# La Pavoni Pre-Millennium Problems



## prankard (Aug 24, 2014)

Hey Guys,

I've recently fixed up two la pavoni's I've bought on Ebay. The idea was to kinda fix up and learn about Lever Machines as I'm used to a Rancilio Silvia, and sell off the machines I no longer use.

After much more repair that I had anticipated, I have gotten them both working, one is a Post-Millennium and another is a Pre-Millennium machine.

The Post-Millenium machine I have works beautifully. After a short while I was making what I considered better coffee than my Silvia. It's easier to adjust the slightly course/fine grind with the pressure you manually apply with this machine.

The Pre-Millenium I've tried to use but have failed to get a decent shot from. I know these machines are different to operate, and after having another go today trying to ready guides about how to pull espresso from this one I am still failing. I think it's overheating, but I know we can't adjust the temperature on these machines, only the pressure gauge (which I assume is the pressure of the boiler, not the temperature).

I've tried pulling a shot after turning on from cold, heating once, easing out some water, it quickly re-heats and then I go for the shot.

I have also tried a cold flannel to cool down the grouphead, then pull a shot with similar results.

The coffee generally tastes very bitter and has lots of tannin (like a dry red wine), and always tastes poor. I usually aim to overextact my coffee rather then underextract as I have it with milk. This generally ends with a nice sharp espresso taste which is toned down by the milk. With the pre-millenium I'm getting bitter burnt. If I go to extract normally, it's just bitter and bland/slightly watery.

I've noticed a couple of differences with my machines on how they operate, I'm not sure if this is common for these machines:

The post-millenium (good coffee) takes ages to re-heat the boiler after use or opening the steam value, usually after about 30-60 seconds of the value open it kicks in.

The pre-millenium (bad coffee) is very very quick to get to temperature, after you pull any water it reheats about 5-10 seconds later for a few seconds and is up to temp again.

Another thing about the coffee I'm producing, sometime I get islands of crema from the pre-millenium machine which break apart and float around. It breaks apart like something bad is floating of the surface and doesn't look appetising in the slightest, hard to see in a static shot but it all moves around like little pieces:









Any help would be greatly appreciated on how to get good coffee from this machine. Do you think it's user error or my repair error?

Thanks for reading!

- James


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## hotCUPPA (Sep 24, 2019)

Hi James, how did it go with the pre-millenium?


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