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It was through these two things – the growing internet espresso community, and the Silvia’s easy internal access – that the machine became the instrument that completely changed the world of espresso.
Controlling Temperatures
Back in 2001, pretty much every espresso machine in the world, from $15,000 commercial machines to $200 countertop home machines, had wide temperature variances in their boilers and at the groupheads while brewing espresso. We’re talking temperature swings as much as 10F to 15F. This was because they all used decades-old temperature controllers in machines to turn boilers on or off to maintain heat levels.
David Schomer, of Espresso Vivace in Seattle, (a pioneer in modern espresso), often expressed a dream (PDF document) that one day we’d get espresso machine temperature variances down to under 2F. He believed espresso would improve dramatically if we had the technology to do this.
Two engineers who participated in the most popular coffee forum of the day – alt.coffee, a usenet newsgroup – knew of technology that could deliver on this dream. Proportional, Integral, Derivative control devices, or PIDs, were used in science labs to control liquid temperatures down to 0.1F or even finer. The two engineers were Andy Schecter and Greg Scace. Both owned first generation Rancilio Silvias.
Independent of each other, and within a few days of each other, both of them engineered a PID controller into their Silvias in January, 2001. They announced their experiments to the alt.coffee group, and reported getting the water temperature in the Rancilio Silvia boiler down to a consistent 0.2F variance.
The internet basically blew up, at least as far as the espresso world was concerned.
Espresso Improves Dramatically Overnight
Pretty much overnight, we went from huge variables in brewing temperatures in espresso machines, to 0.2F stability. On a $400 Rancilio Silvia consumer machine.
Both Schecter and Scace were very free with sharing their information, and many tinkerer owners of the Silvia started installing PID devices on their home machines.
There was also a seismic shift in commercial machine makers.
Within 2 months of the Schecter/Scace news on PID controllers, La Marzocco had hacked a Linea espresso machine to have PID controls on their brew boilers. Within 6 months, they were selling it as an add on feature. Within a year, a half dozen major commercial machine makers were including PIDs. By 2005, the first machine designed entirely around PID controls was coming on scene: the La Marzocco GS3.
Ironically, it took Rancilio many years to offer anything like PID controlled temperature stability on any of their commercial machines.
Today, PID controls are so common in espresso machines that even the machine we’re giving away in this issue – the Breville Bambino Plus – has one installed to give very precise brewing temperatures at the grouphead. Almost every quality commercial machine today has multiple PID controls. Another Breville machine, the Breville Dual Boiler (introduced in 2010) has 3 PIDs: one for its brew boiler, one for the steam boiler, and one for heating the grouphead.
All because of the Rancilio Silvia, and two out of the box thinking engineers who also happened to be consumers who loved espresso.
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