After my post on the thermosyphon stall in Lavalentina today another question. Yesterday my work organized a barista workshop for dummies. I attended it and learned some fun things from the barista.

When steaming with the standard 2-hole tip on LaValentina the pressure drops from 1.2 to 0.5-0.6 and goes back up to 0.7 after 10 seconds which seems pretty low to me (1.3L boiler capacity). I can't get a real swirl which I could clearly see yesterday in the training. My check-valve, 2-way solenoid and vacuum breaker have been replaced so those can't be the problem. I will also try to start steaming after purging right before the heating element shuts off again but from my limited experience with it it doesn't help a lot.

The barista I talked to told me to try and raise the level sensor a bit. I raised it about 1cm and the pressure dropped from 1.2 to 0.8 so that seems to help. What do all the experts here on HB think about this trick? I searched the forum but didn't find much about it just the topic on PID'd single boilers and not on an HX. Does this trick have any disadvantages? My grouphead normally warms to 202F with a boiler pressure of 1.2 and doesn't seem to have a restrictor in it. Does this also sound low? I thought that raising the water level will give me more steaming power and a higher temp on the grouphead, is this correct?

When you raise the sensor you also raise the water level in the boiler since the auto refill cycle stops then the water touches the bottom of the sensor. This also means that the water is now closer to the top of the tank where the steam exhaust is located. The result is that the water bubbling in the tank can travel into your steaming pitcher, watering-down the milk. If you want more steaming pressure you can try changing steam wand tips, or increasing the boiler pressure using the adjustment on the pressurestat.

Thanks for the tips. Played a bit yesterday with the raised boiler level but no real effect. Put everything back to normal and raised the pressure to a peak of 1.25. Starting with steaming when the element is about to kick off really helps to keep the pressure to about 0.8 but still no real big swirl. I'll try to get a one-hole steamtip and see how that goes.

Raising the water level increases the pressure of the steam but lowers the volume of the steam and can make it 'wet' since the water level is high. Lowering the probe will give you more steam volume but at less pressure and it tends to make it 'drier'.

Tried some things this weekend and put the level sensor back in its original position which is all the way down. Need to purge the water out and then start steaming just before the heating element goes off. Getting better and better but the 1,3L boiler hasn't got that much power to let the milk swirl really well. I'll have to try a one-hole tip to see if that works.