Do a latte a day and over the course of a year that’s like an extra 4 hours of waiting for steam with the Silvia.
Now that’s a rather significant difference. The average for the Silvia was one minute, 45 seconds. I tested each machine 4 times and the Casa was a heck of a lot faster reaching steam temp as indicated by the machine, getting there in an average time of one minute, four seconds. Looking at results of performance testing, we can see where those extra watts make a difference. The Silvia’s is 993 watts while the Casa uses a more powerful twelve hundred watt element. What makes a difference are the heating elements in those boilers. Boiler volumes are thirteen ounces for the Casa and twelve ounces for the Silvia. Similaritiesīoth machines have brass boilers mounted over the brew group. But if you want to experiment with different max brew pressures, the adjustment is easy to access and easy to monitor with the gauge on the Casa V. Now for most users there’s very little need to adjust the OPV.
But with no pressure gauge on the Silvia, there’s no way of knowing what you'd even be adjusting it to. The case must be removed and then it takes a bit of contortion to actually make the adjustment. Frankly, on the Silvia, adjusting the OPV is such a pain in the you-know-what that we do not recommend average users even try to adjust it. Just pull the cup warming tray and the adjustment is right there. The OPV, the over pressure valve, is easily adjustable on the Casa V. Now, related to that is another major difference. The brew pressure gauge lets you know your espresso is extracting properly, that you’ve dialed in the sweet spot of variables like grind size and coffee dose.
The first major and, well, obvious difference? The Casa V has a brew pressure gauge and the Silvia does not. They even use the same Ulka vibration pump. Similar size, similar appearance, they both use heavy, commercial size 58 millimeter portafilters, brass boilers mounted over substantial group heads, and both have three-way solenoid valves. So the Silvia and ECM’s Casa V are quite similar in many areas.
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