gjones1735 Junior Member Joined: 19 Jun 2008 Posts: 5 Location: Virginia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Miss Silvia Grinder: Rocky
Posted Thu Jun 19, 2008, 10:06am Subject: Silvia steam pressure loss
Hi All,
I own a Miss Silvia espresso machine which I purchased new in 2004 from 1'st Line Equipment. It has been a wonderful machine making two to four cappuccino's or latte's a day now for over four years. The quality of the espresso drinks has always been excellent.
Recently, I've noticed a drop in pressure while steaming milk. Miss Silvia used to produce a large amount of steam and could easily froth milk for a single large latte and have plenty to spare. Now she can barely steam one latte's worth of milk and it takes twice as long. Before, she held steam at high pressure for a few minutes after the boiler light went off. Now, if I don't start steaming the instant the boiler light goes off she is unable to steam enough milk for a latte.
I've removed the machines covers and made latte's to see if there are any obvious leaks but I have been unable to find any. I also don't see any water stains around the boiler.
The quality of the pulled shots themselves still appears to be excellent, although the volume of this mornings shots might have been a little less than what I have been getting. Tough to tell with the ever changing freshness of the beans and slight differences in tamp pressure from day to day.
Any ideas of something else to look for or some test to perform would be great!
I don't mind getting a new machine if that's what it's going to take. I've certainly got my money's worth out of this machine and I understand that since I mostly make cappuccino's or latte's I might be better off with a double boiler or heat exchanger machine. I do love my Miss Silvia though.
gjones1735 Junior Member Joined: 19 Jun 2008 Posts: 5 Location: Virginia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Miss Silvia Grinder: Rocky
Posted Thu Jun 19, 2008, 8:29pm Subject: Re: Silvia steam pressure loss
Hi Jim,
Thanks for the note. It has been a little while since I descaled the machine -- I use double filtered and softened water in the unit and scaling has never been a problem before but you never know. I'll also check the wand, it does steam well for the first 10 - 15 seconds so I think it's ok but, once again, you never know. The steam thermostat sounds promising. I'm not sure where it is located but I'm sure the people at 1'st Line will be able to help.
I've probably made over 2000 latte's or cappuccino's with it over the past four years. If it does come down to ordering a part, is it worth replacing anything else on the machine while I'm at it -- pumps, valves, etc.? In other words, is there anything else that tends to break down about this point in a machine's life.
Posted Thu Jun 19, 2008, 9:29pm Subject: Re: Silvia steam pressure loss
Hi George,
The white arrow is pointing to the Silvia 140°C steam stat. The stat with the red dot is the 100°C brew stat, & the one with the little red reset button in the center of it on the upper top side of the boiler is the 165°C safety stat. My Silvia is 7 years 1 month old & I've never had to replace any thermostats. At 4 years old, your grouphead probably is very hard & needs to be replaced.
Do you get any water leakage out of the brew basket around the portafilter head & grouphead gasket & trickling down the outside of the portafilter head/body?
jggall01 Senior Member Joined: 31 Mar 2006 Posts: 477 Location: Kentucky, US Expertise: I like coffee
Espresso: PID Silvia; PID Alexia Grinder: Mazzer Mini E (A), SJ; Rocky... Roaster: Hottop B; Thermometric...
Posted Fri Jun 20, 2008, 5:02am Subject: Re: Silvia steam pressure loss
Hi, George -
I agree with Craig about the grouphead gasket if you haven't gone through a few of these already.
Personally, I don't fix things until they break ;-) But I have an older machine, too, and it is probably due for a rebuild of the steam valve. It is getting pretty hard to close, and it opens noisily, "all at once."
I've never done this, but when I do, I'm going to ask Craig for instructions.
gjones1735 Junior Member Joined: 19 Jun 2008 Posts: 5 Location: Virginia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Miss Silvia Grinder: Rocky
Posted Fri Jun 20, 2008, 7:04am Subject: Re: Silvia steam pressure loss
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for the help. I've got the machine covers off and I'm going to start checking everything again. If the descale and wand cleaning doesn't help I'm going to order parts later today and see if a new steam stat helps. I'll also get a gasket or two.
I did check the grouphead this morning and it is still tight with no leaks. I do have to crank it down pretty hard to make sure there are no drips, however, I'm pretty sure it has always been like this.
I'll post the results from the first round of work in a few days after the new parts show up. Thanks again for all your help.
gjones1735 Junior Member Joined: 19 Jun 2008 Posts: 5 Location: Virginia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Miss Silvia Grinder: Rocky
Posted Thu Jun 26, 2008, 8:27am Subject: Re: Silvia steam pressure loss
Hi again All,
The parts arrived via the friendly Fed Ex delivery man and I went to work on the machine last night.
I started by replacing the steam thermostat. Once I had the steam stat removed I noticed that there was a very fine white powder between the stat and the brass of the boiler. Looked and felt a bit like white talcum powder. Not sure if this is supposed to be there, if it was maybe a bedding compound that turned into a powder over the years, or just what it was. I removed the brew stat as well and there was white powder under it too. Cleaned off all the white powder, replaced the brew stat and installed the new steam stat.
Turned the machine upside down and replaced the portafilter gasket. Portafilter is now nice and tight -- just like new.
Put the rest of the cover plates back on and began descaling the machine with CleanCaf. Over the course of the evening I did two complete descaling's of the machine. I didn't see much of anything come out of the machine but, then again, I use softened double filtered water so buildup has never been much of an issue ( I think ) Ran several tankfulls of clean water through the machine and then filled it for use in the morning.
This morning -- Picked up some fresh espresso beans from my local roaster and went to work... Unfortunatly, there was no change in the machine's performance. The shot's were excellent although they appeared slightly jerky coming out of the machine. By this I mean that instead of a perfectly smooth stream exiting the portafilter the stream bobbled and wavered a bit with increases and decreases in volume. The quality of the shots were all uniformly excellent though. I used two for making Latte's and drank one as pure espresso -- sweet and smooth with good crema. An excellent shot.
The milk steaming was where everything fell apart. The machine roared along for a few seconds and then fell off to the point where I was unable to complete frothing the pitcher of milk.
I continue to have no idea why this is happening. The brew and steam stats appear to be working properly with the machine's boiler turning on and off as usual. it's almost like the volume of the boiler has become tiny. If it was full of scale I would have thought that the descaling would have caused something to be flushed out of the machine -- the blue water coming out of the machine doesn't appear to have any scale in it at all. If it was a plugged wand or pipe I would think that the steam volume would always be low -- as it is, it produces lots of steam for the first 2- 4 seconds before falling off. The level of steam in that first 2 - 4 seconds is what I used to get for the first 60 seconds or so.
Posted Thu Jun 26, 2008, 8:52am Subject: Re: Silvia steam pressure loss
gjones1735 Said:
I started by replacing the steam thermostat. Once I had the steam stat removed I noticed that there was a very fine white powder between the stat and the brass of the boiler. Looked and felt a bit like white talcum powder. Not sure if this is supposed to be there, if it was maybe a bedding compound that turned into a powder over the years, or just what it was. I removed the brew stat as well and there was white powder under it too. Cleaned off all the white powder, replaced the brew stat and installed the new steam stat.
What is under the stats George is thermal heat transfer paste & yours has dried out. To get the best accurate & quick transfer of heat from the top of the boiler to the stat, you should reapply a dab of thermal paste.
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