My parents recently gave me their La Pavoni Professional from the early 1980s. It had been neglected for years, but it was in decent shape. I started with decalcifying the boiler with durgol and immediately noticed the output contained small flecks of brightly shimmering stuff I could only assume were bits of chrome, along with other crud.

I did a gasket overhaul and ran a few cups of water through the group. All of the crud was gone, but still some flecks of chrome. I shook the whole unit in hopes to suspend the chrome bits in the water and then immediately dumped the contents. I repeated this several times.

This weekend, I tried running water through the boiler and group again, only to see a few small flecks. This has me concerned. I don't think I or my guests should be consuming chrome, so I'm turning to you for some advice.

What's my next course of action? The boiler has never been loose, so I'm apprehensive about removing the boiler and heating element. I do see some flecks sitting below the heating coils, but clearly I can't reach in there to grab them.

Thank you!

I think you have no choice
Remove the bottom base of the boiler with heating element and clean it deeply
alberto

I do not think there is cause for concern, because the flecks of metal are going to be filtered out by the coffee plug. Furthermore Chromium is absolutely required for life. However, Cr6+ is dangerous when breathed but you are not going to put strong oxidants in your espresso machine to make it! Cr3+ deficiency is a LOT more common than many people realise. Chromium metal forms oxide coats that are extremely resistant to being dissolved that is why it is used for plating so many things.

I dont think the inner part is chrome plated. The flakes should be something else. Maybe it came from the portafilter? Or somewhere near the group. Usually, only the exposed part is chrome plated.

if the stuff is loose and it is inside the boiler, you might have some success by inverting the machine over the sink and blasting away with hot water and the sink sprayer until it comes out clean.

I also had a similar problem in the past.
in the lower part of the boiler, a sort of coating was partially detached from the wall and formed curls that sometimes came off and fell to the bottom
I don't know what it is, as I though that inner boiler walls were not coated.
Same thing also occurred on the base, below the heating element.
I solved only by opening the boiler and gently scratching the surface to make it smooth by removing the detached coating.
Then it would be useful a treatment of the surface to prevent corrosion.
alberto

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. While working to replace the sight glass, I noticed where the sight glass standoffs come into the boiler, there was a bit of flaking chrome. I'm sure rpavlis is absolutely spot on about the coffee puck retaining most if not all of the chrome flecks. I'll move on to my next problem in a separate thread...pressure. After replacing all of the gaskets, I'm still having a pressure problem.