Rancilio Silvia

Preamble

Since its introduction 30 years ago in 1997, the Rancilio Silvia has been popularised to be a great entry-level espresso machine, complete with a steam wand and an aftermarket PID if so desired. The Silvia series has continuously received updates from Rancilio over the years with the V6 being the latest model released in 2020. Rancilio as a company was founded back in 1927, where they focused on commercial espresso machines until the domestic espresso market became larger in the 90s.

The Silvia is often remarked alongside the Gaggia Classic to be the earliest models to what we might consider “home barista” models. Bringing commercial-grade components and build quality to the home, just in a much-reduced size. While the Silvia’s features are not extravagant (I’d say it has the bare minimum), the 58mm portafilter and the steam wand do fit it to the standards of the modern third wave coffee via compatibility. This makes it easy to jump right in and play around with the optional tools the specialty coffee world has to offer.

Personal Intro

When I first got into the world of coffee in 2022, I started off with the mighty French press. I got my flavoured beans ground up at the local supermarket, and I had a grand old time drinking okay-at-best coffee. I wanted to drink milk-based drinks though, so I used the French press to froth the milk (with poor results). It was around then I discovered that I needed better equipment, so I “splurged” on an Aeropress and a Nanofoamer.

The stronger coffee and better-textured milk were good, but what I needed was espresso. I couldn’t afford a machine at this point, so I settled for the Flair Pro - a manual lever machine. It was capable of producing the requisite 9 bars of pressure, and my new JX-Pro handgrinder could also grind fine enough. While I won’t be writing a review for that machine, it was annoying to have to preheat the metal grouphead and fiddle around with all the other small components. Microwaving my milk and having to use my Nanofoamer was getting tedious, and I found myself wanting an upgrade.

It was around July of 2023 (9 months after I made my own coffee for the first time), when I decided to get myself a proper machine. I still couldn’t afford a shiny new one, so I settled for what was considered a great entry level machine, the Silvia, and got one used for around 500 CAD.

Looking back, I’m rather surprised I used this machine for more than 2 years. I had some great fun with it and got some delicious drinks out of it, too. However, as my interest in coffee grew, the more I realized I needed a more capable machine. I wanted to write this review mostly to remember this machine: its pros, cons, and the details of my thoughts on it.

Pros

Let’s start with what I like about it. I think the smaller form factor is pretty nice; it fits comfortably on my counter with a lot of space left over for puck prep. I also do like how it's shaped with its simple rectangular body. Like I mentioned before, the machine (without the PID) doesn’t have a lot of options, but this proves to be beneficial to new coffee-enjoyers as it streamlines things and helps to guide them toward decisions that would ultimately make a larger impact on the extraction. For example, a machine with variable pressure settings or flow profiling might detract or even distract the user from adjusting the grind size or dose, which is arguably more important to learn how to do as a beginner.

Speaking of learning, the steam wand is pretty weak. I hear it’s stronger than its peers in the same price bracket, but I don’t have the experience to touch on this. The steam wand being weak does lend itself to a longer milk steaming time, which gives you some more time to react and watch the milk as you step through the processes of aeration and stretching.

I believe that the Silvia is also one of the few machines with common options for a PID. Well, technically, any machine can have a PID installed, but no other machine comes as close to looking as official as it does on the Silvia. The PID is an aftermarket purchase, but it does allow you to control the brew temperature, preinfusion time, brew time, and steam temp.

Cons

Now that I have more experience with not only the Silvia but also a deeper understanding of the extraction process, it has become more and more clear that there were things I disliked about the Silvia. These were things that actively made the coffee worse, made the milk quality worse, along with other annoyances.

To start, the temperature stability is rather poor. The water coming out of the grouphead at the start of extraction is at a much different temperature than at the finish. The lack of metal mass (compared to more expensive and larger machines) combined with the okayish thermostat lend itself to wild temperature deviations. I was fortunate enough to have a PID that could control this initial temperature, but the heat loss over the time of extraction was inevitable.

Steaming milk was another pain point and, personally, a larger one. First, the steam pressure is tied to when the boiler cycles on and off. The PID can alleviate some of this by narrowing the window in which the boiler cycles on and off. If you catch the Silvia at a bad time (boiler is off), then the pressure won't be ready to kick in, and you may end up with lower-quality microfoam. "Temperature surfing" is what people have come to call this, and it’s mighty annoying. Even if you start steaming at exactly the right time, the 0.3L boiler loses so much heat and steam pressure that by the halfway point, the steam isn’t really strong enough (though strong enough to finish steaming the milk).

These issues themselves make it more of a weird game of waiting and timing the perfect start time. Because of the thermal mass, or lack thereof, I found that the temperature in my house could make a non-negligible difference too.

Next, we have the quality of the steam. Steam quality might sound weird, but when you realize steam is just water, you want as little water from that steam to enter and stay in the milk. Unfortunately, the Silvia also doesn’t do too well in this aspect. I've tried a lot of things, like purging the boiler of water and letting it fill with steam, leaving the machine on for a few hours on steam mode (and of course, leaving the pump button off), but this wet steam just seems to be a constant. I know I’m not alone in this, as reviews of the V2, even from way back in 2005, have complained about the wet steam.

In any case, I feel that steaming milk should be no more complicated than purging the steam wand, steaming the milk, and making sure to wipe the thing down. None of this temperature surfing or knowing exactly how long the machine has been on to estimate the temperature stability of the machine and boiler.

And last but not least, the Silvia V2’s steam wand shape is the bane of my existence. Who decided it should be a hexagonal piece? Have they never tried wiping down the steam wand tip? These days steam wand tips are round, which makes it very easy and fast to grab the wet rag and wipe off any milk remains on the tip before the milk cooks on. With the hexagonal tip, I needed to make sure to carefully wipe down each of the six sides. Yet another step that added to the already long process of steaming the milk.