If you decide to keep your Gaggia and spruce it up there is a forum dedicated to Gaggia, lots of peo

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Hello, I'm a relative newbie to espresso at home. A couple of months ago or so I picked up a well cared for used Gaggia Classic on CL. My results are all over the place (sour, bitter, good), which has me thinking of upgrading in some way or another. I've done lots of reading about possible mods to the Gaggia along with different higher quality machines that I might upgrade to instead. The more I read, the more I tend to get confused steam mop and overloaded, so I'm wondering if I might get some guidance from the board. -I've thought about adding the Silvia steam wand, the auber PID kit, and adjusting the pump pressure on my Classic. But...my portafilter is not adaptable to making a pressure gauge and would have to buy another, so if I want to do that I'm looking at putting ~$300 into a used machine steam mop which may or may not stop working tomorrow. If I do this, will I be able to get consistent, quality results or am I just better off putting the money towards a new machine? -The next thought I've had is the Quick Mill Silvano. I like to make milk drinks, and dealing with a single boiler is somewhat frustrating. I've been using my (gasp) Solis Master 5000 to steam milk rather than deal with switching back and forth, but it doesn't seem to make decent foam or have any power either (I would like to tinker with latte art). But does the Silvano have sufficient dry steam power with the thermoblock, and if I'm going to spend ~1K, I might as well spend a tad more and get... -An Hx in the $1300'ish range. (BZ07, La Nuova Cuadra, steam mop etc.) I'm sure these will have more than enough steam power for me and I'm assuming will make better espresso, but I'm not sure I want to deal with all of the flushing, adapting a thermometer, etc., and are my inconsistent results with my current machine coming from temperature inconsistencies? Which leads me to... -A dual boiler like the Mini Vivaldi. I like about everything I read about this machine (great steam, good temp control, high quality, fits under cabinets, front load water tank) and I can't really see spending more than $2K for something else with similar capabilities, but my wife doesn't love the size on the counter and I'm not in love with the appearance. Also, I know it has lots of steam power...is this going to blow 6 ounces of milk out of my steaming pitcher when I'm making steam mop a latte for just myself? And reliability is very important to me...is an Hx design significantly steam mop more reliable and/or easier to maintain? Aside from occasional guests, I am the only coffee drinker in the house. I can convince myself to spend as much as the Vivaldi costs, but I would also be interested in spending as little as possible to achieve a significant upgrade in performance. Thanks steam mop for following along with my rambling steam mop thoughts and for any advice you may have to offer. AZPJ   Posts: 33 Joined: Dec 18, 2013 Location: AZ
I had a series steam mop of Gaggias over years before steam mop buying steam mop a Vivaldi II in 2007. My suggestion would be not to put money into the used Gaggia that you now have; you don't know what life it has left and even after a bunch of money you will still just have a SBDU machine. The Silvano is interesting but I can't comment on it having never seen or used it. I decided that going all the way to a double boiler was the way to go as opposed to an HX. HX machines can make fantastic coffee, I just wanted the convenience of the double boiler and being plumbed in. You should try to find an HX that you can see demonstrated or try yourself to see how you feel about it for the kind of drinks you make for yourself. Good luck MDL   Posts: 124 Joined: Jun 22, 2007 Location: San Diego, CA
Bezzera Mitica would solve every problem you can think of for $1600 (10% off coupon), maybe $1500 if you resell the giveaway espresso machine that 1st line is providing on orders greater than $1k. damonbowe   Posts: 365 Joined: Aug 05, 2013 Location: Washington, DC Website steam mop
If you decide to keep your Gaggia and spruce it up there is a forum dedicated to Gaggia, lots of people there have classics and have fixed them up. Here is the site: www.gaggiausersgroup.com Adding the Silvia Wand is a huge step-up from the essentially useless EOM wand. It's a night and day experience with this mod. The auber PID kit is wonderful and makes adding steam mop the PID easy and convenient but at a price. You can lower the price if you have some working knowledge of electronics and do not mind sourcing and building your own PID. There is great information on HB and on GUG (the site I provided) that will guide you to build a PID. For adjusting the pressure. For building your own pressure gauge you can use the portafilter you currently have. I still use the portafilter I used to build a gauge. I simpl