So I took a week off from posting last week to take a vacation with my family and as I was engrossed in my mind-numbing beach novel something struck me: we’ve never posted a complete shot walkthrough for the Rancilio Silvia to illustrate how to get the best espresso from Miss Silvia.  No matter your coffee beverage of choice (and I hope you prefer a nice café doppio, of course), the Rancilio Silvia is capable of producing marvelous espresso at home. However, as many of you know, Miss Silvia likes to play “hard to get” and as with any beautiful Italian lady is quit particular in her tastes.

There are a handful of key elements in getting the best espresso from Miss Silvia:

*Choice of espresso blend

*Proper grind setting

*Proper dosing of your grinds

*Precise tamping methods

*Correct boiler temperature

*Proper pressure

*Accurate timing of extraction

While each of these factors which go into producing the best espresso shot will populate upcoming posts here at the Rancilio Silvia Review, we’re going to begin with a complete walkthrough to illustrate all of these elements in action.  Rather than go through each of these upfront, I wanted to share a video walkthrough that has become somewhat legendary as the gold standard of proper extraction techniques for Miss Silvia. Many of you have likely already come across this video in one place or another, but even if you have seen it, I’ve found that it’s helpful to view it every now and again to brush up on good technique for producing the best espresso possible from your machine.

Without further ado:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhxvDusY3jk

And there you have it…the perfect shot. As mentioned previously, we’ll explore some of these steps in more detail within subsequent posts, but this is a great introductory illustration of how to get the best espresso shot from your Rancilio Silvia.