No Crema on My Coffee

[kopi]

I have a De Longhi EC700 which has recently been serviced. Prior to servicing I was proud of my ability to produce a lovely thick crema. I had it serviced as the valve had worn out and had started oozing steam everywhere. They replaced the valve and gave it a good clean out.

Bad news is that since having it home it just doesn't make a crema like it used to. I am using the same coffee as always (supermarket pre-ground one). Also tried tamping down firmly. The machine just seems to pump the water through faster than before.

Any ideas? Or is it just time to upgrade to a new machine.

 

[Alun_evans]

Hello Kopi! I am not an expoert on home machines, but if this was a problem in a commercial mchine I would look at two things. If the coffee grind is fine, tamping is fine (both sound OK as you have mentioned), then it could be either the pump pressure or the water temperature of the machine. Believe it or not the pump pressure may be set too high. If you are usng preground coffee (ground for espresso extraction) and the water is passing through way too fast even with adequate tamping, this may well be the case. A commercial machine has the pump set at 9bar, and is easily adjustible by the barista/i to maintain this pressure. I believe your home machine can not be reset so easily, and must be done by a technician during servicing. If there was no crema during a normal extraction then I would assume water temperature was not hot enough. However the pump pressure would be my first port of call in this case. Good luck!

 

[kopi]

Thanks for that Alun. I think you may be spot on. I'll give the service company a call to see if they can adjust the pressure down a tad!

Kopi

 

[NW JAVA]

AUgh! check your grind: AND then see....also, the temperature, thesea re the easiest to check/ensure. And make sure you have good fresh roasted coffee.