La Pavoni Europiccola is a great teacher
I started my joyney into Espresso a long time ago with a La Pavoni Europiccola. Some would say starting with a manual lever machine is insane and a recipe for disaster.
Yes, it was not a dance on roses in any strech of the imagination, the Pavoni is bitching hard to learn how to use consistantly. It took me a month at least before pulling great shots with any kind of consistancy.
If any of your parameters is even slightly off, your reward is a face turning sink shot for your troubles. Grind, distribution and tamp needs to spot on everytime, but after about 4-5 months I was pulling shots everytime that made people smack thier lips in anticipation.
All was not flowery though. After about 3-4 shots if you’r lucky the Pavoni heats up and needs rest, and there’s no steaming while pulling shots so you can forget about slinging a bunch of cappas or Lattes for the friends, it was upgrade time.
I got myself a Vibiemme Domobar Super after much research.
Having had the Europiccola it was a breaze getting up to speed on the Domobar. I wanted to check my shots so I modded the extra portafilter that came with the Domobar to be bottomles, or “naked” as it’s commonly referred to and was ready for the worst 
To my surprise, my shots flowed perfectly. I already read up on the Domobar so I knew it likes a 16 gram dose for a douple. I distributed and tamped after adjusting my grinder to get a 25.5 second shot and had a look at the stream with baited breath…
The shots showed no signs of any problems, no donut extractions, no signs of channeling or premature blonding?
I have seen lots of people spending ages on getting a perfect naked shot, but I guess my time with the harsh mistress the La Pavoni Europiccola has been a great learning experience. I pulled about 30 shots of so by now with different blends of coffee and they all flow perfectly.
I can only conclude that some months with a manual lever machine is a great learning tool if you want to take your skills to the next level, or that the Domobar Super is very forgiving, but I don’t think that’s it because I have seen lots of naked shots on the net that are full of flaws.
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