Just call her Lazarus

Or would that be "Lazara" for a girl?

Our beloved Silvia, our espresso machine, died on Friday evening.

As usual, on Friday I turned on Silvia and gave her a brief priming. That is, I put the portafilter into the group head and turned on the pump for a few seconds. We then let her heat up while we ate supper.

After supper, as usual, I was going to run some hot water into the little espresso cups to preheat them. When I pressed the brew switch nothing happened. No hot water.

Silvia was hot but nothing happened when I pressed the brew switch. There was no light that shows that she's turned on. Did a circuit breaker blow? No, Rocky was on the same outlet and he ran.

Silvia was dead.

One of the reasons to get a machine like Silvia is that she's very serviceable. I didn't panic, she (probably) could be repaired.

I found a YouTube video that showed how to reset the circuit breaker that turns off Silvia's boiler in case it overheats. The problem with that is that the pump is supposed to keep working even if the circuit breaker has turned off the boiler. My problem was more severe but I opened up Silvia to see if the circuit breaker had been tripped.

It hadn't tripped. While I was poking around with the circuit breaker Jerry peeked in. He noticed a wire with burnt insulation. The wire was going to the main power switch. With that wire out of commission Silvia just can't run.

We seem to have discovered the problem.

Now all I needed was a new wire and the connectors. It turned out that my crimper had just the right connector for the power switch and to splice a wire onto Silvia's power cable.

But where is the wire?

I searched around the house and finally found an old power cord. Since the broken wire in Silvia was delivering power I figured the wires in the power cord would be enough to use. I dissected the power cord and it had three separate wires.

I took one of the wires and crimped a spade connector onto one end and crimped the other end onto the wire left in Silvia.

I reassembled Silvia and turned her on. No smoke!

She warmed up and we brewed some espresso. She worked! Just as before! Yay!

After brewing that first batch I opened her up again. The wire wasn't hot. I think we're back in business for another ten years!

I'm confidant that all that was wrong was that there was a rotten wire, not that there is something wrong with Silvia that caused the wire to disintegrate. I'm betting that it had been rotting for years and Friday was just the day it finally ran out of time.

Here's a picture of the wire that I cut out.

Here's my spliced-in wire (from the blue connector up and around to the power switch).

Our happy family, Rocky and Silvia, as good as new!

Time flies when you roast coffee

When I recently posted a video of my new Hottop Coffee Roaster doing its job, Izzy wondered how long it took to roast. I guessed around 15 minutes. I was wrong. It takes a bit longer. Colleen suggested that I reshoot the video with some old-time movie cliché showing the passage of time.

Your wish is my command!

Here is the coffee roaster with a clock ticking the seconds off!



I'll get around to telling you more about the movie in the next few days (if you ask for more).

---

Taking the Roadster for a spin

As I promised when I introduced you to the Roadster, here (finally!) is a video of it in action.

Check out my new roadster!

I've been worried for a while.

You might remember that I had a hot air coffee roaster die a couple of years ago. According to Sweet Maria's, hot air roasters have a warranty for a year and that if they are well cared for they will last a couple of years.

A dead coffee roaster is not a good thing.

As I said, I've been using my roaster for more than two years. Last fall I was thinking that I'd better take action since I don't want to be without my coffee. Sweet Maria's said that the manufacturer of the roaster I was using (well, the manufacturers of all hot air roasters) had put production of their roasters on hold. The manufacture kept pushing back the time they'd be reintroducing the roasters. They're now saying they'll be ready at the end of 2010 or early in 2011.

So much for preventative action.

In the past few months the roaster has been making sounds like it is under stress. Coffee roasting makes a lot of dust and oily residue that clogs vents and gums up bearings. And its sounds of struggling seemed to be getting worse. I'm afraid it is very near the end of its life. And replacements aren't available.

I was getting very worried.

There are other hot air roasters available that have smaller capacities than my roaster handles. But I've been thinking that roasting every other day was a little too often. That maybe I need a roaster with a larger capacity.

Replacements of my roaster aren't available. Even if they were, I'd still be bound to the roaster a little more frequently that I want to be.

If only there were a roaster available with a larger capacity.

Meet The Roadster:

It's a Hottop Drum Coffee Roaster (basic model). It roasts in a rotating drum. It's quiet. (Hot air roasters are LOUD!) It roasts 250 grams of green coffee. The old hot air roaster did 150 grams. If anything wears out, it can be repaired. If anything in the hot air roaster's base wears out, you buy a new roaster. (I did have to get replacement roasting chambers for the hot air roasters. But it's the base with all the moving parts that was about to die and that would mean the end of that roaster.)

I couldn't make a movie of it in action. I needed to pay attention to what it was up to. Maybe later you'll get to see it running.

For its first roasting I just let it run through its "Auto" program. It churned the beans and the temperature rose and rose. It turns out that I needed to tell it to turn down the heat. It got up to the target temperature while the first crack was still going and it dumped the beans into the cooling tray. I wanted to go at least to Full City Roast or Full City Roast+. I have to use it and learn how to adjust it to get the roasts I'm after.

That's part of the fun of home roasting.

Why "Roadster"? Well, the day it came I sent Jerry a text message apologizing for not stopping at the grocery store to pick up some milk. I told him that I had a coffee roaster with me that I needed to get home and play with it. The phone is a smart phone and it helps people by correcting spelling errors. I watch the keyboard to see that it is entering the letters I want. I don't look at the part of the display where it shows what it's going to send. That's where it will make choices for you when it doesn't like the word you've entered. Sometimes it isn't terribly smart. I usually don't proofread what I've typed since I had done that while I typed.

It changed "roaster" to "roadster." So that is the machine's name.

It turns out that the New York Times's technology blogger had recently done a post where the perils of smart phones' autocorrection feature are shown. I'm not alone.

Time for coffee

Bobbie and Mom visited last weekend after they went to Kevin's graduation. We went to Julian on Sunday for a day of shopping, lunch, and pie. We shopped till we dropped.

We bought an accessory for Silvia.


Its tongue is a pendulum.


If you need a whimsical clock, Allen Designs has one for you (I don't know anything about the company I linked to...they just seem to have the whole catalog).

(The pie was much better than what we had when Peggy, Michele, and I went up there last month. Sorry.)

Troubles brewing!

The last few weeks of 2008 brought me some distress in the coffee department. And distress regarding coffee is, to paraphrase Martha, a bad thing.

The roasting chamber of my coffee roaster had developed a crack near its top. It had done this before. The crack slowly grew but it didn't break apart. I didn't want to put any stress on the crack so I didn't wash the pot for a long time. Finally I couldn't see into the pot so I broke down and washed it. The next time I roasted it broke.
I'm guessing a bit of water got into the crack and expanded while roasting and blew the crack apart. As I said, this had happened before. When it did I bought a second roasting chamber before the first one's crack finally gave way. The replacement gave me grief. The lid didn't fit well and took a lot of effort to get it to go on. That made roasting a chore. So I bought a yet another pot. So I had an emergency backup pot on hand. With a Phillips #1 screwdriver I was able to adjust the backup pot so the lid goes on easily. And life went back to normal.

(It turns out that I have yet another backup roasting chamber. My first coffee roaster died with a terrible screech last year so I bought a new roaster. It, of course, came with its own roasting chamber.)

The last week or two gave me something new to worry about. The handle of the portafilter, the thing that holds the coffee grounds for an espresso maker, developed a worrisome jiggle. When I'd put the portafilter into Silvia's group head the handle seemed to go a bit further than the filter. Yesterday I went to Whole Latte Love's web site to order a replacement but then got involved in other chores. (Hey, their 10% off sale goes through tomorrow!)

But that was too late anyway. Last night while making our New Year's Eve party's coffees the handle came off.
And life got complicated.

Fortunately, I'm a guy. Guys can fix things. Guys got duct tape. Well, duct tape wouldn't hold a portafilter's handle on. But guys also have Vise Grip locking pliers.

The pliers hold real good!
They'll work just fine till a replacement portafilter comes.

And life went back to normal.

By the way, while we're on the subject of coffee, here's a picture of what occasionally shows up in Silvia's drip tray. The iridescent film is so pretty.

This isn't your stodgy old NCR!

We were given a Friday afternoon party at work. It was the first of quarterly fun afternoons to get together and let our hair down and celebrate being an agile, high-tech company unlike our former steady-as-she-goes NCR battleship. We had the opportunity to don inflatable Sumo wrestler suits and bump into our coworkers. We also got to drink smoothies.

They had a band singing Simon and Garfunkel, Beatles, Monkees and other 60s songs. At first I thought that the oldies were an odd choice for a forward-looking company's party but then I didn't see many young people. Most of the people working there grew up with the music the band was playing. I'd say they need to make an effort to get more young ideas in the company if they really want to be speeding into the future. We'll be hobbling there with our walkers pretty soon (and with very little hair to let down).

At this party they made a big announcement about new benefits that befit our dynamic workplace. First, they reminded us that we all got a second flat panel monitor. Now we have more than twice the space for our computers to show us stuff and get more stuff done faster. It really does help.

But the big, big announcement was that we're going to be getting free coffee, tea and soft drinks! They've brought back the coffee they were giving us years ago when we first moved into our new buildings. The machines are newer but the coffee is the same stuff people didn't like before.

They gave us Douwe Egberts machines that dispense freshly brewed coffee instantly at the touch of a button. What it does is add hot water to concentrated coffee syrup. They say that they brew coffee, extract the aromas, concentrate the coffee then add the aromas back to the concentrate and package it so that we get the freshest, most flavorful coffee possible. It's a reasonable facsimile.

Here's our new coffee machine.
It looks high-tech.

And here's a look inside at the coffee syrup boxes.

The soda will be installed next week. I can hardly contain my excitement.

Alas!

Way back at the end of January Poss asked if I was still using my original coffee roaster. I was and I posted a movie of it in action (perhaps you remember). Its original roasting pot had cracked so I was on my second one of those. A couple of weeks ago I finally got tired of the bad fit with the lid so I got a third roasting pot. The lid fits that one just fine.

A couple of days ago I was roasting coffee and at the end of the cooling period instead of saying "whirrrrr" it ended with "squaaaaawK!" I asked "squawk?" then dumped the coffee into the colander and put the roaster away.

Today I set it up to roast a new batch. When I pressed the start button it said sadly "rrrrrrr-r-r." It has given up the ghost.

It was a sad day.

I went online and ordered a new one from Sweet Maria's. It's supposed to be delivered Friday. In the meantime we might have to open the can of Illy coffee Jerry got for Christmas from his work and use the French press.

All living things need coffee

Poss asked about coffee roasting so here's the scoop.

Yes, I'm still on my first Hearthware I-Roast 2 coffee roaster. I am on the second roasting chamber. The first one got cracked. I think I rubbed too hard while cleaning it. At least it was just a crack and kept working until I got the replacement! The lid doesn't fit this roasting chamber very well so I have to fight to get it on. I'm bound to break this one sometime in the fight so I really should order another one just in case.

I get my green coffee beans from Sweet Maria's these days. I usually get some Espresso Monkey Blend. (Did you know espresso blends include some robusta beans? And we thought robusta is evil!) And I try some single-origin coffee that they say makes good espresso. I need to pay more attention to the flavor because after a while I can't remember what might be different between the various coffees. I used to appreciate the differences. I wonder what's changed.

I grind the roasted beans in Rocky and brew in Silvia. They're a great pair. No home should be without them. (I got them from Whole Latte Love.)

And now for a 20 megabyte experiment: here is a minute and a half view of the coffee roasting! (I should have recorded it in lower resolution.) I've never done this before so I hope it works.

(What a waste of bandwidth...at least it's not porn! Though some religions do find coffee to be sinful.)

The movie starts with me forgetting that I hadn't selected the roast profile. I first go for the start button then have to remember to do all that needs to be done to select Roast Profile 2. So that's what all the fumbling around is about. There are 30 seconds at the beginning of the roast, 30 in the middle and 30 at the end of the cooling period.



And here's the finished product cooling in the colander.


Tomorrow we get to find out if it's good. (It is I'm sure.)