Too Much Coffee

I always thought that there were 3 types of pressure in contemporary espressomachines: 'spring'-lever, vibe-pump, rotary-pump. Today I hear from a friend, who visited a dealer that a lot of professional-machines are actually steampressure-machines (where the steam provides the pressure to make water go through the coffee). I told my friend that this method was used only in the beginning of espresso-history... but he has big faith in the dealer... and won't believe me...
He says that the pressure-boiler was not integrated in the machine, but located under the machine...

Any of you any thoughts about this?
thanks,
Michel

Isn't this the way the small espresso machines for home, used to work about 10 years ago? I mean the ones with the small carafe with the marks on them for 2 and four cups and a seperate line for steam? I had one once, when I was young and nieve.

quink wrote:Isn't this the way the small espresso machines for home, used to work about 10 years ago?

Still do

We had one of those: a Krups. You had to pour the water directly into the boiler and then screw an airtight lid on it (they warned against opening the lid too soon after making "espresso" and having the lid blow through the ceiling). Made horrible coffee - a sort of mud - especially with plain old Douwe Egberts.

Still do

Really? I thought that newer pump machines used the pump to take water from the reservoir and then through the heating element to the group head. The old ones I mentioned were the ones with sealed boilers and the giant caps that had to be screwed down, then you turned it on and waited for the pressure to build and espresso to come out the other end. Or am I way off?

You do still get the odd pressure machine for home but they are quite rare, the main problem being the amount of steam it can give for foaming. These days vibe pumps are so cheap there's no point not putting one in.

I had one of the pressure ones (Morphy Richards). In fact I've still got it somewhere. I agree with Neku. It made truly awful coffee, coupled with the fact that I used to become increasingly nervous as the pressure built up inside what was essentialy a toy. By the time the "coffee" was produced I was a nervous wreck!

I had one too... Mine brewed the coffee into a glass container like the ones that come with a drip filter machine.
No crema, terrible coffee.

It still had heaps of steam after the brew tho...

MrFollies wrote:I had one too... Mine brewed the coffee into a glass container like the ones that come with a drip filter machine.

Yeah! I forgot about that. It looked a bit like a glass brikka with a plastic lid on it (with a hole in the lid for the 'spout' of the 'portafilter').

That's the one
I think my mum has it still...

I gave one of these away to a friend a few months ago.
It was a Krups and there were warnings all over it about letting it cool down before removing the filler lid.

I do remember blowing the top off one of these once. Where I was living at the time we did get a lot of scale, so I assume that it got too clogged to work any more (no great loss, it was crap) I turnd my back for a moment, there was a loud crack, when I turned around the lid from the boiler was on the floor and steam was pouring out of the boiler . I was kind of amazed at this as there was supposed to be a presure valve built in to the cap. Not long after that I bought a pump machine which I still use now.

Michel, I am almost convinced that today's professional machines all have rotary pumps and not steam-pressure. Nothing to back that up though.