pull by doing the following:

Leave the portafilter on the machine during warm up for first shot. (Not later pulls.) Have the coffee all ground and tamped in the filter basket. Quickly remove the portafilter from the group and quickly put the filter basket into it. With one hand raise the handle until hot water JUST begins to escape from the group. Lower the handle just enough to stop the water, no farther, and with the other hand quickly put the portafilter with the filter baset in it onto the group and tighten it. Raise the handle all the way and let the space below the piston fill with water. With the other hand put the cup under the portafilter spouts. Now pull the shot.

Doing it this way will result in the space below the piston being filled with water vapour rather than air as you put the portafilter in place. When the machine is not hot enough, vapour pressure is not sufficient to drive out the air fast enough before the puck is flooded wither water.

The post 2000 group does not tend to overheat as badly as the 1974-2000 one does. However, you can reduce overheating by putting the portafilter in place only just before the shot on subsequent shots. It then serves as an heat sink. (In my opinion a major disadvantage of "naked" portafilters is their smaller heat capacity.)

Be sure to clean all water from the base after each use. Espresso contains substantial concentrations of salts, especially potassium, and allowing it to remain on the base is likely to lead to severe corrosion in time.

On most La Pavoni portafilters you can turn the spouts so that they can stand alone.

It is seems difficult to find non La Pavoni portafilters because the attaching lugs are really sections of a screw, and the thread is LEFT handed on them, others tend to be right handed.

I have owned my La Pavoni Pro for several years now.
I've never felt the need to clamp my La Pavoni Pro. I always keep one hand on the cap to help stabilization during the pull.

I put the portafilter with basket into the group just before pulling.

I use a custom Reg Barber Tamper (HB LMWDP ) with a stainless steel base.

I always release the initial pressure then let it build back up again.

I raise the lever and wait a count of 8 to 12 seconds before pulling the shot....seldom needing the Fellini.

The right grind is very important....it must be dialed in just right...too fine and or too much of a tamp makes it very easy to choke...not fine enough and the pull will just flush through without the necessary pressure and no crema. I have owned two used PeDe hand grinders and neither one allowed me to get a grind fine enough for my machine. I believe there must be other hand grinders that will work with it....I just gave up. I have a Rancilio Rocky which is adequate....hope to someday get a better grinder.

Shorter shots or Ristrettos are the norm in Italy. I use the single portafilter basket, my husband prefers doubles....he uses the larger one. I usually just make a morning cappa....and not every day. I used the advice to plug one of the steaming holes in the tip with a toothpick....that seems to work well for me. I usually open the steam knob by about 50%. I generally weigh the amount of coffee in the basket for consistency.

It's common for new users to find lots of fault with the machine when they're starting out. For some this may be classic buyer's remorse. The La Pavoni does not have the build quality of a commercial machine with stainless steel all around, so you need to care for it in certain ways. Keeping the base dry is essential with this particular machine. Removing the plastic drip tray is a singularly bad idea. If you don't like the way it looks perhaps you can get creative and paint it. But using it and wiping the base underneath it absolutely dry after use are a best practice.

Follow rpavlis's advice and get the air out of the group and the steam wand. Then you won't have a pull that's spongy with air and you'll get a nice, full shot in a single stroke. I have a La Pavoni Millennium Europiccola, which has the same group as yours. The shots pulled with that machine are the equivalent to those made on an Olympia Express Cremina.

It's common practice for espresso machine manufacturers to ship a cheap, plastic tamper. With a manual lever the odd thing is puck preparation is different than for a pump machine. You generally tamp lighter, just to level and provide headspace. A tamper that fits nice would be better of course, but you don't need something expensive to work well. Even distribution is more important than tamping. The tampers offered by Orphan Espresso fit very nicely for these. The Orphan Espresso Slap Shot technique works well using any rubber tamping mat or their Slap Shot device.

Keeping the machine steady is as easy as using two hands on the lever or using one hand to hold the top of the boiler cap while engaging the lever with the other. The coffee shouldn't be so tightly ground and packed that you're pulling harder than 30 lbs anyway, preferably less, which will also yield rich crema. I've gotten used to the feel of my La Pavoni machine and don't do anything to steady it.

For truly consistent shots attach a food thermometer to the group, not just the Orphan Espresso temperature strip. Either is better than no measurement at all. There are threads on this site about that:

Adding Thermometry to a La Pavoni Europiccola

La Pavoni Millennium Owners, Are Temperature Problems Solved?

If you buy a machine where the boiler is exposed it will be hot. There are other choices with enclosed boilers, but the groups are still hot. If you're wanting something more solidly built where you don't have tipping concerns or a plastic drip tray, consider eventually upgrading to one of the prosumer lever machines like a Bezzera Strega or Londinium 1. Even a Cremina can get tippy.