Pulling a shot on the Olympia Cremina

[jmeeter]

Hi,

I recently was given an Olympia Cremina for free. I have a question regarding pulling a shot on it...

When I lift up the lever, espresso starts to drizzle out, even before I push down. And then when I push down, it is incredibly hard, and I can't even get it to go "down" (aka past the level position).

What am I doing wrong?

 

[shadow745]

Well, if you don't like it you can send it to me........ A friend of mine once found a Cremina in really good shape at a yard sale for $3 and I rebuilt it for him. It was a bit intimidating, but I worked my way through it and all was fine.

I did pull several shots through it, but didn't keep it very long after I rebuilt it. I did set the pressurestat to achieve the right brew temp. and it amazed me as to how precise that thing was for being so old. Anyway...... I'll give it a go.

When you raise the lever the piston is allowing water into the group. You may notice a bit of drizzle. A lever should be hard to pull down, but if it's really difficult you may need to grind a bit more coarse or tamp less.

Tell you what.. go to YouTube and do a search for Olympia Cremina and there's a guy on there that posted a video. He goes by the name of "ladalet" and he puts on a great show of how to get a perfect shot from that machine. Well worth watching if you want to improve your technique. There's also a few helpful pages I found in the past that offered alot of valuable info on the Cremina. If I can find it I'll post the link. Later!