Suggestions for improvement with the Rancilio Silvia

[carloz]

Greetings CS members,

I have succumbed to the upgrade bug and replaced my Via Venezia of three years to a 2008 Rancilio Silvia after having read some of the comments on the Silvia. For those unfamiliar with the VV it has a pressurised group handle which allows room for a multitude of  errors with beans, grinder, and really not much needed in the tamping area as well. So I figured it was time to really challenge myself. I did buy a good grinder last year anticipating an upgrade which is the Isomac professionale, I also roast my own beans at home and the VV did the rest for me. Anyway I unpacked the Silvia yesterday afternoon and after numerous experiments with tamping, dosing, pulling shots and after 700 gms of beans I finally poured a marginally good shot this morning which has allowed me some time to sip and post some questions here on CS. My question is where do I go from here in as far as consistency in pouring some good shots ? Any clues out there for improvement. Secondly I seem to have had better results using the double basket and none at all with the single basket. Maybe I should consider getting a, Synesso or  LM ridgeless as recommended by some.        

[WSullivan]

Re: Suggestions for improvement with the Rancilio Silvia

Im sorry Carloz, but the search function is your best friend with regard to this topic, there is a tonne of info on improving shots with the silvia, its common because ppl upgrade to it and all of a sudden, beans, grind, dose, distribution, tamping and temp of brew become so important, people do run into problems often and they have all been answered, search for silvia problems, or something of that nature, make sure you change the search field from last week to all posts and return one result per thread box checked, the forum is your oyster......

best of luck its a great machine!