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Rancillio Silvia v4 boiler clean

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  • Rancillio Silvia v4 boiler clean

    Hello,
    Long time reader, first time poster.
    before I dive head on into pulling my machine apart.
    I’m having a bit of trouble.
    bought a second hand rancillio Silvia. Guy I bought it off didn’t really clean it to much.
    since I have had it. I have descaled it twice. But after first descale. My coffee has been rancid tasting.
    very sour/acidic.
    before any one says under extracted. Ive gone to the opposite extreme that it takes 50 seconds to yield 40ml from a 20g dose just to see what it turns out. Surprise can still taste the acidic sour taste. Have done this with different beans to rule out bean flavour.
    now my question..
    would it be safe to say the boiler has a lot of buildup in it that it is soaking in the descaler and tainting the flavour. Since I have ran several litres of water through it to try flush it out.
    has anyone else had a similar problem with second hand machine?

  • #2
    Have you run some water through an empty group head into a cup and let it cool to room temperature, then tasted it alongside a cup of the same water you put in the tank? If it is sour you haven't flushed enough through. I once had to flush about 20L through.

    Comment


    • #3
      Coffeegronk I once descaled a commercial Brasilia 2 Gp and found I got that acid sour taste after descaling and flushing a few times. The answer was to a lot more flushing. I took the machine outside opened it up and ran water through it with a hose. That fixed it. Admittedly I used diluted hydrochloric acid to descale it.

      Comment


      • Dimal
        Dimal commented
        Editing a comment
        HCL ... Very dangerous to use on any brass components, it will react with the Zinc and weaken the structure. Much better to use a product designed for the purpose such as the Triple Action Descaler or plain old Citric Acid, neither of which will attack any metal componentry.

      • Ted2013
        Ted2013 commented
        Editing a comment
        I take your point Mal.

    • #4
      Originally posted by level3ninja View Post
      Have you run some water through an empty group head into a cup and let it cool to room temperature, then tasted it alongside a cup of the same water you put in the tank? If it is sour you haven't flushed enough through. I once had to flush about 20L through.
      I haven’t tried it actually. I’ll do that tonight.
      20L seems a lot of water. That’s what makes me think there is build up in the boiler that the descaler is seeping into?

      Comment


      • level3ninja
        level3ninja commented
        Editing a comment
        I think it's more that the flow of water into the boilers etc isn't designed to flush everything out. As Ted2013 said if you open the boiler up it flushes out very quickly.

    • #5
      Ran heaps of water through it last night. I think a deep clean is the answer being an old machine.

      Comment


      • #6
        The silvia is just a simple boiler, probably easiest to unbolt the boiler and split it, descale, clean, rinse etc and put back. will be good as new. Should be a very simple job and will save you running your pump with a heap of water. You will probably need a boiler o ring and element o ring(s).

        Cheers

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