ECM Classika PID - temperature seems higher after descaling

Evergreen88

Hello everyone, I would really appreciate some help from more experienced espresso enthusiasts. After 18 months of usage and after having decided to move to soft water, I have descaled the machine. After completing the descale I flushed 1+ liter of water through the group head and the steam wand. I did make a few coffees the following day and didn’t notice any issue.

Yesterday and today though I noticed that the coffee was piping hot, even if the PID was set to a very reasonable 90 degrees. The water from the wand seems very hot too and when I tried to steam milk it was more powerful than usual but very wet, the milk ended up being a watery mess.

What’s happening here? Is the PID not reading/setting the correct temperature? What can I do about it?

MediumRoastSteam

It could be the temperature probe is measuring the temperature incorrectly, probably due to the descaling process.

Let’s focus on steaming for the moment: say the temp is set to 126C right now. What happens if you then set it to 122C? Is it the same as it was?

Are you sure you haven’t changed anything else, like the offset value? Or changed some of the PID parameters values?

Evergreen88

MediumRoastSteam I haven’t changed anything PID wise. I will try to lower the PID temperature tomorrow and see how it behaves, but I have steamed at higher temperatures in the past and never noticed so much spitting/water coming out :(

MediumRoastSteam

Evergreen88 - that’s a test. We are only confirming the theory… 😉

If that works, then you could remove the probes and check if they are corroded or scaled.

Evergreen88

MediumRoastSteam I have tried to steam at 10 degrees lower than usual (120 instead of 130) and it was powerful and dry. Can it be that I just need to adjust the PID 10 degrees lower?

I have also measured the temperature of the water coming out of the grouphead using a simple meat thermometer and it’s reading at 92 with the PID set at 90. I appreciate it’s not an accurate test.

By the way we are talking about a single boiler

MediumRoastSteam

I defer this to others with more experience, but this seems to be a bit strange. Usually if you measure water out of the group with a meat thermometer it would be way cooler than expected - the fact that you are getting a higher reading feels somewhat strange to me.

If the machine is still under warranty, I would contact your reseller and discuss that with them. It’s likely that the probe is not reading correctly.

Evergreen88

I spoke to Bellabarista and they seemed as confused as we are.. I guess my only option is to drop off the machine at their store and have it checked out properly