Mininova Senior Member Joined: 1 Apr 2004 Posts: 72 Location: Melbourne Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: 1 Gr. Diadema "Electronica" Grinder: Anfim Super Lusso Roaster: Fetish Coffee
Posted Wed Oct 27, 2004, 3:58pm Subject: Attn: All Wega Mininova owners, check your pressure!
For months I have been struggling to consistently reach nirvana for each espresso I pulled. My results were mostly good (sometimes great) but I always felt there was still room for improvement.
I experimented with the pressurestat, grind & tamp and even plumbed in the machine to a double filtered water supply (yes I did include a regulator adjusted to 10psi) but something was still missing.....
So a few days ago I constructed a pressure gauge using a high quality oil filled pressure gauge screwed into one of my group handles and measured the pressure. I was shocked to see it climb all the way to the 10bar stop point (unfortunately the gauge only reads to 10bar so who knows what the pressure was). I adjusted the pressure down to about 8.8bar and ran a few shots. The improvement was incredible! Thinking this increase in pressure was caused by plumb in I tested another Mininova which uses a static water supply (pourover) and got the same result over 10bar.
If you haven't checked your pump pressure then do yourself a favour and have it checked. It is now almost impossible (ok slight exaggeration) to run a bad shot and each one is as good as the last. So good in fact that I no longer require sugar in my espresso. Nirvana achieved!
Skarsnik Senior Member Joined: 24 Apr 2004 Posts: 159 Location: Australia (Perth) Expertise: Pro Barista
Espresso: None Grinder: None
Posted Thu Oct 28, 2004, 11:00pm Subject: Re: Attn: All Wega Mininova owners, check your pressure!
Mininova Said:
So a few days ago I constructed a pressure gauge using a high quality oil filled pressure gauge screwed into one of my group handles and measured the pressure. I was shocked to see it climb all the way to the 10bar stop point (unfortunately the gauge only reads to 10bar so who knows what the pressure was). I adjusted the pressure down to about 8.8bar and ran a few shots. The improvement was incredible! Thinking this increase in pressure was caused by plumb in I tested another Mininova which uses a static water supply (pourover) and got the same result over 10bar.
Posted Thu Oct 28, 2004, 11:31pm Subject: Re: Attn: All Wega Mininova owners, check your pressure!
I've been putting off doing this on my Silvia but time is near ...
I was intending to place pressure gauge on steam wand and keep it open during shot. Then get a pressure relief valve washer and add it to the existing one (if pressure high) ... measure again ... etc etc ....sand washer down reinsert etc etc.
My machine was set up properly at 9 bar when it arrived. The interesting thing about the internals of my machine is that the bypass from the OPV goes back to the main water supply immediately before the pump. Most other machines route the bypass to the drip tray. Is this a feature of all other Wega machines?
Thanks to MiniNova who lent me his pressure gauge yesterday I found out that my Lyra was also set super-high. I'm experimenting now with a lower setting somwhere between 9-10bar.
Thanks to Doug who lent me his pressure gauge yesterday I found out that my Lyra was also set super-high. I'm experimenting now with a lower setting somwhere between 9-10bar.
Well - to make a long story short, when I first took the top off the machine, I marked all of the the initial settings using a felt pen. I monkeyed around with the pressure valve several times (without any clue as to what I was doing) before trying the runoff method mentioned in that article. Several months after investing in the proper pressure guage and setting it up at 9 bar, I noticed that the felt pen marks almost lined up as per my initial setting. The 15 bar setting that I thought was how it was originally set up was actually after my first attempts at messing around with it.
Lesson learned - don't mess with default settings unless you know what you are doing (but what fun would that be?).
syd Senior Member Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 436 Location: Melbourne Expertise: I like coffee
Espresso: Sunbeam EM6910 Grinder: Mazzer Mini-E Roaster: Many
Posted Sun Nov 21, 2004, 1:49am Subject: Re: Attn: All Wega Mininova owners, check your pressure!
I marked my settings too, just in case, but mine like MiniNova's were really high. I needed about 1.3 turns anti-clockwise to get it down to 9bar. I'm going to be interested to see how this all plays out in the next week or so.
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