Hello to all... proudly use a 2 group NS Aurelia daily and have one minor issue. I'd like to remove the stock steam tips for cleaning often, but find them rather difficult to remove. Have tried the usual soaking and light wrenching with pliers to no avail. Will probably crank down on them with ViseGrips for removal, then replace with something more user friendly. Tips that have flat sides for easy removal with a wrench. Have contacted NS, they recommend their "competition" tips and they are around $32 each factory price. Are there cheaper alternatives... something that will work well regardless of brand, etc? Thanks in advance.

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Does the no-scald feature reduce steaming power in any way?

Joseph Robertson said:
Shadow,
I was just curious about your main wands not the auto steam fixture. I opted for the no-scald version. They have a plastic liner inside the stainless wand. Very nice when engineering ideas work out like this. You could hold the wand with a bare hand and not get burned. The best part of them is the milk does not burn on no matter what. I was just curious if you had this option on your Aurelia.

Shadow said:
Brady, thanks for the pic. That helps out alot as to the differences. That competition tip looks to be the way to go.

Joseph, I don't think they are no-scald as they get quite warm when used. The wand material is apparently high quality as I find them very easy to clean up. I do believe the Smart Wand on our Aurelia is no-scald judging by the design of it, but I don't use it often. However, I do find it useful for heating things like cider to a preset temperature without having to babysit it or worry about tainting the main steam wands with off flavors.
The no-scald wands are neat. They just scare me a bit. I'm not used to the prospect of just touching the wands, although being able to do so during steaming seems like a neat concept. I wish LM would get on the train with those, maybe it's proprietary? Oh well, they've got Pressure profiling coming up.
Absolutely not. Couldn't be happier with these. I did have a problem when the machine was brand new. The plastic tube inside the wand expanded and restricted the steam at the tip as it heated up. Called tech support and was simply instructed to remove the tip and trim back the tube so when it heated up it wouldn't expand into the tip and restrict flow.
Joseph


Shadow said:
Does the no-scald feature reduce steaming power in any way?

Joseph Robertson said:
Shadow,
I was just curious about your main wands not the auto steam fixture. I opted for the no-scald version. They have a plastic liner inside the stainless wand. Very nice when engineering ideas work out like this. You could hold the wand with a bare hand and not get burned. The best part of them is the milk does not burn on no matter what. I was just curious if you had this option on your Aurelia.

Shadow said:
Brady, thanks for the pic. That helps out alot as to the differences. That competition tip looks to be the way to go.

Joseph, I don't think they are no-scald as they get quite warm when used. The wand material is apparently high quality as I find them very easy to clean up. I do believe the Smart Wand on our Aurelia is no-scald judging by the design of it, but I don't use it often. However, I do find it useful for heating things like cider to a preset temperature without having to babysit it or worry about tainting the main steam wands with off flavors.
Brady said:
Jeff Jaworski said:
"Will probably crank down on them with ViseGrips for removal"


^^ Please do not do this to Miss Aurelia.


Find out what size the threads are first. 10mm is the most common I believe. If so, you have many different choices to play around with, not to mention there are adapters available as well.


Like tampers you can never have too many steam tips in your arsenal!

OK, Jeff. How do you remove the Aurelia tip? Really. I hate the vise grip as much as you do, but don't know what else to do...

Jeff? Are you there Jeff?
Jeff Jaworski said:
Brady said:
Jeff? Are you there Jeff?
Sorry buddy, didn't see your post. I usually run some steam through the wand to get things nice and hot, wrap a small rag around the tip, and then apply a good amount of pressure with with my fingers while turning counter-clockwise to break the tip loose. I've never had any trouble on multiple machines, so if it's on that tight then it's the factory's fault for unnecessarily over tightening it.

Awesome. I will try this next time.

I have tried heat, but by soaking in a pitcher of hot water for 15 minutes. Thought this might help soften any milk that may have seeped in to the threads and glued them together. However that wouldn't be nearly as hot as a jet of steam, which may be the difference. The last couple of these that I did were cold machines (since the next step was unscrewing the joint to replace the o-rings) so I didn't try that. I will next time.

Thanks.

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