The Grind: February 2010

Seattle Coffee Gear’s monthly newsletter, The Grind, landed in an email box near you today — and if it wasn’t near enough for you to actually read it, you can do so here on the site or make sure you get up close and personal next month by signing up for future editions.

This month, we talk about the different functional types of espresso machines, include a recipe for Indochine Lemon, point you to our manufacturer manual resource on Brown Bean and introduce you to a few new products we have in the store. What you won’t see, however, is The Grind Special, which is for subscriber-eyes-only. Sign up to get that little bit o’ goodness every month.

Ask the Experts: Can I use Lemon Juice to Descale my Machine?

DIY lovers are all into the idea of using lemon juice or vinegar to descale their machines, but while the latter will leave a nasty residue and we don’t recommend it for that reason, the former just isn’t concentrated enough to do as an effective job in as an efficient manner as a concentrated citric acid solution like Dezcal. This is what we find out from Gail, plus she makes freaky faces and it’s worth watching just for that.

ECM vs. ECM Manufacture

Since we’re fairly vocal proponents of Rocket Espresso, we often have older models produced by the previous manufacturer, ECM, coming into our repair center for tune-ups, parts replacements and general repairs.

A couple of weeks ago, we had an older ECM Giotto come in for a seemingly simple repair, but it spiraled into the mire once we realized that this wasn’t just any Giotto we were dealing with: It was an ECM Manufacture Giotto. Apparently, the German company was a distributor of the Giotto and the Cellini products, eventually deciding to bring the production of these machines in house. Despite facing legal action from the Italian ECM company, the German company built and distributed their version of the machine for some time — the external design very reminiscent of the original machine, and with the ECM Giotto or Cellini name badges on the machine. A few years ago, they spun off the machines under their own names — like Technika, Barista or Mechanika — so now it’s easy to tell the difference between these machines. You can also look at the ECM logo itself to determine if you have a German or Italian produced model: The ECM Manufacture machines reference Heidelberg instead of Milan.

If you have an older version of an ECM Giotto or Cellini that you purchased in Germany, keep in mind that the internals and parts for the German-produced versions of the machines are not the same as the original Italian versions. Before having the machine repaired, make sure who you’re working with has access to the ECM Manufacture-specific parts. We poked around to see if we could find anyone who sells or has parts for these and, as of this writing, we weren’t able to find anyone who imports these models into the US.

Ask the Experts: What’s Scale Build-Up?

We talk regularly about descaling a machine, but to what are we exactly referring? In this video, Gail shows us the dirty truth about scale build up.

Ask the Experts: How Do I Descale a Heat Exchanger?

We have descaled a single boiler before, but have had a few requests on how to perform this on a heat exchange espresso machine. Gail broke out the Rocket Giotto Premium Plus and showed us how it’s done. Word.

Comparing Heat Exchange Espresso Machines

A lot of folks want to know some of the similarities, differences, pros and cons of the heat exchange espresso machines we carry, so we asked Gail to walk us through several different models and give us the goods.

In this video, she discusses the Rocket Cellini & Giotto, the Quick Mill Anita & Andreja, the Grimac La Valentina and the Pasquini Livia 90. The latter two come in either semi-automatic or programmable automatic versions, while the first four are lever-controlled semi-automatic only.

Attack of the Killer Scale

Look, we’re not joking. Yes, there are a lot of things we poke fun at and crack wise about, but scale build-up in your boiler is absolutely not one of them. And it will never be — oh no, we are deadly serious about this.

Okay, not really, but scale build-up is often underestimated by folks. They think that by using filtered or bottled water, they won’t need to descale their espresso machine, and this just isn’t the truth. While these waters may have other impurities removed from them, they often have the same mineral content (and, in the case of bottled water, it may even be significantly higher, depending on the source) as your tap water. Using distilled water, water put through a reverse osmosis or a commercial-grade water design system like Cirqua are the primary methods for keeping lime and calcium from building up in your espresso machine’s boiler and related water works, but it’s important to note that mineral content in water does play an important role: It contributes to the flavor.

So if you don’t like the way the water from these treatment sources taste, how do you think it’s going to make your coffee taste? We recommend using water you like to drink to make espresso, which will often involve a regular descale to keep everything working well. Scale build-up will symptomatically show up as failure or very slow to heat up, not enough steaming pressure and/or leaking out of the steam wand and the brew head. Here in the Seattle area, we have pretty soft water, but other areas of the country have very hard water — and if you’re pulling straight from a well instead of the municipal water supply, you likely have a high mineral content.

A few months ago, we received a Rancilio Silvia V2 that was a few years old on a trade-in. The owner lived in Southern California and had never descaled the machine, so the guys put it through a commercial level descale just to start it off — high intensity citric acid was pulled into the boiler and allowed to sit overnight. When they came in the next day and rinsed it through, the machine was still exhibiting signs of scale build up, so they decided to crack it open to see if it was something more than scale. What they found is in the pictures accompanying this post — yes, this is scale build-up that was not able to be dissolved by the citric acid over a 24 hour period. The guys cleaned it out thoroughly and now it’s working just fine — and, obviously, this is representative of scale build up using the municipal supply in Southern California and will differ by region — but if the original owner had continued to use it without descaling, eventually everything would have burned out. It was caught just in time, however, so now it has a happy home somewhere else.

Not sure how to descale? Watch Gail descale a Rancilio Silvia and give tips on how to do this on other types of espresso machines.

Call for Reviews: Rancilio Silvia

Over on our new resource website, Brown Bean, we have been working hard on putting up editorial reviews of all kinds of espresso machines. We’ll be eventually expanding the reviews to include other kinds of equipment — grinders, accessories, even coffee — but a big part of us being able to provide a full picture of a machine’s performance is to balance our editorial opinion with user reviews like yours.

If you have a Rancilio Silvia, we’d love it if you could take the time to fill out a review on Brown Bean. You’ll have the opportunity to share your experiences, talk about the pros and cons of the machine and indicate whether or not you recommend it.

We currently have a couple dozen machines listed and reviewed up there, so if you don’t have a Silvia and would like to review your machine, check them out to see if there’s a listing. We’re always adding to it, but if your machine isn’t listed, please email us with the make and model and we’ll promptly list and review it if possible, then let you know when it’s ready for your feedback.

Looking forward to learning more about your thoughts on your equipment!

Crew Review: Bottomless Portafilter

If you’re interested in fine-tuning your grind and tamp — or just really love a good show — the bottomless portafilter provides a great tool for calibrating your technique. In this video, Gail shows us how it’s done.

Does Size Matter?

For some of us it does! Especially if you’ve got a snug kitchen into which you’d like to introduce a high-end espresso machine. In this video, Gail and Kat line up several models of machines and measure them out so you can see how they compare, dimension-wise.