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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2438 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 16, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I've been using a La Pavoni Professional for the last several years, it's not terrible to take apart but I might be a little excessively concerned that I'm going to mess it up trying to pry the gaskets out of the grouphead, even though my rational brain knows it'll be fine. Never tried the Breville but I've heard really good things about them, and especially that dual boiler system.

I don't know a damn thing about hacking a Breville, but I'm curious as to what you'd hack on one. PID would be the obvious first stop, but doesn't the dual boiler have one in both the broiler and the grouphead?

I was looking into the various La Pavoni machines when I was searching for a lever espresso maker. They look gorgeous and must be a pleasure to use. If they made a scaled-down version I would've strongly considered getting one, but the capability of the machine was just too much for the occasional espresso drinker like myself.

They definitely live up (and down) to their reputation, I'll say that. The Europiccola is well night unusable IME, it barely had time to pull a shot before its thermal fuse kicked out. The Professional, OTOH, has been a dream in terms of maintaining steam/pressure, but finding the sweet spot in terms of tamp has always been tricksy for me in the sense that there's little wiggle room between a nice shot that requires some, but not too much, force to pull, and a shot that's a little too tightly packed and can't really be pulled at all! As you can imagine, that kind of workout hasn't been kind to the grouphead gaskets...

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