Ira, Thank you so much for your response. I cleaned the OPV and solenoid as best I could and blew compressed air and water through both parts. I completely drained the steam boiler. I didn't find any of the beads anywhere, so I'm skeptical that this is the issue now.
The steam starts to flow backwards from the fitting on the bottom of the steam boiler connected to the heat exchanger from here it travels back through the silicon tubing towards the opv. Could a defect/crack in the heat exchanger cause steam from the steam boiler to enter the heat exchanger tubing and then flow backwards? Another thought..the brewtus compendium states that the brew boiler is completely filled with water. What if in my case it wasn't and there was steam at the top of this boiler? From the schematics it looks as though the steam could flow back through the upper silicon tubing through the heat exchanger and then backwards as described above. What ensures that the brew boiler is completely filled with water? I have a feeling this information is also useful: when I backflush against a blind portafilter and release the lever, the pressure gauge still reads pressure of approx 10bars. Even if I remove the portafilter from the grouphead the pressure persists. Interestingly in this state the steam does not flow back into the reservoir. If I open and depress the lever one additional time the pressure then drops to 0 and shortly thereafter steam begins to reflux back into the reservoir. Patrick -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/brewtus/-/LJ8SPyWXNhUJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus?hl=en.
