Hey guys,

I wanted to hear what everyone's experience was with silicone gaskets and portafilters moving (unscrewing) themselves while brewing.

I installed some of the Cafelat variety on a 3 group Adonis (Victoria Arduino) and the movement of the portafilter is pretty significant. It moves from around 5 oclock to 6:30. So far none of the portafilters have popped off but that is a worry of mine.

Anyone have suggestions on how to resolve this issue? If the portafilter pops off then I'll have to go back to rubber gaskets which makes me sad They make the grouphead so damn nasty after a couple months of heavy use!

detail your "variety", theres different sizes of this gasket, each one to adjust the locking angle.

La_Terza wrote:Hey guys,

I wanted to hear what everyone's experience was with silicone gaskets and portafilters moving (unscrewing) themselves while brewing.

I installed some of the Cafelat variety on a 3 group Adonis (Victoria Arduino) and the movement of the portafilter is pretty significant. It moves from around 5 oclock to 6:30. So far none of the portafilters have popped off but that is a worry of mine.

Anyone have suggestions on how to resolve this issue? If the portafilter pops off then I'll have to go back to rubber gaskets which makes me sad They make the grouphead so damn nasty after a couple months of heavy use!

My personal experience with the Cafelat silicone grouphead gaskets is that after several years I still have no leakage and no movement of the portafilter whatsoever. In fact, they look and feel brand new. The counter says 3298 (averaging around 3 to 4 espresso's per day), so in a commercial enviroment (3 groups Adonis?) this will not take a few years. (BTW I flush without the pump running, so the counter does not count those.)

If your portafilter is worn out then this will happen. I would try adding a paper shim under the silicone gaskets. I have some pretty old bottomless with worn ears and without the paper shims this happens. With the shims the lock in is at 6 and stays there.

If I lock in really tight it also tends to move, there is more give in the silicone than with rubber so locking in really tight is not necessary.

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's reassuring that no one seems to have had issues with these and this is more of a symptom of over tightening (imo).

The machine is 6 months old and the volume they run through the machine is lower than it should be so the ears on the portafilter being worn is not possible 'yet'. The one thing is that the machine is on 14 hours a day which would definitely put more wear on the gaskets. I'll keep an eye on this.... I check the machine every couple months and the gaskets are only 5 months old. Still soft and looking great.

The gaskets are the appropriate thickness per cafelat's and Nuova Simonelli's specs.

The gaskets DO have much more give and compress more than traditional rubber gaskets when locking in the portafilter. I wonder if 'overtightening' is in fact what is contributing to portafilter movement since the portafilter settles right around 6 o clock.

If the portafilter ever comes off then I'll definitely try the shim!

I installed a Cafelat silicone group gasket in my Sorrento recently. With the stock rubber gasket the pf locked in & sealed well at 6:00. With the silicone gasket a close to 5:00 lock in is required as it will leak at 6:00. Haven't had any issues with the pf moving during a shot. Ordered a few shims which I'll play with to see if I can get back to a 6:00 lock in.

Very Nice Machine, but the Bosco Sorrento is a lever-machine and Cafelat makes special sets for those - I guess in one thickness. So you would have to use shims to come back to 6 o'clock.

I think the Adonis uses E61 gaskets, even when it is not an E61 grouphead. For E61 machines Cafelat makes a blue E61 gasket that is .5mm thicker than the red E61 gasket (blue=8.5mm, red=8mm). But shims will work fine as well and are also used for "normal" rubber gaskets. And if the OP already uses the blue gasket ... he will have to use portafilters with thicker ears or use shims, or both.

La_Terza wrote:Hey guys,

I wanted to hear what everyone's experience was with silicone gaskets and portafilters moving (unscrewing) themselves while brewing.

I installed some of the Cafelat variety on a 3 group Adonis (Victoria Arduino) and the movement of the portafilter is pretty significant. It moves from around 5 oclock to 6:30. So far none of the portafilters have popped off but that is a worry of mine.

Anyone have suggestions on how to resolve this issue? If the portafilter pops off then I'll have to go back to rubber gaskets which makes me sad They make the grouphead so damn nasty after a couple months of heavy use!

Hi Lorenzo. Are you using the 9mm gaskets? They should be blue in colour and a 5 o'clock lock in position is very unusual. It is very common for people to want to crank the portafilter really tight with the silicone because they are so used to that with hard rubber ones. Of course there is no need for that.

The gaskets for the past year or so are a step down in hardness compared to when we first launched them. So they have a bit more give than ones from 3 years ago.

Paul

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the response. The gasket is indeed blue so no mistake there but I believe you're right about the user tightening in the same manner as with a rubber gasket. I've mentioned this to the lead barista and explained the difference in hardness/give compared to the rubber version so the issue should resolve itself!

I'll be going to do my 3 month inspection in a few weeks so I'll do some testing but so far no portafilters have come off which is all I'm really worried about!

Paul_Pratt wrote:Hi Lorenzo. Are you using the 9mm gaskets? They should be blue in colour and a 5 o'clock lock in position is very unusual. It is very common for people to want to crank the portafilter really tight with the silicone because they are so used to that with hard rubber ones. Of course there is no need for that.

The gaskets for the past year or so are a step down in hardness compared to when we first launched them. So they have a bit more give than ones from 3 years ago.

Paul

Are the blue gaskets 9mm or 8.5mm, I only found 8.5mm and 8mm on the website .

Thanks, WS