Comments on: Depressurizing the EC155 Portafilter

By: meowwl

meowwl — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:53:18 +0000

I’d add that if you’re having trouble with it entirely depressurized, you can partly depressurize it by weakening the spring. Just pop it apart via the “permanent” method, get some heavy duty wire cutters, and clip off a coil on the smaller end, and reassemble. It cuts the backpressure by about 25%, and makes for a slightly drier puck.

The advantage is that you can use a coarser grind (Like if you’re stuck using a storebought pre-ground coffee, rather than grinding your own.) than you should for espresso, and still come out with a decent shot.

By: meowwl

meowwl — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:57:45 +0000

If the coffee comes out right away, then chances are it’s either not ground fine enough, or not tamped enough. Just about any tamper other than the one actrually on the maching will work better….That thing bends rather alarmingly if you try to tamp it down properly.

By: Neil

Neil — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:42:07 +0000

Don’t know if you’re still looking for an answer but I’ll take a shot. I haven’t actually tried it yet. But in your hardware store’s nuts and bolts isle, you can find ornamental Victorian style lampshade nuts made of solid brass. I found one that is the better part of two inches long. I just need to drill it out with a 1/16th bit (should be easy because it’s brass). Oh yeah it’s 1/4inch thread, rather than the 6mm metric but it’s a really really close match in thread pitch so I think with a little teflon tape it will work like a charm.

Neil

By: Xanthine

Xanthine — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 17:25:47 +0000

I had exactly the same problem as Warren using the EC155 after applying Ethan’s “non-permanent method”. I tried to remedy it by grinding my coffee extremely fine – probably a tad too fine for espresso – and tamping as hard as I dared without damaging the filter disk. This successfully increased the extraction time for a 2oz shot to ~24sec, but while the resulting espresso was neither too strong nor too watery, it had an unpleasant taste to it. As the disassembled crema device in Ethan’s pictures appears to be nothing but a simple pressure regulator, I strongly suspect that the pump delivers its full 15bar directly to the portafilter, relying on the crema device to regulate the pressure/flow. In the end, I put the crema device back and I’m getting pretty good espresso again – I guess that if one is really passionate about pulling the perfect espresso and using the crema as visual feedback, one should by a higher-end machine with a pressure regulator *before* the portafilter. Me, I’m happy with my maybe-not-perfect-but-pretty-good espresso with fake crema and all. It’s still better than what you get in a lot of mainstream coffee places.

But hey, it was a fun and instructive experiment, and I never would have thought of it if it wasn’t for Ethan’s blog.

By: Ethan Zonca

Ethan Zonca — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:33:42 +0000

If you're getting consistently watery shots, try making your grind a bit finer. Tamping will only do so much for a course grind! Not sure how relevant it is to your machine, but I have a page with a bunch of EC155 info, might be helpful if your machine is similar: EC155 Resources

By: Warren

Warren — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:51:19 +0000

Hi,

Been researching a lot of stuff, I have a Delonghi EC330S which uses the same portafilter.

I have managed to get a full depressurised portafilter by unscrewing the plastic bottom, and sawing off the small metal part at the bottom. I replaced the basket with one from http://4ourhouse.co.uk/cgi-bin/home.pl I bought two one was for a double shot and one for a treble shot I think.

My problem at the minute is that it pulls too quickly giving me quite a watery shot. I have ordered a good tamper to try and fix this as the plastic one is bad. I would love to customise the steamer but finding a replacement for it is proving difficult.

Any help would be great!

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:23:39 +0000

I’m very new to making espresso this is my first real machine. After watching some videos on youtube it became clear to me the pressurized filter isn’t allowing this machine to work to its full potential.

So I de-pressurized my porta-filter non permanent method for now. Unfortunately I am yet to have any luck with this method, I’m not getting any crema in my pulls (it just looks like black coffee).

I’m hoping my technique is flawed, (maybe I just need to tamp harder). What experiences have others had with managing to pull better espresso without pressurization?

Any help would be appreciated.

By: Jeremy M

Jeremy M — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 03:56:14 +0000

I did the non-permanent option, and I ran into an interesting issue! I had a small batch of coffee that was too finely ground, causing some low-volume shots, and it seems that the pressure of the pump actually caused the metal disk to deflect a millimeter or two. I found out while switching to the “permanent” option, and the metal filter disk no longer fit as snugly into the plastic pressurizer piece (well, the erstwhile pressurizer piece). We’ll see if it affects the shots, or if the metal filter bends back into its previous shape. I’m looking to get a new basket in any case. Thanks for all the instructions! The EC155 is a great little “starter kit” for espresso.

By: kevin

kevin — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 06:31:59 +0000

Hi Ethan:

I wanted to write and thank you for your blog entry as it allowed me to fix my ec155. Basically little or no espresso was coming out, even after a thorough cleaning. Before reading your entry I wasn’t even aware that that plastic disc was to provide back pressure. This made me wonder if this was the source of the problem.

So I took out the pressure plate and sure enough espresso flowed through like new. Except now no crema, so I put the plate from the small portafilter (which we don’t use) into the large porta filter, and success. If I get ambitious at some time I might take the faulty pressure nozzle apart (as in your “permanent method”) and see if it can be fixed/de-gunked. In the meantime I’m very glad to have a machine back working!

Thanks for the info,
–kevin

By: Heyanil

Heyanil — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:21:09 +0000

This is a great solution for many other delonghi machines with the same filter, I have implemented this for my ec702 and it has improved results. I have yet to get the thick crema seen in pictures but maybe I’m new and need more practice and tips. Thanks for this post.