DNAofCoffee Senior Member Joined: 10 Jan 2011 Posts: 66 Location: San Francisco, CA Expertise: Just starting
Espresso: Rancilio Silvia Grinder: Baratza Vario Roaster: Behmor 1600
Posted Wed Feb 16, 2011, 3:01pm Subject: Re: My Silvia will not get clean!
At this point, Arman, it seems that pulling the group head and having a look inside will take less time and frustration that continuing to try whatever methods are continuing to not work. If you want to end this, it looks like you'll have to go in. Have you taken it apart before?
sugarbrew Senior Member Joined: 3 Feb 2011 Posts: 8 Location: Los Angeles, CA Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Wed Feb 16, 2011, 3:40pm Subject: Re: My Silvia will not get clean!
Nope. Any good tutorials on this?
EDIT:
Oookay. Now I'm a little worried. There was a weird shiny metallic looking fleck in the drip tray after I backflushed with water, in addition to some other black flecks.
I also ran some water through the steam wand and I'm getting a few black flecks in there too.
I'm afraid TheMadTamper might be right and this might be from something degrading, which is pretty strange considering that the machine isn't all that old.
THIS will start you off. It's a schematic of an earlier iteration of the Silvia, although only a few parts have changed and it won't make a difference for your purposes. There are some video tutorials on youtube. The first thing will be to pull out the water reservoir, get a philips head screwdriver, remove the four screws from the top panel, pull that off and have a look inside.
Posted Thu Feb 17, 2011, 7:50am Subject: Re: My Silvia will not get clean!
sugarbrew Said:
Nope. Any good tutorials on this?
EDIT:
Oookay. Now I'm a little worried. There was a weird shiny metallic looking fleck in the drip tray after I backflushed with water, in addition to some other black flecks.
I also ran some water through the steam wand and I'm getting a few black flecks in there too.
I'm afraid TheMadTamper might be right and this might be from something degrading, which is pretty strange considering that the machine isn't all that old.
If it's coming out through the steam wand, it has nothing to do with the group. UNLESS the problem is that for some reason some of the backpressure water is migrating back through the brew path to the boiler instead of blowing out the solenoid which, especially if not cleaned for ages, if you had a partially stuck solenoid, is entirely plausible.
The other possibility is that it's corroded milk that got sucked into the boiler through the steam wand, though that's usually not black.
Shiny metal bits can be anything from a degrading boiler to just shavings from the grouphead or PF from locking it in and out.
Are you sure you NEVER had gunk in your clean water reservoir, either by itself, or maybe blown back through the OPV, then picked up again by the pump?
goldcoastcoffeelover Senior Member Joined: 28 Nov 2012 Posts: 2 Location: Gold Coast Australia Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Wed Nov 28, 2012, 3:12am Subject: Re: My Silvia will not get clean!
Hi - did anyone work out what to do with the black flecks? I've just cleaned the Breville espresso machine left in my apartment and the black flecks are coming out. Another forum suggested it could be flecks of copper oxide from the heating element. Do you think those are dangerous? Did you find out some way to get them out? Thanks!
calblacksmith Moderator Joined: 25 Nov 2007 Posts: 5,761 Location: Riverside, Ca, U.S.A. Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: ECM Veneziano A1 Grinder: Many different commercial Vac Pot: 40s era Silex Drip: Milita, Bunn&Curtis... Roaster: Cast iron pan, gas burner
Posted Wed Nov 28, 2012, 7:31am Subject: Re: My Silvia will not get clean!
It is hard to say exactly what you are seeing with "black flecks" but there are several things it could be. When was the last time you descaled the machine? Are you using filtered water with the proper amount of "hardness" (or lack thereof ) There could be scale from the heater if it was over heated due to being turned on when the machine did not have enough water in the boiler. I found this inside a boiler of a Sylvia when I rebuilt it. This was caused by the water and what was in the water and not descaling the machine. Yes the heating element was bad but a bad element would not do this.
goldcoastcoffeelover Senior Member Joined: 28 Nov 2012 Posts: 2 Location: Gold Coast Australia Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Thu Nov 29, 2012, 10:42pm Subject: Re: My Silvia will not get clean!
My sister-in-law (whose apartment I live in) says that the machine was spitting out black flecks before she put it away, over a year ago. So I've descaled it and now am flushing it with water, and black flecks come through the machine every time. The water should be fine, I think - Gold Coast in Queensland. How do I then get rid of the flecks? Any idea?
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