Good morning everyone,

I've googled and searched but have come up empty, hopefully someone out there has experienced this problem and has some advice. I rarely make milk drinks these days, but the few times that I have, since receiving my Bosco Sorrento, I've noticed a weird chemical/plastic taste. I chalked it up to a bad shot or scalded milk due to the powerful steam, but I just noticed that it is, in fact, the steam that has an odd smell. I ran the steam into a cup and tasted the water residue and discovered that it was the source of the odd taste. Water from the group or the water wand has no such odd taste or smell. After running the steam for a while, the smell goes away, only to come back after some idle time. Before I start to disassemble things, has anyone come across such a problem?

If I'm not mistaken, the Bosco Sorrento is a dipper machine. That is, it has a tube that goes nearly to the bottom of the reservoir. On some dipper machines (for example my Zirconi Riviera Eagle), when the shot is finished, the dipper tube can ingest some coffee and fine grounds. Over time, these build up in the boiler. I found that I had to take the PF off the machine as quickly as possible to minimize this. Careful, though, too soon and you might get PF sneeze sue to some pressure still in the PF. It also helps to put the PF back on, empty, but with the basket, and give the thing a partial pull. If you don't put the basket on, you'll get too high a flow and steam, which I suspect isn't all that good for the seals. The goal is just to clear the tube of anything that might have been ingested. As for the immediate problem, I suggest you drain and flush thoroughly. In my case, I had to take the Riviera apart, as crud had invaded the pipe that goes to the pressurestat and another pipe that is used for filling/draining.

The odd thing is that the water from the group and the water wand are fine. No smell or odd taste. It's only the steam. I would think that the boiler water is fine in that case. I ordered a steamy wanda and some Joe Glo as per Ryan's recommendation. I guess I'm going to have to take the steam wand off and give it a good soak.

So the Bosco hits keep on coming. I took Ryan's advice and disassembled the steam wand and soaked it in Jo Glo. I found thick black grease around the ball joint of the steam wand that smelled awfully similar to what I was picking up in the steam. After cleaning everything and reapplying Dow grease I noticed that one of the two gaskets inside the spring assembly was pretty chewed up and and barely holding on. Of course during the reassembly it broke. I sent a pic to espresso parts to see if they stock these gaskets but they do not. I can't imagine the steam wand is a custom Bosco part, does anyone recognize the gaskets in the pic? I'd like to avoid having to order a tiny gasket from Italy if I can. Thank you!

After further research, it appears to be a Faema o-ring part 616686 from Nuova Ricambi. Espresso parts doesn't carry it and Nuova Ricambi won't sell direct to the public. Does anyone know of a domestic source for such an O-ring?

https://www.coffeeparts.com.au/ecm-spar ... ter-valves gives "O-ring 1.9 mm - Internal Ø 7.2 mm Item # 616686"

https://www.cafeparts.com/search.asp finds it by 616686 as well.

Looks to be a relatively generic part, EDPM by default.

If you've got the N/R number, search often finds it by that.

Thank you! I looked at coffeeparts.au before but the shipping was $43 for the gasket. Cafeparts.com, I was not aware of. Looks like they're in CO, I'll give them a try. Thanks again!

Phaedrus wrote:After further research, it appears to be a Faema o-ring part 616686 from Nuova Ricambi. Espresso parts doesn't carry it and Nuova Ricambi won't sell direct to the public. Does anyone know of a domestic source for such an O-ring?

You buy from their distributors rather than from Nuova Ricambi directly. Applying for an account on their site is for distributor status. The US distributor is Sproparts and you can create an account with them easily.

https://sproparts.com/