Help With Vivaldi

[mp]

I use potassium chloride over salt for my whole house water softener.  It works well and as you say is better for the environment.

 

Potassium is great for the heart and is often in short supply in our diets. It's also one of the key chemicals used to execute people.

 

[Tex]

I use potassium chloride over salt for my whole house water softener.  It works well and as you say is better for the environment.

 

Potassium is great for the heart and is often in short supply in our diets. It's also one of the key chemicals used to execute people.

 

Go Dr Jack, go!

[peter]

Dr. Jack Prevents Scale In Your Tubing...  in the newspaper today.


Where does scale in an espresso machine come from?  What can be done to minimize it?  Does heat exacerbate scaling/does it matter if the machine is on or off?

[mp]

Dr. Jack Prevents Scale In Your Tubing...  in the newspaper today.


Where does scale in an espresso machine come from?  What can be done to minimize it?  Does heat exacerbate scaling/does it matter if the machine is on or off?

Scaling comes from the minerals found in unfiltered water.

If you use distilled water you can totally eliminate it ... however ... you probably will not like the taste of your espresso.

I personally use R/O soft water combination and find that the scaling only needs to be dealt with every year or so.  My alarm to descale is when the lever on my Isomac starts getting sticky.

As someone mentioned before it is the minerals in the water and the combination of the very hot water that causes the scale to materialize.

Hope that helps.

 

[Tex]

Dr. Jack Prevents Scale In Your Tubing...  in the newspaper today.


Where does scale in an espresso machine come from?  What can be done to minimize it?  Does heat exacerbate scaling/does it matter if the machine is on or off?

Take this explanation with a grain of salt.

It does come with a nice psychedelic picture.

[Warrior372]

Every shop I talk to, the espresso machine stays on 24/7...

On that note, I've been looking at filter systems, and have been thinking about the Claris after reading about it on Home Barista.  Having trouble finding a stocking dealer though.  The systems Chris Coffee sells are probably more than sufficient and quite a bit cheaper I would imagine.

-Stubbie

If I owned a shop and was open 24/7 I would definitely have two different machines to run at opposite times. I would have two machines for 2 reasons. First is the ability to give one a rest. Secondly I would have the second as a backup incase the other needed to be repaired / have routine maintenance done on it. Although commercial machines can be on all of the time, having restored as many as I have, I can definitely tell you that most shop owners have no idea how to care for their machines! Most home owners fall into the same category.

One of the biggest mistakes with prosumer machines is that the consumer who has them thinks they can treat it like a commercial machine when the majority of the parts are worlds away form each other.

Peter, I soak all of the parts in Citric Acid. I would not say I see a lot more scale in one part of a machine versus another unless you are talking about machines from the 50s-60s. They typically have around an inch of scale sitting in the bottom of the boilers, with a hearty 1/6 or so of an inch caked around the rest of the boiler. If any decently sized piece breaks away it can easily go into your steam wand line, hot water wand line and even clog some of the grouphead lines.

[peter]

My plan for now is to check my water hardness, after the cartridge and before the machine, after six months and most likely descale after a year.  Then I'll be able to figure a timetable after that.

And you're convinced that leaving a machine on will increase the amount of scale build up?

[Tex]

Every shop I talk to, the espresso machine stays on 24/7...

On that note, I've been looking at filter systems, and have been thinking about the Claris after reading about it on Home Barista.  Having trouble finding a stocking dealer though.  The systems Chris Coffee sells are probably more than sufficient and quite a bit cheaper I would imagine.

-Stubbie

If I owned a shop and was open 24/7 I would definitely have two different machines to run at opposite times. I would have two machines for 2 reasons. First is the ability to give one a rest. Secondly I would have the second as a backup incase the other needed to be repaired / have routine maintenance done on it. Although commercial machines can be on all of the time, having restored as many as I have, I can definitely tell you that most shop owners have no idea how to care for their machines! Most home owners fall into the same category.

One of the biggest mistakes with prosumer machines is that the consumer who has them thinks they can treat it like a commercial machine when the majority of the parts are worlds away form each other.

Peter, I soak all of the parts in Citric Acid. I would not say I see a lot more scale in one part of a machine versus another unless you are talking about machines from the 50s-60s. They typically have around an inch of scale sitting in the bottom of the boilers, with a hearty 1/6 or so of an inch caked around the rest of the boiler. If any decently sized piece breaks away it can easily go into your steam wand line, hot water wand line and even clog some of the grouphead lines.

Take my word for it, they don't get tired and need no rest periods. In a commercial environment a backup machine is a must. At home I can get by with a vac pot 'til I get the machine working.

The scale you describe is common to used machines I've seen too. I wonder sometimes what the engines of these guys cars look like?

As for cleaning, I use this rule of thumb, 1) if it only touches water, give it a hot citric acid bath, 2) if it touches coffee, 1st give it a strong & hot detergent bath to remove the coffee oils and then give it a hot citric acid bath.

Scale is usually first detectable in the group, especially in the gicleur inside the group - techs find them plugged up and rather than cleaning or replacing them they just leave them out. Trust me, even if you have the world's best filtration, sooner or later scale will build up in your machine. Commercial owners must take it upon themselves to maintain their machine to keep it working. That means descaling, back flushing, partial disassembly to get at the more problematic parts, and having the machine checked by a qualified tech at least every year. Private owners should have their machines checked annually or learn to disassemble & repair the machines themselves (the machines are super-simple to work on).

[Tex]

My plan for now is to check my water hardness, after the cartridge and before the machine, after six months and most likely descale after a year.  Then I'll be able to figure a timetable after that.

And you're convinced that leaving a machine on will increase the amount of scale build up?

Scale build up is related to water hardness and contact between metal and water. And once a year is a bit long between descalings, even with soft water. Since it's so simple to do I do mine on a quarterly schedule.

[shakin_jake]

Where does scale in an espresso machine come from?

~~~Calcium, mostly in my area, but there are other heavy metals in our water



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  What can be done to minimize it? 
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~~~my stradegy with the pourover Salvatore One Black I had was to filter my own well water by passing  it through a small RO system that would filter about 15-20 gallons/day.  I routed this filtered water (essentially 0 PPM hardness after) through a canister filled with Chris Coffee's Carbon Calcite cartridge so it would place the hardness level of the water at 50 PPM, verified with a water hardness test strip.  I collected this water in a 2.5 gallon water bottle then dispensed into seperate 1 gallon bottles


When I get my Rimini espresso machine project to the point I need water for it, I think I'm going to use this same water but in a 5 gallon water bottle using a Flo-Jet pump for pressure.  I bought the Flo-Jet pump long ago for testing purposes.  It will be awkward handling 5 gallon bottles of water, but at least I will know what is and isn't in my water


[/quote]
Does heat exacerbate scaling/does it matter if the machine is on or off?
[/quote]



~~~It's my understanding if you flush your boiler using the hot water tap, purging a few cups of water through it weekly, that will at least garuntee you have fresh water in your boiler, depending on capacity how much and often you should flush but I don't see how hot water kept under pressure would allow the hardness levels to climb.  I say flush your boiler to keep the water fresh and moving


Remember too Peter, you are pulling shots for yourself, not a lunch crowd 7 days a week.  The amount of water going through your machine will be miniscule compared to commercial operations



Jake
Reddick Fla.
If he's got golf clubs in his truck or a camper in his driveway, I don't hire him.
--Lou Holtz, football coach

[Jeffo]

To get those quotes to work you can exclude the slash on the first one. And you only need one extra line break between lines to save scrolling.

Does heat exacerbate scaling/does it matter if the machine is on or off?

[shakin_jake]

To get those quotes to work you can exclude the slash on the first one. And you only need one extra line break between lines to save scrolling.

Does heat exacerbate scaling/does it matter if the machine is on or off?

~~~Thanks Jeffo,  Sounds a little too techy for me to comprehend, but maybe that's why I'm using HX to pull my shots, instead of DB or more advanced machine?=:-)


Jake
Reddick Fla.
You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember -- all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.:Morpheus

[Jeffo]

To get those quotes to work you can exclude the slash on the first one. And you only need one extra line break between lines to save scrolling.

Does heat exacerbate scaling/does it matter if the machine is on or off?

~~~Thanks Jeffo,  Sounds a little too techy for me to comprehend, but maybe that's why I'm using HX to pull my shots, instead of DB or more advanced machine?=:-)


Jake
Reddick Fla.
You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember -- all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.:Morpheus

I should have explained that better.

Instead of
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You need to eliminate the slash on the first one. Spaces are inserted here so that you can see it without it actually activating

[ quote ]
Blah blah blah
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Which without spaces would be:

Blah blah blah

The final slash 'closes' the code and let's it know that it's done. If you put a slash in the first one it messes it up. Computers aren't that smart.

[BoldJava]

The final slash 'closes' the code and let's it know that it's done. If you put a slash in the first one it messes it up. Computers aren't that smart.

Their is a need to correct spelling but I won't because people are probably getting tired of it.

Ouch.  Jeff, you are slipping, budd.

[milowebailey]

Here is what the actual code would look like without spaces (Jeffo, you can insert the actual code by using the "insert code" button) . 

Code: [Select]

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or to make it easy highlinght the text you want to quote, in your reply and press the "insert quote" button