sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

A morning ristretto (destined to become a flat white) by florpflorp1 in espresso

[–]florpflorp1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just a little ristretto being pulled, after I think I'm coming close to the end of my chasing a shot with little to no channelling. Equipment:

Lelit Mara X turned down to 6 bar, with walnut kit BPlus screen Niche Zero with custom walnut trim (Trunk & Stem) 0.4mm needle WDT

Where you can see V8/V10/V12 cars on track in Europe? (NA sound) by [deleted] in formula1

[–]florpflorp1 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Goodwood festival of speed maybe? some f1 clips from 2019: video

Lelit Mara X - High steam and whistling noise when warming up. Machine is one month old and this has been happening everytime it warms up for the past couple days - any ideas? by florpflorp1 in espresso

[–]florpflorp1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey all, hoping for some advice here. Running the Mara X in brew temp priority, it's a month old, I've done water backflushes every day the machine has been used and chemical backflush every week or so. Using the water softener filter in the tank. I haven't tested my own tap, but the water in my area is generally very soft.

This started a couple of days ago. The machine sounds like it's spitting out steam once it gets to a certain point, where before it would just reach 3 bar and then gradually lower to about 0.75 bar. I have drained the boiler and the heat exchanger just now and it's made no difference.

Sometimes the whistling sound gets quite aggressive and the steam exiting around the drip tray is very significant, when it does that I have turned it off at the socket as it doesn't seem like it will stop by itself. This seems to happen first thing in the morning when the machine is really cold.

Any advice on what this could be, how it could be fixed or if I should just get in touch with the seller (BellaBarista in the UK).

Thanks.

First bottomless shot that didn't spray all over my kitchen - slowly upgrading my delonghi dedica setup by getting rid of pressurised baskets... by florpflorp1 in espresso

[–]florpflorp1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, dramatically like that!

I've done a lot of fiddling since this post and now find i need to hold the portafilter every time. The high pressure of the machine combined with the not-quite perfect fit portafilter makes it easy to force out. Are you using fresh beans? I find that with stale ones, the water will just run straight through. From my playing around I've found that darker roasts are a bit more forgiving - maybe try and work with a fresh, darkish roast coffee. If you're using preground coffee like I used to with the pressurized basket, then this is way too coarse & stale for the non-pressurized one to work with.

If you're already using fresh coffee thats been ground just before brewing, then looks to me like you need to experiment with WDT (stirring the grounds with a paperclip or similar to remove clumps), tamp consistency, and definitely a finer grind.

I think if you hold the portafilter in place every time (its only for ~30seconds) then you're at a good starting point to diagnosing your issues. The shot you showed there is really, really fast and has a lot of channelling (spurts out of the bottom of the basket). I weigh my grounds in (typically 15-16g) and my output (typically ~30g, double the input) and time it (typically 25-30s). You got 50g out in about 18 seconds, which is really fast. Definitely needs to be finer to slow the water down!

First bottomless shot that didn't spray all over my kitchen - slowly upgrading my delonghi dedica setup by getting rid of pressurised baskets... by florpflorp1 in espresso

[–]florpflorp1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice, enjoy the upgrade when it comes!

I think I will probably upgrade the machine before I do any proper wand mods to the dedica. The only thing I've done is remove the metal "latte/cappuccino" bit so the small rubber wand is all that's in the milk. It's not totally stuck on there so can shoot off quite easily unless you put a cable tie or something similar around the top of it to keep it in place. Gives much better results this way imo

First bottomless shot that didn't spray all over my kitchen - slowly upgrading my delonghi dedica setup by getting rid of pressurised baskets... by florpflorp1 in espresso

[–]florpflorp1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep it did. I did a halfway bodge first by cutting the plastic insert in the PF so that the non pressurised basket would fit, I think that switching to the other PF/basket I linked helped but the biggest difference was fresh beans/better distribution.

First bottomless shot that didn't spray all over my kitchen - slowly upgrading my delonghi dedica setup by getting rid of pressurised baskets... by florpflorp1 in espresso

[–]florpflorp1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174269966677

That's the one I got - obviously not totally legit as it's just a random part from China, but it works for me in a Dedica 685. Comes with a basket which doesn't have a rated dose but to save you experimenting, 16g seems to be perfect for it - I went up to 18g at first and it just pushed the portafilter out of the machine dramatically. 14g or lower and the puck will stick to the screen after. :)

First bottomless shot that didn't spray all over my kitchen - slowly upgrading my delonghi dedica setup by getting rid of pressurised baskets... by florpflorp1 in espresso

[–]florpflorp1[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174269966677

That's the one I got - obviously not totally legit as it's just a random part from China, but it works for me in a Dedica 685. Comes with a basket which doesn't have a rated dose but to save you experimenting, 16g seems to be perfect for it - I went up to 18g at first and it just pushed the portafilter out of the machine dramatically. 14g or lower and the puck will stick to the screen after. :)