I am amused to note that Mark has changed his opinion of the Macap portafilter forks from his previous view as follows:

“Initially I didn’t much care for the wire shape fork on the machine (”it doesn’t look as impressive as a cast piece of chromed metal, like on the Mazzer!” I thought), but after using it for a week, I really like it… even more than the Mazzers’ forks! Why? Because the wire fork facilitates “spinning” the portafilter to fill all areas of the filter basket – hold the handle to the left, click the lever. Hold the handle to the right, click the lever. Makes for faster, easier, and more uniform filling of the filter basket, especially when you are grinding for the shot.”

I personally find the Macap fork to be much better than the Mazzer fork, for the above reason as well as the fact that coffee grinds don’t built up on them as happens with the Mazzer and other similar designs.

I also think Mark is perfectly entitled to change his opinion. Nothing worse then being stuck on a viewpoint when the passage of time etc has convinced you otherwise. Consistency, except in maintaining brew temperatures is highly over rated and doesn’t allow for consideration of new information.

It can take a couple of weeks practice to begin to dial in the perfect combination of all of the above, but once you really get the hang of it the results can be spectacular and it all starts to feel like second nature.

These sites have way more information:

http://www.kazys.net/pavoni/ (if it’s still up)

http://www.pavoniexpress.com/

http://www.gurus.net/pavoni/howto.html

Julian.

I wrote an article about Silvia mods here:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Modifying_Miss_Silvia

I’ve only ever gotten to play with lever machines really briefly, but I’ve tasted some really great shots that were pulled on them. I have to imagine that your La Pavoni can put you in business, given a good grinder. Now that you mention it, I kind of wish I’d included a lever machine in this article.

What’s your opinion of lever machines? I have the La Pavoni Europiccola model and I’ve never taken the time to really figure out how to deliver the goods. I read once on Sweet Maria’s that Tom uses a La Pavoni lever model to cup all new beans that he gets. Of course, that was when he was in his tiny spot in Columbus, Ohio for a while and probably didn’t have the room for something larger.

Thanks for all of the great advice this week.

Pluses:
- better doser assembly, really nice “feel” to it
- leaves less coffee in the doser
- I like the ease of the worm gear stepless grind selection better than the stiff turning Mazzer Mini
- Seems to have a slightly “cooler” grind than the Mazzer – ie, the grounds are basically room temperature – the Mazzer’s grinds can feel a bit warm.
- quieter

Negatives:
- Mazzer’s fork is 100x better
- Mazzer’s a bit quicker
- Mazzer’s grind catching tray, albeit still very small, is better than the Macap.
- Mazzer’s lids seem slightly better quality.