My story is probably fairly typical. Been making home espresso for 1.5 years. Started with Rocky and Silvia, added PID, added Super Jolly. Found out the importance of GI/GO (garbage in/garbage out) and have had many happy experiences with 49th Parallel Epic, Counter Culture Aficionado, and Black Cat from time to time althought I miss Kiddo. Took the plunge to upgrade to the S1 after convincing my wife that this was a good idea.
Ordering from Chris Coffee was great as usual. 2 days to get it to me and arrived at the door in good shape. Double boxed like my Silvia was. Free shipping and slight discount applied. Had planned on 1/4" plumbing but they recommended 3/8" so I went with that. Decided against the timer and drain kit after consulting S1Cafe.
First thing was to install the water softener system sold by Chris. Max Adaptor > Shutoff > Softener > Carbon filter > T with valve. > Line up to counter > pressure regulator with pressure gauge > VII. Only glitch here was that I mismeasured the mounting bracket placement so only the carbon is mounted on a bracket fully. The softener is sitting on the cabinet floor...I'l have to secure it. Purged 1-2 gallons at this point and no leaks!!
Unboxed the VII - beautiful and huge amount of anticipation. I took off the heating tray to verify the switch settings inside. Moved the VII to the counter and noted 2 things: One of the feet came off in shipping....no big deal was able to screw it back in. Secondly there was a small nut loose in the bottom of the box. I have no idea where it came from or where it goes (email out to Chris). It fits the screw to the heating tray but I dont think it goes there. No other obvious place. Perhaps it's associated with the foot that came off? Anyone?
Attached the hose to the bottom of the VII. Should have used teflon tape the first time as this connection had a small leak later. Only potential issue with the setup is that the VII is under a cabinet....boy that top gets hot.
Pressure regulator was set initially at 19-20psi so I had to increase that to 25-26psi. 1 cup button was already set to deliver 4oz and the 2 cup button set for 2 oz. My first doubles only produced barely an ounce with the 2 cup setting. With some experimentation I ended up changing the delivery to 3oz to get out 1.5-2oz of espresso. Does this seem a bit off to people? I set the preinfusion for 3sec.
I also noted that after a shot the pressure reads high on the regulator valve...>30. After a cleaning flush returns to normal.
Also I noted that a small puff of steam came out after the preinfusion step without the portafilter in....is that normal?
Shots were very nice even with older beans and the crappy plastic tamper (better one on the way). I have to say that I'm tasting things that I hadn't tasted before with the Silvia which surprised me out of the gate. I admit that I don't have the best palate but I was able to taste much more complexity in the Epic Espresso that I brewed than before.
Steaming power is terrific....for my purposes 15A mode is not an issue to steam and brew at the same time. I made my wife a latte and she was very happy with the temp of it...got hot very very quickly. I'll have to get used to it as it is quite a step up from the Silvia. I was worried that I'd get the 1.2mm steam tip but it appears that they are shipping the 0.9mm tip as the stock version now.
That's what I got for now. The real experimenting will begin tomorrow and when I can get my hands on some better beans. Any tips to pass along would be appreciated. I'll have to spread the pics over a few posts. Hope this is useful to someone out there.
- Before
- before1.jpg (40.38 KiB) Viewed 24296 times
- Hope it isn't empty...
- VII1.jpg (29.5 KiB) Viewed 24296 times
- Double boxing...thanks CC
- VII3.jpg (26.57 KiB) Viewed 24296 times
- First peek
- VII4.jpg (31.26 KiB) Viewed 24296 times
- "red"
- VII5.jpg (23.2 KiB) Viewed 24296 times
