The pre-Millennium portafilter gasket is the same as the Elektra one. It should work.

If you have trouble turning off your double spout, have you tried applying heat? On my very rare machine I'm leaving the double spout in place.

OldNuc wrote:Try a small ball of modeling clay in the corner of the basket as that is where they hit. Quicker than attempting to measure.

Great idea, I had thought about doing that. I'll give that a try.

drgary wrote:The pre-Millennium portafilter gasket is the same as the Elektra one. It should work.

If you have trouble turning off your double spout, have you tried applying heat? On my very rare machine I'm leaving the double spout in place.

Excellent news, I may pop the square profile out and try that one.

I haven't tried turning it off yet as I didn't want to ruin such an annoyingly expensive part. If it was original, I wouldn't even attempt it.

By the way Gary, I know you solved your steam valve gasket by making one, but I found that I had the same knob (among other similarities, such as the mystery hole) on my machine. The knob is reverse threaded on the shaft and after it breaks free it does detach from the shaft. I found that leaving it threaded into the machine made it a lot easier.

Interesting to learn the knob is reverse threaded. BTW I didn't make a different gasket. I just slit mine, popped it on and reconnected the slit ends with a dab of superglue. It works perfectly.

After a few days of experimenting, I think I am finally getting the machine dialed in. It's certainly a different process than a semi-auto machine.

At first, I was getting a thin shot, with a quickly dissipating crema. The flavor wasn't bad, but the mouthfeel was way off. I changed the grind a bit and read a few more threads about techniques and pulled a few more. This morning I pulled the first shot that I was happy with.



16g of Intelligentsia Black Cat, Elektra double, 30s pre-infusion, 4 Fellini pulls, and then the final pull. (Sadly I forgot to weigh the output, but I suspect it was in the 30-35g range)

At first pull, I thought this shot was going to be awful. There was not much resistance right at the start, it wasn't spongy, it just felt different than the previous times. However, in the previous times I never had a steady stream of espresso, this time it was visually a nice pour.

The taste was great and the mouthfeel was there this time. There is surely a lot more to learn, but I feel as now I am on the right path. I'm still running distilled water in the machine as recommended earlier and it seems to be cooperating with the Black Cat.