Get started with Rancilio espresso.
Your first shot on a Rancilio machine: what to switch on, what to weigh, and when. Filtru guides the shot, and with a Bluetooth scale it measures it live.
Available for iPhone and iPad.
A quick word about Rancilio.
Rancilio is one of the great names of Italian espresso, founded by Roberto Rancilio in 1927 in Parabiago, just outside Milan. The company has been building commercial machines for cafes and bars for almost a century, and that heritage shows in everything they make for the home: brass boilers, commercial group heads, and a build-it-to-last attitude.
Their home range is really one famous family: the Silvia. Introduced in 1997 as a kitchen-sized machine built from commercial parts, the Silvia became the machine that launched a thousand home espresso obsessions and is widely seen as the start of the prosumer category. It is simple, repairable, and famously durable.
Today the line runs from the classic single boiler Silvia to the Silvia Pro X, a proper dual boiler machine with twin PID controllers. Both share the commercial 58mm portafilter and brass group head, so your technique and accessories carry straight over from one to the other, and even to cafe machines.
Popular Rancilio home machines
- Silvia — single boiler (0.3 L insulated brass), 58mm portafilter. The icon: a single brass boiler, commercial brass group head and 58mm portafilter in a compact stainless steel frame, largely unchanged in spirit since 1997.
- Silvia Pro — dual boiler with dual PID, 58mm portafilter. The 2020 dual boiler upgrade of the Silvia, since superseded by the Pro X but still a very capable machine if you find one.
- Silvia Pro X — dual boiler with dual PID (0.3 L coffee boiler, 1 L steam boiler), 58mm portafilter. The current flagship: independent insulated coffee and steam boilers, a shot timer on the digital display, a pressure gauge, and soft infusion adjustable from 0 to 6 seconds.
What you need.
- Your Rancilio machine
- Cup or a mug
- Kitchen scale
- Coffee tamper
Any kitchen scale gets you going. A supported Bluetooth scale takes it further: Filtru reads the weight live under your cup, so dose and yield are measured as they happen, not eyeballed after.
Grind setting for espresso: extra fine.
Your first shot, step by step.
The Silvia family heats a real brass boiler and a heavy commercial brass group head rather than a thermoblock, so give it a generous warm-up: switch on well before your first shot so the group head and portafilter are properly hot, not just the water. The Pro X softens the wait with insulated boilers, PID control and a programmable power-on timer, so it can be hot and stable before you even walk into the kitchen.
- Switch on the machine Let the boiler inside heat up the water while you grind the coffee.
- Weigh out the coffee and grind it 1tbsp ~ 12g. Make sure you adjust the grinder first to get the right grind size.
- Remove the portafilter and rinse the machine A short water cycle should remove any residual grounds from before.
- Place the coffee in the portafilter Make sure the coffee is evenly distributed
- Tamp the coffee with little pressure Make sure the tamper sits evenly in the portafilter
- Attach the portafilter
- Place the scale and the cup The scale will help Filtru record the espresso shot.
- Turn on the scale, ensuring it reads `0g` Some scales will require to switch to "Grams" mode. Filtru-supported scales will need to be tare'd manually.
Lock in the empty portafilter while the machine warms up so the heavy brass gets hot along with the boiler, then run a blank cycle of water through it into your cup before you dose. On a machine with this much metal, a properly heated group and portafilter is half the battle for a good first shot.
Dial it in with a scale in the loop.
The fastest way to better shots on your Rancilio is measuring them.
Pair a supported Bluetooth scale with Filtru and every shot gets recorded as it pours: live weight, real yield, shot time, and a graph you can compare against yesterday's. When the numbers are honest, dialling in stops being guesswork. Adjust one thing, pull again, and watch the extraction even out.
No scale yet? Filtru still guides the shot, times it, and keeps your log of dose, yield, and taste, so you always know what to change next.
The answer is YES
Pulling shots on a Rancilio? These all have the same answer:
- Can I use Filtru with my Rancilio machine? Yes
- Can Filtru time my espresso shots? Yes
- Can I log dose, yield, and taste for every shot? Yes
- Can I see live shot weight with a Bluetooth scale? Yes
- Will Filtru help me dial in my grinder? Yes
- Is Filtru free to download? Yes
Getting started on another machine?
Espresso basics · Breville · De'Longhi · Gaggia · La Marzocco · Lelit · Sage
Rancilio is a trademark of its respective owner; Filtru isn't affiliated with or endorsed by it. Machine details come from public manufacturer information as of July 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell me and I'll fix it.
