erkal Would you say the upcoming 83mm Niece

Niche? That’s no longer upcoming my friend. 😉👍 - it’s been released over two months ago.

      erkal no, in most cases, the grinder is (likely) the limiting factor. Niche Duo or DF83 v2 are not overkill for it (i’ve seen people use those on “less” fancy machines).

        6 days later

        @MediumRoastSteam

        @delta76

        Hello!

        Just a quick update, swapping out with a new silicone gasket and a new o ring has totally solved the leakage. I can feel the new gasket is so much better when locking in the PF, no need to really force it much either. It’s just so much more solid. I also lowered the amount of coffee and the group head comes out pretty clean every time. All this has been a nice step forward in my learning curve. Now I just need a better grinder and better water and I’m almost ‘there’ :D

        Thank you for the tips!

          erkal - So… What solved the problem?
          a) The new gasket;
          b) the new o-ring;
          c) lowering the dose;
          d) None of the above. :-)

          PS: Glad it was an easy fix.

              MediumRoastSteam

              Definitely the gasket, o ring was just a safety measure, I thought might as well change both.

              I had lowered the dose during the couple of days waiting for the gasket to arrive and there still was some leakage.

              My new Monsooned Malabar is tasty but definitely expands a lot more than all the other coffees I used so lowering dose was necessary, but I wouldn’t have know that if gasket was not leaking :D

              I really hope that this was the last problem with my brand new Elizabeth…

              PS. that curve does not exist on this gasket, its completely straight on both sides, so I am guessing when the gasket gets curvy like that it’s pretty worn out already? I thought that’s how they come when new. I need to warn my buddy with the Profitec 600 because I noticed his gasket looked exactly like that as well and his machine is older.

                  erkal PS. that curve does not exist on this gasket, its completely straight on both sides,

                  Look carefully. One side is bevelled and has some writing, the other side is completely flat. We can keep going on and on, I have a gasket like that and so do you. Mine is like I describe. So, you are more than welcome to remove your gasket, take a picture and prove me wrong. 😀

                      MediumRoastSteam

                      Yeah this red ones is exactly like you described, it has brand name printed on one side and the other side is completely flat. But the one I took out, the bottom is not flat, or it’s no longer flat, I don’t know what it looked like when new, but now it’s angled inwards. I can show you a better photo now.

                      The first photo was the PF side, you can see it’s curvy, is that how it was or is that because it’s worn out?

                          erkal - Yes. You locking the portafilter so hard caused some pretty nasty premature damage to the gasket, and you can also see where the shower screen and dispersion plate were tighten so hard against the gasket too. That’s really bad, specially when you consider that is only over a couple of months of ownership.

                          Anyway, hopefully everything will be fine now. Don’t throw that red o-ring in the bin, as it’s likely it’s absolutely fine (there’s no reason for it not to be).

                          So follow the advice given here and enjoy your machine. And remember, if you are over doing something, too much force, tightening etc… You are doing something wrong. And that also applies, SPECIALLY to the steam tap. You should not tighten it - it should only be closed very gently until steam stops. When the machine cools down a bit, it will drip and you then gently close until it stops. Very gently. If you overdo it, the tap will start leaking and your next replacement will be a steam tap - which is not hard to do, but it’s more costly and will require you opening the machine up.

                          And lastly… Make sure you are using good water, which does not scale (e.g.: not tap water from London, not tap water through a Brita filter). If you are not… Then I wish you best of luck.

                          PS: On your second picture… You can see it’s not completely flat. There’s a slight bevel to it.

                              MediumRoastSteam

                              Yeah the steam knob gets a little ‘springy’ at the end, that’s where I stop, steam slows down and then and feels like I haven’t closed it fully but it’s closed. I mean it’s not a foolproof system.

                              In regards to water, that is still an issue. I am currently only using the filter in the water tank which came with it and tap water :/ I am looking to invest in a BWT Bestmax filter ASAP. It should be good for drinking tastier water as well.

                              Will that be sufficient? What do you use?

                                MediumRoastSteam

                                Sorry the bevel is the side that was facing the portafilter is what I meant. That bevel is non existent on the new Cafelat silicone one. It is completely flat on both sides plus the brand imprint on one side.

                                Edit: I see what you mean now, you are not talking about the obvious curve you see on pic 1, you mean there is a slight angle on the flat side as well. Was that side meant to be facing the PT? Because that’s how the machine came.

                                    Had to look it up, on average water hardness of London tap water is 293 ppm :o. where I live ca + mg is less than 50 ppm, usually around 30. no wonder why people were talking about using diluted water + minerals

                                      delta76 Yeah sounds about right. I have a cheap TDS meter and I get 260ppm :/

                                      I looked into pure water+Third Wave but pure water is super expensive.

                                      Where do you live?

                                          erkal Sorry the bevel is the side that was facing the portafilter is what I meant. That bevel is non existent on the new Cafelat silicone one. It is completely flat on both sides plus the brand imprint on one side.

                                          Edit: I see what you mean now, you are not talking about the obvious curve you see on pic 1, you mean there is a slight angle on the flat side as well. Was that side meant to be facing the PT? Because that’s how the machine came.

                                          On your first picture - the gasket has a bevel due to DAMAGE. It should not be like that. I have explained how it was damaged in the previous post.

                                          On your second picture - there’s a bevel to it, and there is no damage. That side faces the group. I think it’s clear and it’s all good.

                                          Let’s put the gasket topic to bed. There’s nothing more I can answer here. I leave it in your good hands.

                                          I use a ZeroWater jug and remineralise with 100mg/L sodium bicarbonate. Machine is over 3 years old, and still sounds and behaves as it was brand new out of the box.

                                            erkal can’t say exactly where, but of course not UK, a bit north of Europe :)

                                            glad that you fixed the leaking though - I can imagine the enjoyment. Now with proper usage and maintenance your Elizabeth should last a very long time. Remember that good advice from @MediumRoastSteam - if you need to force something you are probably doing it wrong. that applies for most things in life, actually.

                                              a month later

                                              Hi guys,

                                              I am sorry to say this but I started getting the occasional “pssst” with clear water shooting out from the back part of the portafilter again.

                                              The new silicone ring has been working great and it also seems that coffee residue doesn’t stick to this ring as much as the previous one did, so its almost always very clean, but the leaking still happens once in a while regardless of how I lock it.

                                              I am using under 17g which does not leave any marks on the puck so I did not reduce the dosage any furtgher.

                                              I am wondering if the pressure, which is a little high, could be the other culprit?

                                              Thanks!

                                                erkal apologies if i was asking the same question that was answered before - no time to re-read every post, but

                                                • how high does pressure go during your extraction? default is 10.5 bar I think, so it should not be higher than that
                                                • what is your extraction? 17gr in, how many gr out in how many second ?

                                                From your previous photo something is not quite right with the puck, it should be more “uniform”. Can you take new photos of your puck before and after extraction, even better a video of the extraction process ?

                                                    delta76

                                                    Hello!

                                                    Sure I will make a video and take photos as well an a bit. The problem is I cannot replicate the leak, it just happens randomly and I cannot figure out why.

                                                    I currently use 16.5g and I get around 32-34g espresso in 30s including 7s pre infuse. My grinder is not ideal so this is as fine as I can go with these new beans. They are medium roast from Pebble and Pine, fresh roasted, probably too fresh as they are roasted on order, I don’t know if that matters.

                                                    I use the WDT tool to fluff it all up and a Normcore tamper with the medium spring.

                                                    The pressure gauge shows 11 bars.

                                                      I see, so definitely should try to reduce to opv to 10 bar or less (I noticed less channeling when I reduced the opv on my bianca to 9 bar).

                                                      My Elizabeth is wrapped now and too lazy to unpack it, but I recall it is a bit higher 10 bar max. it is 10.5 bar out of factory IIRC so yours is higher than it should. My suspect is that because the pressure is too high, the water will find wherever it can flow. due to variables in your shot prep, sometimes it has to escape through the crack between the gasket and portafilter. I’m quite positive that if you reduce the opv it will be solved.