I don’t know much about coffee but I just grabbed this off a curb from a family that was moving or something, said it works just needs cleaning. Did I score? I don’t know much about good coffee machines but I want some good homemade coffees so will this do the trick?
by Relevant_Fennel4203
23 Comments
Big score! Now buy a nice grinder
Dude. You scored
Was is the 4th number that was manufacturing year?
So 2008 would mean V3?
Worth 200 at least if working
https://i.redd.it/jmkwrlvnd4pd1.gif
Good? No. This is more than just “good”.
I have Silvia V3, and it’s one of the most reliable home machine. Just give it a good cleaning and don’t forget to change gasket since it looks like not in use for long time.
Silvia’s are for life! If you need any parts go to espresso parts.
As for tips, watch some videos, you have to learn to temperature cycle on silvias to pull at the correct time and temp.
The other big tip is the heating element can easily fry. To prevent this, make sure there is always water in the reservoir, and when you power on the machine, you need to make the machine suck water into the boiler. Running the pull shot button (top left) will do this. You will hear the pumps working to move water into the boiler and out to the group head. Another way these burn out is if you steam too many milk drinks, so I recommend you never steam 2 cappucinos/lattes worth of drinks in a row, and after steaming purge the grouphead (top left button) to make sure there’s water in the boiler again for the next time you pull a shot or if you do have to steam another cup of milk. (The heating element is in the builder, so if the boiler depletes of water it will fry unless water enters the boiler).
After steaming you always want to purge the steaming wand and wipe it down. Not cleaning it will cause milk to get suctioned into the boiler.
My machine is around 11 years old, I am just now going in and doing some maintenance and replacements. The frames on these do rust so always keep under the drip tray as dry as possible.
No. Hopeless garbage. Wouldn’t touch it with a 10ft pole. In fact, dm me and I will dispose of it for you.
Mine was not much of a steamer. For pulling shots it was just okay. Good starter unit
“Are these good machines” lmao. Jokes aside, it does look like a $100 machine off of Amazon so I understand
One of, if not the best, machine in it’s price range. It’s also a for-life machine; people have been running the Silvia and it’s predecessor the Norma for decades without issue. It’s also piss easy to repair with nothing but a Phillips-Head screwdriver and a wrench.
Excellent machines, mine is running flawless after +20 years. Get the Rocky grinder.
Pair it with a DF64 grinder and an Auber PID (Helps control the temperature) and you’ll have one of the best espresso machine set up at its price range.
Happy to walk through all the mods I did on my recently acquired Silvia if you are curious.
I also scored a free one. It’s an excellent machine. Desccale it, take off the shower screen and clean all the bits, and enjoy. There is a lot of support for servicing and mods for these.
I absolutely love mine.
Yes they are, treat her well and she’ll treat you well
Have you seen people complaining about their Silvias? Prob not. Great machine, simple enough to be reliable, good enough to make perfect coffee. People complain that the major drawback is that you can’t see the pressure and that temperature might not be constant, but that’s fine, you can always get a PID.
They’re terrible! Give it to me for proper disposal. I’m certified by the espresso machine disposing board.
I had a miss silvia and it was amazing. Make sure to replace the o-ring and clean the shower screen. Also descale a few times
Be careful of the steam pressure! It’s pretty insane but it’s lovely to work with once you get used to it
Super reliable machine, capable of making great espresso. The temperature stability is poor though and always made it hard for me to repeat a great shot. Installing a PID makes it much better. Definitely worth doing since you got the machine for free.
Free is crazy… Grats!
Hell yea! Nice!
Put a PID mod on it and you’ll have $3k+ machine performance for only a few hundred bucks all in!
I have one. It’s one of the best budget/beginner machines on the market.
Silvia is good, modded with PID makes your life way easier and you can focus on the necessary bits of dialling in espresso as you dont gotta wrestle with temp surfing
If you wanna steam and pull same time… in todays age… the use of nanofoamers and similar devices are way nicer (also adds no extra water to the milk) and you can simultaneously run those while pulling a shot
I know lots of people using nanofoamer and flair
Run a nanofoamer alongside if you need to run back to back milk drinks