Now we're coffeeing* like a pro.

* On the Rancilio manual their tagline is (I kid you not), 'Coffeeing the world.' I'm thinking since Rancilio is an Italian company their marketing just doesn't quite translate to English…

Welcome Silvia Pro to the family!

This machine has been a long time coming. Just released last year, what caught our attention first were the dual boilers and the price point. Why? With two boilers we could steam milk and pull shots at the same time. Just like the pros. #gamechanger

Commercial machines all have multiple boilers. Very few home machines do. Especially ones made in Italy. The Italian ones that have dual boilers are expensive and look like there wasn't room to fit all the plumbing inside the machine. Enter Rancilio's Silvia Pro.

Granted, we've been using the second generation Rancilio Miss Silvia since I picked it up used on Craigslist back in the fall of 2012.

That was our old house, of course. I was busy that evening dialing in the grind and tamping pressure needed to pull consistently timed and dosed espresso shots. It's a process necessary for any new machine and the Silvia is well-known and well-revered for its manual operation.

Rewinding a little further, before scoring that machine slightly used, my first espresso machine (I bought K the same one for her place while we were still dating) was the classic Breville Café Roma.

Like Rancilio's Miss Silvia (now on the 6th generation I believe), Breville still makes that thing. Though not on par with the Silvia and certainly not the Pro, it was a really good machine for its price tag.

Our Miss Silvia has also graced the countertops of this house for a few years as we continued to pull four shots a day: two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Every day. 

Up until the week before last. She stopped brewing coffee.

The steam and hot water wand continued to work, so I looked up what could be wrong. After opening her up, K pointed out a crack on the 3-way solenoid that controls the water flow to the group head. So for $70 I'll replace it. She's still a great machine with an indefinite lifespan thanks to so many replaceable parts and near-indestructible industrial construction. Over the years I've replaced a few parts. One of the many plusses of Rancilio's designs is the ease of repair. It's a big reason we were so excited for the Pro. 

This brings us to this past weekend when the delivery guy heaved that beast-of-a-package onto our front porch.

We unboxed it and set it up on our countertop, moving our beloved Miss Silvia to the dining table where I'll finish repairing her. Time to start the process of dialing in the grind on our classic kickass La Pavoni Zip grinder we got from K's parents. Case in point: her parents also gave us the matching La Pavoni Pub V commercial espresso machine we've taken a hack at restoring. We think they're both from the 80s. But the Zip hasn't changed at all in over three decades. If it ain't broke…

That brings us to yesterday. The Big Day. Our first step was getting everything sorted.

Then weighing our espresso grind in the portafilter. The goal is 17g of ground coffee to yield a two-ounce shot in twenty-five seconds.

Tamping and then finally pouring the first shot!

It looked beautiful, but it was far from perfect. Too fast and lacking a robust layer of crema. I needed a finer grind. Worth noting: since visiting Cosmo and Pepper at their (then) new place in Bigfork, Montana a couple years ago, we've consistently ordered the five-pound bag of espresso roast from nearby-to-them Fieldheads Coffee.

We made two more lattes yesterday afternoon. Still dialing it in. This morning's coffee was pretty legit. As we sipped it, figuring $10 for two espressos out K said, 'We've already saved $40.' Once dialed, it'll be better than ninety-eight-percent of the coffee shops out there.

Yep, welcome big Silvia! Next year: our coffee bar…