Report on my Rancilio Silvia cheapo thermometer mod

[DonRJ]

For anyone interested in this useful little mod.

PARTS
£4.99 digital thermostat with thermocouple off Ebay, temp range up to 120c but it actually only goes to 110c but thats proven to be OK for my purposes, 5 second display refresh interval, well it was cheap.
£1.00 for 2 pieces of high temp adhesive tape off Ebay

FITTING
Isolate from the mains, remove the water reservoir, unscrew the 4 screws on the top plate and remove. I attached the thermocouple to the top of the boiler in the flat area to the upper left looking from the front of the machine using the tape. It could go down the side but this was easier and less likely to fall off. I tied the spare cable length of the thermocouple up with a tie leaving enough to route it to the front right of the top plate. I sealed the display sides and back with tape to resist any moisture but removeable for battery replacement, dangled it out of the front right of the machine top, replaced the top plate and fixed the display to the top with Blutak. Reason for fitting on top is its an LCD display which is well hard to see if placed on the side of the machine.

USING THE THING
Allow the Silvia to preheat for an hour ideally.
Brewing - Monitor temp from when the indicator light goes on at 85c ish, it`ll climb up to the high 90s when the light goes out, temp keeps climbing to just under 110c. Hit the brew switch and do the thing, repeat as neccessary, there is a very small temp drop during the shot of around 1c.

Steaming - flick the steam switch, temp will rise obviously, as it reaches around 105c start steaming, light will stay on so still heating and temp will climb just out of display range for a moment then drop very gradually as you steam still heating throughout so maximising steam power.

CONCLUSION
Using the thermometer allows me to time my brewing and steaming more easily for best performance. don`t reckon the thing is tremendously accurate in terms of the absolute temperature it displays at the very top of its range. But it is extremely consistent with the readings it does give as I have monitored the trigger temps stated for brewing and steaming over a dozen shots today and eight yesterday

[sandykt]

Very interesting. I usually temp surf by allowing the machine to heat up for around 30 mins and then fill the cup with hot water to heat it up. The boiler light will come, so that's my cue to grind the coffee. I then put the portafilter in place and as soon as the light goes off, I start to extract the coffee. Once the coffee has been extracted, the steam button gets switched on immediately. I get rid of the coffee grinds and then pull through the steam in an empty jug. Start steaming with the milk and away you go!! Until I get a shiny machine with a PID this is it for me.

[DonRJ]

Sandy, my usual routine has been almost identical to yours, will tend to do the shorter (30min) warm up in the week. The thermometer addition has just added a bit of extra information to time the extraction and start steaming a bit more accurately. the biggest thing that surprised me was how long the Silvia keeps heating after the indicator light goes off (around 10 seconds) so I now start the extraction a bit later than I used to. As for steaming, i have always tried to start steaming just before the light goes off so the machine continues to heat, now I get the timing spot on with the abilty to montor the temperature for just the right moment to start.

its a cheap add on that helps my consistency a bit so worth it at the cost of less than 500g of bens.

Don