Coffee

Mar 29

This Astoria grinder needs help

By Sebastiaan Swinkels Current Projects, DIY, Grinding 2 Comments

With this Astoria badged Mazzer Super Jolly i’ve started a new category on my blog. You will find this and my other current projects under, you guessed it, “Current Projects“. I found this grinder locally on a classifieds website. The seller didn’t specify which brand or model it was, but i recognised its shape immediately. The grinder was cheap enough but somehow it was still listed after being on that site for about a month. When i asked the seller if he still had it for sale i was quite amazed he still hadn’t sold it yet. It did look quite beat up, but these grinders are known to stand up to just about any kind of abuse…

Feb 12

Descaling a La Pavoni Professional

By Sebastiaan Swinkels Cleaning, Coffee, DIY, Espresso 22 Comments

Every now and then your espresso gear will need cleaning. You wash the portafilter and baskets after every use, clean the driptray at least once every few days (i hope) and wipe down the rest of the machine every so often. But what about the inside of the boiler? You can’t just reach in with a brush and start scrubbing around. Well you could but it’d be a lot more trouble than i would want to go through. Especially on a Tuesday morning before (!) i had my first espresso.
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Jan 24

New Design and Background Photo

By Sebastiaan Swinkels Coffee, Espresso, General No Comments

As some of you might have seen already i’ve changed the design of my blog from the classic “Twenty-Eleven” theme to the recently released “Confit“. While Confit was originally intended for (small) restaurants etc. it does still lend itself quite good for a regular blog like mine too. The theme comes standard with a background picture displaying a beautiful glass with a beverage of some sort (sorry people i have no knowledge of alcoholic drinks whatsoever) that i changed out with a picture i took myself:

Like i said before new pictures are to be taken with an actual camera, instead of my iPhone. As it turns out the overall tone of the picture compliments the colorscheme of the theme quite well.

This might be a shorter post than the ones i post usually but rest assured i have a couple of long drafts still waiting to be buttoned up and posted.

Dec 30

Restored Mazzer and La Pavoni Professional

Restoring a used and abused Mazzer Super Jolly

By Sebastiaan Swinkels Coffee, Current Projects, DIY, Espresso, Grinding 46 Comments

I’ve been looking for ways to get more consistant shots of espresso from my La Pavoni Professional and one of the few things that kept holding me back was the quality of the grounds. Knowing full well that my Nemox Lux was already producing the best grounds it could, I started looking for a new grinder. I found my grail in Italy, read on for the full story.
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Nov 07

Adjust the La Pavoni manometer

By Sebastiaan Swinkels Coffee, DIY 2 Comments

Ever since I picked up my La Pavoni Professional it bothered me that the manometer always showed 0.4 bars of pressure even though the machine was turned off, the boiler was completely cold and there was no (residual) pressure in the boiler. Even when I disassembled it to replace all the gaskets it still showed 0.4 bars of pressure. When another member of the Kaffee-Netz forum mentioned the exact same phenomena I thought we both needed new manometers. But we really didn’t…

Oct 29

DIY La Pavoni Steam wand Nozzle

By Sebastiaan Swinkels Coffee, DIY 12 Comments

I’ve had mixed success using the standard La Pavoni Professional steam wand to create the illustrious microfoam with regular milk. The La Pavoni comes with a 3 hole nozzle (see pictures). To get decent microfoam you need to be able to direct where the steam goes. The simple fact that the standard nozzle has 3 holes all pointing in different directions makes it virtually impossible to direct the steam into a single direction.

Jun 10

Nemox Lux Stepless Mod

By Sebastiaan Swinkels Coffee, DIY, Espresso, Grinding 30 Comments

First things first

(if you just want to know how i modded my Nemox Lux, just skip ahead!)

Over the last couple of months I’ve jumped headfirst into the new (to me) world of coffee, espresso more specifically. Trying to save money without cutting too many corners I’ve been browsing the web for weeks on end trying to figure out what kind of espresso machine to buy. Eventually I came across a cheap but beautiful La Pavoni Professional. Now it gets tricky…