Coffee

SpyderPhreak said:
So I helped a buddy of mine here (a friend from work) that had picked up a sorta-working Silvia off of Craigslist awhile back. A new pump and replacement steam line got it back to working proper. :thumbsup: He recently wanted to do some upgrades, namely a PID like mine, plus a pressure gage and some lighting. I have never regretted doing the PID mod on mine way back when, made for an excellent machine for what I paid (mine is an early one, from around the second year of production).

Anyway, the mods went well, and got me off my ass to add a pressure gage and lighting to mine as well. :cool: Parts were not very expensive, and the installation went well for the most part.

The hardest thing about the upgrade was mine, being an older model, was plumbed with metric Teflon tubing and compression fittings (helps prevent vibration transmitted through the machine from the vibe pump). The newer machines use braided hoses similar to what you'd find under the kitchen sink.

I decided to keep with the theme, and used Sharkbite fittings for the tubing. The issue was Teflon tubing isn't very common (especially metric Teflon tubing), so I tried using readily-available Polyethylene first. It worked for awhile, but the heat and constant pressure eventually caused a failure, and a hose blew off one time as I was steaming some milk. Ugh.

I eventually sourced some standard-sized Teflon tubing from a commercial supplier here in the USA, but they only sold it in 100' lengths, and it wasn't cheap. A few back-and-forth emails later, and I had purchased a "sample" length of a few feet for less than $20 shipped to my door. :cool: The ID was very near the correct size as the original 6mm tubing, and as a bonus, the OD on this stuff (which could be had in 1/32" incremental OD/ID sizes) was the proper SAE size for the Sharkbite fittings. So far, so good! It's held up fine after several months of use. :thumbsup:

Putting the pressure gage into the frame of the machine is a one-way mod. You have to cut a hole in the SS body. NO going back, lol! :p A good hole saw (Milwaukee) worked fine. I used some big bar clamps and put a piece of wood on the backside of the front panel, so I could drill/cut the hole in place without fully disassembling/removing the front panel. But the main power switch and power light had to come out temporarily. It went well.

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While I was at it ordering some parts, I went ahead and got a silicone portafilter gasket and a new, one-piece shower screen. No more trapped coffee particles in the screen, and an easier, better seal on the coffee baskets.

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Here you can see I added the lighting. These are COB LED strips, which I scavenged from a cheap Harbor Frieght light. $2 for the light strips versus ~$10-$15 if ordered elsewhere online, lol. :D They claim 200 Lumens (100 per strip), but they're not quite that much. Maybe 75 Lumens each, but that's plenty. I used some Teflon-insulated wiring, which lasts a long time and is mostly impervious to heat below ~400º. Perfect for this application.

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Voila! :D

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Here you can see the guts in the back of the machine. The Sharkbite splitter, and the lower tube going to the pressure gage, which also has a Sharkbite fitting. The brass compression fittings are original to the machine. There is a stainless steel cover that goes over all of this, and there's potential for the high-pressure supply tube to rub at the bottom of it, so I split another length of tubing to put over the main one, to hopefully prevent any rub-through of the water line. :)

The LED driver module is on the left. I attached it (and the LED strips) with some 3M high-strength adhesive foam double-sided tape. I've used the stuff in a lot of other applications, and it works well. Doesn't come off until you purposely take it off. Recommended! :thumbsup: It gets power straight from the main power switch, and then is directly wired to the two LED strips (they're wired in series to achieve the proper forward voltage and to get the correct amperage to each, since it's a constant current LED driver), so the lights come on as soon as you turn the machine on.

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All done! :cool: :thumbsup:

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All powered up. The lighting proved to be about perfect. Not too bright, not too dim. Shown below in the evening with the kitchen lights on.

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Another shot the following morning. No kitchen lights on, just the morning daylight coming through the windows. This is where I've especially come to appreciate this lighting mod! No need to turn on the bright lights first thing in the morning. :cool: It's just the right amount of light to make your coffee before facing what the day has in store.

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The pressure gage is nice too. Way back when, I built a pressure gage that I could attach to my portafilter, in order to calibrate the pressure of the machine through the back flow valve. It should be right about at 9 Bar. Lo and behold, after all these years, it's still perfect! :D :thumbsup: I do appreciate being able to see how the shot is progressing now though. The gage is giving me pressure feedback to confirm what I'm seeing in a given shot. It's really only confirming what I've always suspected, but that little bit of extra feedback has helped me tighten up my shots a bit more.

Sorry for the long read if you made it this far! :p ;) I'm pretty stoked, the machine is now perfect IMO! :D (At least however perfect a single-boiler machine could be...)
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I’ve worked on a lot of commercial restaurant equipment over the years, I’ve seen plenty of guys make the mistake of not using high temp wire. That and porcelain wire nuts. Regular thhn will not hold up over time. I remember going on a service call to work on a steam table that was tripping the breaker. Someone had changed the elements before and rewired it some, they had used regular thhn and it had melted into the frame. Boom. High temp wire, porcelain wire nuts and glass tape are your friend. Very expensive friends but they’ll last
 
Dcdavis said:
I’ve worked on a lot of commercial restaurant equipment over the years, I’ve seen plenty of guys make the mistake of not using high temp wire. That and porcelain wire nuts. Regular thhn will not hold up over time. I remember going on a service call to work on a steam table that was tripping the breaker. Someone had changed the elements before and rewired it some, they had used regular thhn and it had melted into the frame. Boom. High temp wire, porcelain wire nuts and glass tape are your friend. Very expensive friends but they’ll last
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It's always about the $$$. That Teflon-jacketed stuff I used is NOT cheap! :eek:

dannyp said:
Looks good! SpyderPhreak SpyderPhreak Always fun to upgrade or customize something.
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Thanks Dan! Yep, and the pressure gage was something that has been on my mind for a LOT of years! Hopefully I'll be satiated for another 15 years or so, lol... ;)
 
I can't believe I forgot to mention this! :rolleyes:

I also picked up a new cleaning tool for my espresso machine that I'm thrilled about! :thumbsup: It's a "brush" that cleans up the group head area after using the machine, that flushes all the coffee particles away and leaves the gasket area spick-and-span! :cool: I was a bit skeptical about it prior to purchase, but I was happy to find out that it works extremely well.

It's called the La Espazzola grouphead cleaning tool. It's only available at one particular vendor here in the USA (Prima Coffee, and unfortunately appears to currently be sold out :confused:). It's a bit expensive at ~$38, but I don't regret the purchase one bit. It makes cleaning the grouphead easy and fast, and mine has never stayed cleaner as a result.

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The little "wings" on the brush curl up into the groove where the PF handle locks into the grouphead, and then water is forced up into the area and flushes away any coffee or debris. Works quite well! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: :cool:

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I’ve really enjoyed this brew
 
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I used to like flavored coffees when I first started drinking it as a teenager, but can't stand them anymore. Not only do I dislike the taste, but you get those flavors in your grinder too.

I see on the label that they mention iced. Never thought about trying flavored coffee for cold brew. I wonder how that would turn out.
 
dannyp said:
I used to like flavored coffees when I first started drinking it as a teenager, but can't stand them anymore. Not only do I dislike the taste, but you get those flavors in your grinder too.

I see on the label that they mention iced. Never thought about trying flavored coffee for cold brew. I wonder how that would turn out.
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I tried flavored coffee beans for the first time earlier this year. I bought two bags and couldn’t do it. I added milk, creamer, sugar, still couldn’t drink it. I ended up throwing a few beans in with other coffee to use it up and not waste it. I gave some to the same guy who gave me the cafe de olla. He couldn’t drink it either but his wife loved it. I got my grandma some and she loved it as well. The two I had was vanilla buttercream and red velvet. I won’t buy anymore. I know Monofletch Monofletch had a woman tell him she loved the same coffee in a cold brew

We tried the cafe de olla last night and it wasn’t bad actually. The smell overpowers it tho. That’s my biggest complaint. I can smell the spice when drinking it and it takes away from the fact that the coffee is actually very smooth tasting.
 
A lot of those flavored coffees have a chemical taste to me. The ONLY “flavored” coffee I can drink is Iron Bean Ride or Die. But it’s not “flavored” so to speak.
 
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Fresh-roasted 1# batch of Sweet Maria's #42 espresso this afternoon. Yum! 👅

Knife is a Redmeadow stacked leather, peened stick tang in O1, with copper guard and butt, and African Blackwood, maroon micarta, and Aluminum spacers. :cool::thumbsup: 🔥
 
Heat you don’t have heat! Come to Phoenix:oops:. My Redline coffee maker didnt last a year, waiting to hear back on warranty claim but in the meantime I stepped up and ordered a Technivorm today. Cant wait to try it out!
 
Worldwatcher said:
Heat you don’t have heat! Come to Phoenix:oops:. My Redline coffee maker didnt last a year, waiting to hear back on warranty claim but in the meantime I stepped up and ordered a Technivorm today. Cant wait to try it out!
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Oh, wow. I bought one for my son about the same time you did and he absolutely loves it. He uses it every day too.
My first Ninja Coffee Bar finally died….. well a switch went out. I am looking to replace that now. I might get a Redline….. or wait and see what happens with yours.
 
Monofletch said:
Oh, wow. I bought one for my son about the same time you did and he absolutely loves it. He uses it every day too.
My first Ninja Coffee Bar finally died….. well a switch went out. I am looking to replace that now. I might get a Redline….. or wait and see what happens with yours.
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It definitely makes a good cup of coffee, for the price its hard to beat! They have a 2 year warranty, so hopefully they fix it.
 
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