I think the Rok is a great espresso machine. There is something very satisfying about pressing down those arms and producing espresso.
However it comes with many small problems that don't appear to have well documented solutions. I hope this helps another Rok user out there.
Preheating
Rok is a fully manual machine with a mostly stainless steel body. This that you have problems with temperature control especially if you live in colder parts of the world. What I found to work best is to just plug the portafilter with Cork and then pour boiling hot water in the open stance. Let is sit there for 30 seconds and then fill the portafilter with coffee.
Preinfusion
I did have trouble getting good shots but it appears that it all came down to the preinfusion stage. So preinfusion is when you just let the water meet the coffee in the chamber at 0 or low pressure. To get the tasty bits out I would usually need around 25-30sec with 1-2 bars and then pull a 20-30sec shot.
Unwinding of the portafilter
So this was weird. In the beginning I had trouble with a very slow unwinding of the portafilter. The pressure build up was too high which made the portafilter slightly unwind and water would overflow pas the portafilter. This unwinding was not noticeable to me. I only figured it out after making a video
I contacted Rok and it took many emails back and for to figure out what was wrong. We are still not completely sure why it occurred but it has stopped happening. It could have been some oil somewhere which made the surfaces slippery. Anyways, after I started using a bit of soap to clean out the wings of the portafilter and gasket it did not happen again.
Would love to know if people have recommendations for other manual espresso machines.
cat tax
