Re: creama
The silvia has a commercial, 58mm portafilter, which means that (a) you can put a larger commercial basket in it than the stock basket and, so, get more coffee in and (b) the portafilter retains heat very well indeed once it is up to temperature. It also has a steam wand that is is relatively long and has a proper tip on it, rather than the turbofrother that many machines have, which makes it almost impossible to get decent microfoam out of them. The boiler seems to be relatively large compared with other similar machines, with the result that it is possible to get a massive amount of (wet) steam out of the machine. The machine is exceptionally simple internally. Basically, it seems to have been cobbled together from cheap standard parts that rancilio had lying around, such as a really crappy commercial group head. This means that with proper cleaning, TLC and replacement of the wearing parts there is no reason why your grandkids couldnt potentially still be using it.
That said, there are plenty of down-sides to the silvia. Many people feel that it is necessary to "temperature surf" it in order to get the water temperature within the ballpark of what we would like to brew our espresso at. That means that water needs to be run through the boiler to cool it down, so that you are starting from a repeatable point, then the thermostat kicks in the boiler element. Once the boiler element has finished heating, the water is too hot, so it is then necessary to wait a bit. This means that it takes a bit more time to brew a shot. One misconception is that the silvia needs to be temperature surfed to be acceptable and other similar machines do not. Id imagine that most similar machines would exhibit the same temperature variation ... its just that there is a vast bulk of writing on the internet about silvia and temperature ... in other words, silvia owners tend to be concerned about such things. Then there is the waiting time from brew to steam. Unfortunately, here, too, the operator really needs to know what theyre doing. The way that the machine is intended to work is that the steam thermostat is engaged and that starts the water heating to produce steam. When the element (and the indicator light) goes off, you start steaming. If you do that, you will have a blast of very powerful steam that will then dribble down to a pathetic hiss. My preferred way of doing it is to start steaming with the element on, so that the steam thermostat keeps the element producing more steam. This results in heaps of pressure, even compared with some of the more expensive prosumer machines, although the steam is a lot wetter than with those machines.
How good a silvia is is a question that can only be answered relative to what else you are comparing it with. Compared with anything else in the price bracket that you mention, it has a lot going for it. Compared with prosumer machines like the Maver Marte or the Giotto, it is pretty bad .. but such machines cost multiples of what the silvia costs. Unfortunately, we arent yet in a position like that in the US, where the prosumer class of machines is a lot cheaper.
The new "dark horse" is the sunbeam EM6910. There seem to be a few people who are fans of the previous model, the EM6900, despite having multiple machines fail on them and new ones replace them. I dont know what the quality of the milk coming out of the new machine will be like, but if sunbeam has learnt from the guinea pigs that bought the EM6900, it might be a bit more of a convenient machine than the Silvia. Another machine in the price bracket is the ECM Botticelli, which seems to be very similar to the Silvia on paper.
I hope that I wont be repeating everyone ad nauseum and boring you buy saying that the grinder is more important than the machine. I have used both the Rocky and the Mazzer Mini with my Silvia and there is no doubt that the shots from the various Mazzers that I have had were A LOT better than from the Rocky. Also, with the stepless adjustment on the mazzers I was able to dial the extraction in exactly how I wanted it, rather than having to work within the limits of what the Rocky gave me. The Compak K3 Elite seems to perform similarly to the mini for a few hundred dollars less, but it has a motor that is a bit less powerful. Hopefully the new doserless K3 will arrive soon, at a hundred or so less than that again. That said, the current best value grinder, IMHO, is probably the Iberital Challenge.
Lastly, it took me a lot of effort and experimentation to be able to make great coffee on the silvia (and even then, its inconsistent). Given that some people are amazed since day one, it might just be that Im setting the bar ridiculously high by comparing the silvia to commercial machines, but I still think that even those people would agree that getting some proper training will skip you ahead several months in the learning curve.
... hope thats of some use,
Luca

Originally posted by jimandlet link=1161683944/0#10 date=1161766574
That said, there are plenty of down-sides to the silvia. Many people feel that it is necessary to "temperature surf" it in order to get the water temperature within the ballpark of what we would like to brew our espresso at. That means that water needs to be run through the boiler to cool it down, so that you are starting from a repeatable point, then the thermostat kicks in the boiler element. Once the boiler element has finished heating, the water is too hot, so it is then necessary to wait a bit. This means that it takes a bit more time to brew a shot. One misconception is that the silvia needs to be temperature surfed to be acceptable and other similar machines do not. Id imagine that most similar machines would exhibit the same temperature variation ... its just that there is a vast bulk of writing on the internet about silvia and temperature ... in other words, silvia owners tend to be concerned about such things. Then there is the waiting time from brew to steam. Unfortunately, here, too, the operator really needs to know what theyre doing. The way that the machine is intended to work is that the steam thermostat is engaged and that starts the water heating to produce steam. When the element (and the indicator light) goes off, you start steaming. If you do that, you will have a blast of very powerful steam that will then dribble down to a pathetic hiss. My preferred way of doing it is to start steaming with the element on, so that the steam thermostat keeps the element producing more steam. This results in heaps of pressure, even compared with some of the more expensive prosumer machines, although the steam is a lot wetter than with those machines.
How good a silvia is is a question that can only be answered relative to what else you are comparing it with. Compared with anything else in the price bracket that you mention, it has a lot going for it. Compared with prosumer machines like the Maver Marte or the Giotto, it is pretty bad .. but such machines cost multiples of what the silvia costs. Unfortunately, we arent yet in a position like that in the US, where the prosumer class of machines is a lot cheaper.
The new "dark horse" is the sunbeam EM6910. There seem to be a few people who are fans of the previous model, the EM6900, despite having multiple machines fail on them and new ones replace them. I dont know what the quality of the milk coming out of the new machine will be like, but if sunbeam has learnt from the guinea pigs that bought the EM6900, it might be a bit more of a convenient machine than the Silvia. Another machine in the price bracket is the ECM Botticelli, which seems to be very similar to the Silvia on paper.
I hope that I wont be repeating everyone ad nauseum and boring you buy saying that the grinder is more important than the machine. I have used both the Rocky and the Mazzer Mini with my Silvia and there is no doubt that the shots from the various Mazzers that I have had were A LOT better than from the Rocky. Also, with the stepless adjustment on the mazzers I was able to dial the extraction in exactly how I wanted it, rather than having to work within the limits of what the Rocky gave me. The Compak K3 Elite seems to perform similarly to the mini for a few hundred dollars less, but it has a motor that is a bit less powerful. Hopefully the new doserless K3 will arrive soon, at a hundred or so less than that again. That said, the current best value grinder, IMHO, is probably the Iberital Challenge.
Lastly, it took me a lot of effort and experimentation to be able to make great coffee on the silvia (and even then, its inconsistent). Given that some people are amazed since day one, it might just be that Im setting the bar ridiculously high by comparing the silvia to commercial machines, but I still think that even those people would agree that getting some proper training will skip you ahead several months in the learning curve.
... hope thats of some use,
Luca

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