Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Freaks... Like those guys in school, uni, who party all year and still come out with top results.... and the rest of us struggle just to make it through....
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Yeah, you should have seen Marika Pluta at the old Maltitude - she could pour DOUBLE rossettas with both hands at the same time within 6 weeks of getting to a coffee machine.
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
I suppose... thats why there are the artists, and there are the wannabes (like me) *resigned*
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Youll need to experiment - getting that blob to rise quickly is the central mystery to latte art - but the mouth texture will be fine even if its late surfacing.
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
I hear ya... When I pour the milk into the espresso, the milk cuts through the crema pretty much all the way until its almost full. After that a blob of white will form on the top which really cannot be shaped by the jug. In latte art videos, the milk cuts through the espresso in the first half of the cup, then after that the white bit takes over and theres where manipulating the jug helps form whatever shape the end result.
Is it the milk that I need to get more microfoamed to achieve this? Or is it amount of milk I use (theres leftover usually, not enough for another glass of latte, probably enough for half)?
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Its the right approach but due to the piss weak steaming of the domestic Gaggias (Im a fan but a realist), you need to do a bit of the shhhh shhh shhhh for the first 5 seconds to get enough air into the milk and then lower the tip further so the steam breaks up the bubbles into microfoam without letting more air in. Once you get the hang of it, its not hard.
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
I did. Trying to constantly find the "sweet spot" while steaming is a bit of a challenge. I was told by an experienced espresso hand (hes done heaps of latte art at Gloria Jeans), that the right way to get consistent latte art quality milk is to steam milk with a soft hissing sound rather than a shhhh shhh type sound. I tried that in the 2 days that my steamer ran out of steam and it was a shocker of a failure. Of course, it could have been the steamer running out of steam too that contributed to a flat milk but when I went back to a more shhh shhh type sound, I got much better milk. A few slightly bigger bubbles got dealt with with a solid knock of the jug on the benchtop, followed by swirls in an attempt to "fold" the milk but I dont think I did it too well.
Still, the end result was satisfying enough. About the hissing sound versus the shhh shhh sound, is the advice I got good or may it be machine specific? Hes mainly made his stuff on Gloria Jeans Commercial machine and that might not work on entry level domestic machines.
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Looking good!!!
Do you swirl the millk in the jug a bit and tap it on the bench to get rid of a few bubbles?
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Looks like my good run of decent lattes continues.. Making a decent looking glass of latte is almost as satisfying as actually drinking it....
Reduced image size down to 640 x 480 pixels to make it easier to view in most browsers,
Mal.

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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Sad when RTFM is misleading... but typically Italian too
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Thanks. Something must have gotten lost in the translation when they wrote the English manual. The manual said that to prime the pump, all I need to do is switch on the brew button and run a cup of water through the brew head. No mention of running the water through the steam wand UNLESS no water comes out of the brew head when the brew switch is on (due to some airlock thing).
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
NewToEspresso....
To ensure the boiler is full (as detailed earlier in this thread
).....
Draw hot water from the steam wand (using the brew switch after opening the steam wand).... when a steady stream of water comes out without any air.... the boiler is full.
This is the same procedure as used for priming a boiler when the machine is first used.
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Because I make at most 2 cups only (but mostly only one for myself) I dont have too many issues with the arm length as I use either a 600ml jug for 2 cups or the 300ml ceramic creamer for myself. Im just tempted to do the mod out of interest. I like tinkering around with stuff and modifying stuff but I might hold off on this one.
Another question, how do you fill the boiler to the full and how do you know its full? As for priming the thing, thats what i do everyday anyway, I switch on the brew button after 10 minutes of leaving it on and run a latte glass full through the PF to warm up the PF as well. Thats what I did the last 2 days too when the machine ran out of steam in the middle of steaming the milk. When it runs out of steam, it doesnt totally go dry but a lot less steam comes out and that causes a screeching sound when steaming and its quite disconcerting. Add to that the milk was pretty flat and it ruined my coffee the last 2 days.
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Some people prefer the Sylvia arm as it is much longer but I just tilt the jug to get the milk to reach. I was saying that the Sylvia arm might not allow the boiler to be able to cycle, as it would release more steam than the Gaggia one (so the heating elements may not be powerful enough to heat the boiler more than the steam loss cools it).
Dosing is as critical as tamping so you need to establish a technique to be consistent with this. I knock the tangs on the PF with my tamper until the grinds stop settling and add more grinds and repeat until the grinds are at my calibration level.
A friend of mine had the same grinder and was able to mod it by adding washers under the burrs to decrease the minimum gap but it led to the death of the grinder (he replaced it with a EM480C and couldnt be happier).
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Re: Gaggia Carezza running out of steam
Im using a Breville BCG450 grinder which is not up to scratch but I dont have the money to upgrade it at the moment. I used the finest settings for the supermarket beans I bought a while ago and it was still doing 7 second shots but I was probably putting in too little coffee in the basket so what has probably happened was that although i packed it in tight at the finest setting (Turkish), there was a lot of room in between the coffee and the shower screen so it basically washed through the coffee displacing it through the gap.
I didnt understand the bit about the Silvia wand causing the boiler to cycle in steam mode, please elaborate. Is it then recommended to mod the Carezza with the Silvia arm?
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