Espresso machine virgin no more.

[Rocky Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rocky]

Had a day off today to christen the Diadema Perfetta. Had studied the manual (such as it is) all week and finally fired the machine up for morning tea. First time for me and for the machine. First question in my mind was why doesnt the machine suck the water through from the tank to prime the boiler - A quick phone call to Chris explained that I needed to dribble some water out through the wand to allow this to happen. I kind of expected the water level in the tank to drop about 700mls as the boiler filled but this doesnt happen. After about 30mins to heat up I pulled my first shot using the finest grind setting (1)on the Rocky but nothing happened and after about a minute a few drips of coffee started to come through. I dumped that basket and ground the next shot at about 25 and the shot went through in about 10 seconds - coffee bitter & nasty. I ground the next one at 15 and whilst the pour was a bit quick - about 13secs - it had some crema and a good taste. I ground the next one at 12 and it came through fairly similar but taste was good - better than most cafe coffee I drink. I like a little sugar in my coffee and I found that my normal amount is now too much as the coffee tastes so much better (& no doubt sugar kills some coffee flavours).
Machine textures milk great - easy to use & plenty of grunt.
I am finding it a little trickey to know when to stop the pour as the colour is not textbook and I am thinking that the grind needs to be a touch finer - maybe 10/11(flow slower - more crema?).
I am not kidding myself I have got it nailed but it is a good start to the journey.
With a dual-purpose single-boiler like this, how soon after switch-on should I be priming the boiler by running water through the wand? Straight away or after a set period of minutes? You can see Im still worried about burning out the element.

[Thundergod Sleep is overrated Find all posts View Profile Close Thundergod]

Re: Espresso machine virgin no more.

I havent taken sugar since getting my machine.

[Buschy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Buschy]

Re: Espresso machine virgin no more.

I assume your machine works in much the same way as my VBM Domobar dual purpose boiler. The only time it requires a little help refilling the boiler is after steaming. After purging wand to clean, the hot water switch is turned on until water runs through the wand and then boiler is refilled and happy again. There is no need to prime machine after turning on (at least as far as I am aware of.... :-/). Mines set on a timer so its heating up while Im on the treadmill or fast asleep   in the morning. After preheating for about 45 minutes I quickly run a bit of water thru the group just to freshen machine and heat up the filter basket (read that somewhere...) before drying off and grinding.

With a dual-purpose single-boiler like this, how soon after switch-on should I be priming the boiler by running water through the wand? Straight away or after a set period of minutes?  You can see Im still worried about burning out the element.

[flynnaus Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close flynnaus]

Re: Espresso machine virgin no more.

You waited a week? I understand the romance of the espresso experience, but I couldnt wait to unpack my machine and start pouring.

Like a love affair, the first encounter can be awkward, but it sounds like you are Miss Perfetta are hitting it off rather well.

Experience is the best teacher but, unlike life, you can get the lesson before the test. Book yourself into a home barista course and get some worthwhile tips. If you can, get in to a course which allows you to use your own equipment.

Properly steamed milk does taste sweet and, like TG, now I never have sugar in my coffee.

With my VBM Domobar which is also a dual-purpose single-boiler I will run about 100 ml of water through the group head after I switch it on. Running it through the hot water tap would have the same effect. I dont know if the Perfetta needs the boiler priming after steaming milk.

[Rocky Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rocky]

Re: Espresso machine virgin no more.

Day 3. Now quite a few more coffees down the track. Still making the occasional mistake. Poured an espresso for myself this morning that had no crema. I can only speculate that it may have been the single shot using the double basket (I had just used the double basket for a couple of cappucinos & didnt want to get the single dirty) I immediately poured another shot from the single basket and it was fine. Its a black art, isnt it?