Quest for the best espresso Pt. 2

Once everything was disassembled, I had a good idea how all the parts worked together. Next was the fun part. I got to design all the extras that I wanted to to have in addition to the normal function of an espresso machine. The only thing that limited the imagination was physics and the budget, so I decided to design a three phase system to separate the major jobs of an espresso machine. I designed a specially heated reservoir to feed a finely controlled hot water boiler for the espresso shot and a secondary boiler for isolated steam production so that both functions can be run without interfering or adding wait time to heat or cool the system. Implementing these designs would be the tricky part.

With David Schomer's ideal espresso machine in mind, I started by adding the first of three PIDs to the Rancilio, which is a common enough mod. RTD rather then a thermocouple This provides the +/- 1 degree control and instant water temperature read out that I needed for this project. I also knew I wanted to be able to see the pressure within the Boiler to be able to adjust the overpressure valve to allow the pressure to be constant throughout the entire shot. A short time and a few bucks later, and two pressure gauges solved that.
Stay tuned for next week as I continue to unveil each step taken to making this machine reach its full potential!
~Daniel

Quest for the best espresso Pt. 1

Happy Monday to you all! I will be taking the blog from Luke for a couple of Monday entry to detail the transformation of a common household Rancilio Silvia into a double boiler machine. This all started when Luke and I were reading David Schomer's book. We have always approached our coffee with the strictest of procedures, but when it comes to espresso the tolerance for error is practically non existent. Our goal was to create a machine that could be used at home or in a small commercial environment, and to do it on the cheap. At the end of all of this you will see our total cost for all the parts, but for starters the Rancilio cost about $350 used.

Once we got to looking around at the machine we realized something, espresso machines are far less complicated then most people would like to think. The whole machine can be broken down into 3 parts: the pump, the boiler, and the head group. So staying true to the tinkerer ways, the next step was to totally disassemble the Rancilio and make it better, faster, stro.... hehe, sorry wrong project...


The Rancilio Silvia espresso machine is commonly modded (granted its usually minor mods), so we did the first thing that every modder does at the start and voided the warranty.

With the pieces that were in front of us, we were able to start planning the extras that were going to be added, how all the wiring and plumbing was going to work out, and how not to turn this pressurized boiler into a steam bomb(editors note: I was not happy about the odds I was given that my garage may have a hole in it, so caution, do not try this at home!!). After having all of this layed out in front of us, we knew that this was going to be an exciting project.



Stay tuned for week two as the project comes together, wrong parts come in, and circuits are broken!

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It is monday, and our first 5 pics here!

The Old Wwworld Cafe

This week there are some images from our French press experiment, as well as some other recent images. The experiment pictured here was us deteremining if there was a relation to brewing time in a press and volume.

I think this will be my last week for 5 pic Monday for a while, I kept in going without missing a week since August, but now its time for something new. Starting next Monday watch for either images or videos of Dan's espresso machine project. To give you some brief details, we stripped apart a Rancilio Silvia and rebuilt it into a new machine, the end result will make it "commerical ready."

Stay tuned...:)

This Battle Stat...err Roaster is now Fully Operational!

Tonight we are up and running smooth. One week ago, it took me several days to produce roughly 12 lbs of coffee for an event. Tonight, I did 8lbs with 3 batches in under and hour, and those are HALF BATCHES. It is quite exciting to see it all come together.

I owe a thanks to Sindy and Dom for helping see us through to this point, <3 you guys!

www.theoldworldcafe.com

Roaster is in...it needs a propane line!

So our 6 lb roaster arrived in today, after moving it multiple times (it weighs a few hundred pounds...that was not fun), we got it in place. With everything ready, we find that no where around here sells a line for us to feed in the propane...so tomorrow brings another challenge. Here are some pics for you all in the meantime!

It's Here!!

Special update with teaser pic!

Net

Well our power supply for our modem went bad yesterday, and today we finally have net again!