Five Senses Coffee Blog

Fitting the front boiler.

The first step is to totally strip everything out of a brand spanking new Isomac La Mondiale.  To install the Synesso brew boiler we will need to cut a 90mm wide section from the stainless steel front panel. It would be great to just make it a nice neat square  for only the neck of the group to poke out through. Unfortunately I am also going to have to allow access to the brew soliniod positioned underneath in case it ever needs replacing.  I will need to come up with a snazzy cover to screw over the brew valve access later.

TheSynesso brew boiler itself is mounted on a plate that is positioned to cover the holes left by the removed E61 group and leave 13cm from the group collar to the drain tray.  With the brew boiler in place there is no longer enough clearance for the duel pressure gauge to be installed.  To resolve this I have had to unsolder the upper (steam pressure) capillary tube and cut off about 9mm of the gauge body and about 6mm of the bracket holding screws. (see image) After re-soldering the upper tube the gauge now clears the brew boiler.

Next is the mounting of the brew pump and motor.  One side of the mounting plate is simply bolted to the brew boiler mounting plate via some rubber mounts to minimize any vibration and while running.  Securing the outside of the pump motor assembly  required me to make a couple of brackets that sit on the base plate of the coffee machine. I have made them significantly lower than the boiler side to make use of the space provided by the rounded back of the La Mondiale case, effectively allowing it to sit as low as possible.  The two benefits I see this being are that it allows the maximum room above for the yet to be installed steam boiler and secondly, it moves the pump away from the high temperature brew boiler. I have considered placing a heat shield between the pump motor and brew boiler also but I’m in two minds about whether this will be necessarily or not. Time will tell I guess. ~ richard muhl