drgary wrote: I'm not suggesting you need a better machine or a spreadsheet. ..... Clear as mud?

Much appreciated!

Pretty much have been thinking along those lines too. I don't have the other brewing equipment and for now I'm just going with this beautiful lever machine! Given how the morning went I'll be able to stop dreaming about those new sophisticated EXPENSIVE replacements. Actually this one will never be replaced as it has a very special place in my heart.

So first thing this morning I bumped up the pressure to about 1.25 - 1.35 bar and might even go higher. Noticeably better steam for frothing. My first shot was very good, probably the best I've pulled in the few weeks I've had this running. The other great thing, I was studying more on micro-foam and frothing before sleep last night (a thread that you happened to be involved with 9 years ago https://tinyurl.com/y29l42d5) and that information really helped me see some light. With the increased pressure, and the tips from that thread, the frothing went really really well too. Had an actual pitcher full of micro-foam rather than hot milk with thick foam on top. Given that, for me, the higher boiler pressure is really welcome and desired for steaming milk. The group head temp for this machine will just have to be dealt with either by turning off the machine for a bit or using a cooling mechanism. I've started to wrap a wet/damp microfiber towel around the group, back to front, draping over the portafilter handle. Works well and much faster for a quick temp adjustment down.

For reference I've placed the end of the K-type thermocouple wire at the very front of the group head at the point where the portafilter receptacle flairs out. Todays surface contact temp was 75 C., using 12 gms of coffee, pre-infusion 7 seconds, 30 second shot time, forgot to read the shot weight. I used a very slightly finer grind today, and I tamped a little different too, based on something I saw last night. Tried two separate tamps with about half the grinds for the first one. Also adjusted to try and get a slightly firmer tamp on the outer edges.

Well that's the story for today and hope nir dvorai chimes in again with how his thread issue is going. Have a great day all! Back to pull the second shot and try for some latte art...

I put a video up to youtube. Latte art failure! Be gentle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWVal7LxSVw

nice video Wayne!
IMHO your grinding is bit to coarse or your tamping is bit to loose. Normally you want 10 sec. of pre infusion and maybe in the last 9,10 sec. get a small drips of coffee. In the video, the pre infusion looks almost like the extraction.

Why the lever "skipping" up and not going smoothly? lack of grease? or maybe the gaskets not fit well?

your machine looks great, and the steam seems strong. You just need the dome and the eagle (and grit) to make it a whole.

I have some progress. I found a metal fabricator near me (a very cool racing driver guy that builds his own cars) and he tinker with the heating element which was way off centre. It looks kind of defect installation of the coil into the base. Also the probs seems bit longer. I hope they will not touch the base..

nirdvorai wrote:nice video Wayne!
IMHO your grinding is bit to coarse or your tamping is bit to loose. Normally you want 10 sec. of pre infusion and maybe in the last 9,10 sec. get a small drips of coffee. In the video, the pre infusion looks almost like the extraction.

Thanks! Yes I totally agree, would like and have tried a finer grind but apparently the spring is just not strong enough. Yesterday I began thinking I need to put that stronger spring back in. Now I can't remember why I took it out again! It might have been just a terrible tasting shot, wrongly attributed to the stronger spring... I need to keep notes! Ahhh back to edit this before posting. I remember why I took that spring out. Look up a few posts when I put it in and you'll see with that new stronger spring, inlet to the cylinder was mostly covered by the piston. I thought I noticed reduced flow when purging so investigated at that is what I saw. There may be a way to use that new spring or dual spring I suppose even if the inlet hole is partially covered or devise a way to ensure the piston (with new spring) stays up higher like the with old spring. One would think if the system was tight with close tolerances, the piston would be in the exact same position, but I suppose the strong spring just pushed every possible place that's a bit loose in fit to extend down into the cylinder more. I was thinking on the very top of the cylinder where the pivot sleeve rides/rolls/pivots on the upward protruding knob one could build that up a millimeter or two with some sort of cladding. That would also pull the new spring/piston up the same distance. On the other hand, and I guess the reason I switched back if if I can get a decent tasting shot, what am I going for with a lot of adjustments/changes?

nirdvorai wrote:Why the lever "skipping" up and not going smoothly? lack of grease? or maybe the gaskets not fit well?

I guess I was just thinking the spring is not strong enough, but there might be more too it. But like you mentioned above, to try and use finer grinds, if I do the spring just basically stops pushing and it will be a very long time between these "skips" and may not even move at all. It might be a lube problem though, this morning before pulling two shots I used a qtip to put some more Dow 111 on the piston and pivot sleeve best I could. It might have helped a little. I did pull two shots both with ever so slightly finer grounds and the both of the shots looked thicker. The first was similar timing, but the second was very slow comparatively. On the second I think I let it go almost 30 seconds for pre-infusion. To me it's nice to see the whole bottom of the filter almost covered with liquid prior to starting the shot. Not sure that is good or warranted, but it seems good to my mind. This can all be complicated to describe well and maybe to understand what I'm writing! On the skipping lever, was also thinking about the gaskets I used were the slightly larger ones at 24/40mm. The piston gaskets on this website below (Whom I did contact, but decided to go with order from the other place as could get more completely what I needed with one order/shipping) for the old La Riviera were 25/39mm. My gut feeling on the bigger gaskets though was that it's not a factor at all. I really don't think they are causing the skipping, but can't be 100%. Probably is shaft lube and/or spring problem.

http://www.francescoceccarelli.eu/Faida ... acconi.htm

nirdvorai wrote:your machine looks great, and the steam seems strong. You just need the dome and the eagle (and grit) to make it a whole.

Would like an original portafilter and the dome would be very nice too. The machine as it sits now does slide under my kitchen cabinet though! You can see my kitchen is still a very old style. Have a plan for retrofit, but you know how that goes! There is another counter space that doesn't have cabinets right now, but no electrical outlets there (old house again), so the current place is better without an extension cord. I did remove my drip coffee maker to the back room yesterday..

nirdvorai wrote:I have some progress. I found a metal fabricator near me (a very cool racing driver guy that builds his own cars) and he tinker with the heating element which was way off centre. It looks kind of defect installation of the coil into the base. Also the probs seems bit longer. I hope they will not touch the base..

I think there was another post somewhere about a heating element not fitting. I've seem so many pages, but will try to find it. Can't remember how they resolved that one. Post some photos if you have them of the problem. We might have ideas and it could help others too. Best of luck!

Will post links here to todays shots. Im keeping at ~12.0 gm for all shots. These are a bit tighter than yesterday. The thing for me is, and I'm not at all sure about this, it seem like it would be a good idea for the bottom of the filter cup to be reasonably equally distributed with liquid at the finish of pre-infusion, however ever long it is.. If one has an uneven distribution wouldn't the pressurized water also be moving through the puck with channeling and uneven extraction? To me the first of these shots with looser grind is best distribution? (still not perfect though)

nirdvorai wrote: IMHO your grinding is bit to coarse or your tamping is bit to loose. Normally you want 10 sec. of pre infusion and maybe in the last 9,10 sec. get a small drips of coffee.

The second shot was the tightest and indeed the first drip at about 10 seconds. But does it seem like the puck got an even extraction with that tight grind? Obviously I let the pre-infusion go on for 30 seconds. My gut feeling, if I pushed through at 10 seconds much of the puck would have had uneven extraction and some none at all.. ????


I didn't save the shot weights. Didn't taste them all directly. The last one decided to pull twice and it still tasted okay. All made into a latte and tasted good.

1st shot 2.400 numbered rotations on the 1Zpresso JX-Pro, 8/38 seconds

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6Q56ikFgAEjMs3Ev7

2nd shot 2.350, 34/62 seconds

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Y4CPt9BAEfmTfQ7T7

3rd shot 2.375, 13,54 seconds, double pull

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ccZzPK7heN5vCpJH7

I'm not consider myself an expert on extraction and coffee preparation, but it looks like your extraction suffer from channeling. You have places, near the middle of the PF that coffee doesn't extract. Like here:



Are you using the Weiss Distribution Technique? For me it helps to achieve full extraction all across the surface of the PF. But again, this forum is full of people with great knowledge about extraction and preparation, but probably they don't read this thread because of it's topic..

Is your machine base gets warm during operation? I turn on the machine for the first time today. I wanted to check the heating element.
What I notice is that the base gets warm as well. Seems strange, but maybe it suppose to be like that?

nirdvorai wrote:I'm not consider myself an expert on extraction and coffee preparation, but it looks like your extraction suffer from channeling. You have places, near the middle of the PF that coffee doesn't extract. Like here:

Sure definitely some channeling at times. Do you remember which video that was from? Edit: I see it's the first one which had the most course grind. So yep, seems like the grounds distribution wasn't perfect. Need to resolve that. The thickness or syrup like consistency is better than yesterday though.

nirdvorai wrote:Are you using the Weiss Distribution Technique? For me it helps to achieve full extraction all across the surface of the PF. But again, this forum is full of people with great knowledge about extraction and preparation, but probably they don't read this thread because of it's topic..

I do stir it up with some needles most time. Trying some different ideas too. But mostly this poor pre-infusion caused the channeling I'm thinking. So the too fine grind is not so good for me. (???) But I'm really not sure about all of this yet

nirdvorai wrote:Is your machine base gets warm during operation?

Definitely hot and I'm sure it's normal. Nothing to stop the heat transfer.

good to know.

BTW one more think that helped me was changing to step less grinder. I had Baratza Sette 270W which is a great grinder, but the Compak K10 step less is a whole different game. Once I learn the optimistic range for espresso, I found it more easy to dial in and move between machines and keeping my basic "recipe" - 14g in, 10sec pre infusion, +-30sec extraction and 25-28g espresso in cup.

See here my La Peppina in action. Such a great machine:

nirdvorai wrote:good to know. Compak K10 step less.. See here my La Peppina in action. Such a great machine:

Compak K10 seems like quite the grinder. Peppina looks so fun and nice shot. Couldn't easily find a video explaining the Peppina's operation. Do you know a good one? Look forward to seeing what you come up with for a recipe on the La Riviera. Cheers..

Today I ran the machine for the first time to to see if there is leaks. Of course there is.. in the water inlet fitting.

But, I'm pretty concern about the base. I touch it while I was trying to insert the PF to the group and I almost burn myself!
Seems way to hot. The pressure gauge needle stops at 1bar, and the Pstat range is 0.8-1.

Dr. Gary or any other Riviera/Zacconi owner can elaborate on that hot base issue?