Steve (husband) almost regrets saying he could plumb a machine in
He spent most of today doing so. The actual plumbing wasn't so bad, it was drilling the hole into the tile backsplash (the other option was into granite - that wasn't going to happen!) We bought a hole saw for the drill that was supposed to be for tile - it took forever to get through the tile and the Hardi-board backer and you could smell how hot things were getting.
Since we were going through the backsplash/wall, we wanted to use some kind of sleeve/guide/decorative ring. The closest was a guide for a hand-sprayer. That meant grinding down the corners of the fitting on the end of the braided hose that came with the machine so it would fit through the guide.
Finally installed, we checked for leaks (none). We turned on the machine. Initially, it turned on as indicated in the manual, but then I noticed the only light was the flashing boiler light and the others had shut off. Hmmm... I pressed the On/Standby button. Nothing. Pulled the plug and restarted the process. This time it came on - group came up to temp, then the steam boiler started. And kept going! Over 2 bar before I shut the darned thing off. Steve bled off pressure through the steam wand while I mildly panicked. We decided there must be air trapped to we ran the brew until water came out (it took a while), and then all was well.
It took a few shots to dial in the grind - we needed a coarser grind than for our Estro machine with the pressurized PF, but I was putting 14 grams for a double in the Estro PF and 17-18 grams in the S1 PF so that could be part of the difference. I figured more coffee = less chance for bitterness/over-extraction.
Steam is unBELIEVABLE!!! Almost no time to steam 16 oz. to 150-155. I will have to relearn to steam.
Then I tried to clean the steam wand. I somehow managed to loosen the whole darned thing. When you tried to operate the knob, the whole assembly was loose, just flopping around. We had to let it cool, then take the front, side, and top panel off, then the panel holding the steam knob. It turns out the nut holding the knob had loosened somehow. (Steve was then commenting he hoped the rest of the quality of the machine was better than the assembly quality - thank goodness he is very mechanically adept!). We had to disassemble the entire knob to tighten things properly. Hopefully they hold.
It's been a long day, but we've had our first S1 lattes and they were good. We're hopeful that the issue with the steam wand/arm is solved but will be watching it closely. If it were to have loosened with the knob open instead of closed things could have gotten pretty "ugly" (and dangerous).
Michelle
