Yea, once I got Jim's torrent to feed, I set my machine to super seed,
then went to my kiddos baseball game for the night. I noticed before I
left that some folks got on. That is the nature of torrents, it kind
of has to be a collective effort or it wont work. Rule of thumb is
seed as much as you  download. It is the root of peer-to-peer networks
and has an etiquette like lists, chats and IRC. Sorry to all who know
or don't care to hear this, but it should be said. I torrent files a
lot, legitimately for my work, it is a wonderful technology and while
etiquette is observed the best experience is noted.
Darn, I just wanted to post for some input, sorry for getting carried away.
Recently I have been lured toward espresso, all these darned posts of
how wonderful their home roast espresso is, I got right jealous! I
haven't had a "GOOD" espresso in years! Yes YEARS! So sad, I know! So
I got to reading on the Miss Sylvia, unfortunately I am more on the
whatever I can find that is descent for cheap budget, especially since
there is no way my 12 year old mr.coffee mill will grind for espresso,
still makes descent press though :) So I have to buy a grinder, I put
the value of having espresso back in my life at $300 dollar range.
After all there is a new crop to sample :)
Then I hit ebay,
I wound up with a Gaggia Coffee, an older one, looks very old to me.
It has a thick, what appears to be steel (enameled) chassis and a
chrome pipe you have to take off to get the water reservoir out and a
strange steam knob, like old school television knob. It doesn't seem
to behave the way I remember espresso machines behaving. I got some of
Tom's Espresso Monkey beans to take my maiden voyage, I'm tempted to
make a press pot of this stuff, it is nice! I also wound up with a new
Kitchenaid proline grinder. It seems like the grind is fine enough and
I read a review on coffeegeeks that tauted it as being fit for
espresso, but every shot I drop with this machine breaks about 8
seconds into the pour and I can't get enough grind and tamp to stop
this break from happening. Does anyone have experience with this
hardware, and up to giving me some pointers?? Also the first shot I
poured, the coffee in the porta filter made a traditional puck, the
subsequent tries I was unable to reproduce this effect. I steamed a
small amount of cream each time since I like mine in the style of a
mochiato and I wasn't about to waste the excellent coffee no matter
how the shot turned out!
any advice would be appreciated!
-Ebeneezer