Pulling a shot on the La Pavoni

How to pull a shot on a 1976 La Pavoni Europiccola

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• La Pavoni
• espresso
• Joe Bray
• Denison Witmer
• Europiccola
• shot
• tamp
• grind

[Gweezian]

Are these types difficult to maintain?

[joeraybray]

@Gweezian Not at all. I'm not very mechanically inclined and am able to take the entire machine apart clean and replace seals as needed.

[dparham]

just Curious... are you recording in a reflection? lol seems everything is backwards...lol One other thing, have you considered putting cup on top of pressure relief valve to warm it up and then drying everything before pulling shot> ... Im restoring a 1971 machine similar to yours and building it into a bar permanently removing the factory base and possibly plumbing it in... kinda of annoying when the machine moves when your removing the portafilter hu? lol

[joeraybray]

@dparham Yes this was a reflection. Stupid MacBook Pros! Sometimes I do put the cup on the pressure relief valve. This particular cup doesn't sit too well on it however. I wish you luck with your La Pavoni endeavours!

[LyndonTCorbett]

Not bad. You're technique is very similar to mine, except I leave no headroom on my tamp. I use the side walls of Doug's and Richard Penney's tampers as a guide. The tamper you have and Richard's have a 5mm sidewall. The dispersion screen on the LaPav is 9mm deep and the gasket 2mm for a clearance of 7mm. Since you need 7mm and are only giving it 5, the final 2mm will be tamped by the dispersion screen once you lock the portafilter in place. For this technique to work you need to dry the screen.

[joeraybray]

I've tried that as well, but haven't had much luck with it. I will give it another 'shot'.

[jaideux]

I enjoyed this...am learning about my la pavoni (like yours but older, all chrome) and we are getting used to each other. Still haven't got much crema but I am still a newbie.

Pretty song too. Thanks!

[maciejwrotek]

my la pavoni rusted under the drip, water got there.