ziobeege_72 wrote:And I wouldnt hesistate trying the fellini. You should be feeling some decent resistance on the downstroke.

Agree with Gino - you should have decent pressure by the end of the first quarter of your downward pull. Don't worry about the Fellini until you have other things sorted out, and even then, it's a personal thing, so feel free to use it if it produces what you want in a shot.

To fix the low volume pulls, try bleeding off the false pressure, lifting the lever to the top and staying there for 8 seconds to allow the chamber to fill with water, and maybe grinding a little finer just to see how much volume you get from the pull. While the grinding shouldn't affect the pull volume much, a coarse(r) grind will allow you to pull water through to measure the volume. If you do this and have water dripping when you are at the top of the pull yet only get an ounce of water or so, something is wrong.

As for grinding, once you know your machine is operating properly, adjust the grind where you get just a drop or two during the preinfusion. From there you can tighten it up just a tad.

Best of luck, and keep us posted on how it goes.

bearsniper wrote:The problem that I am running into now is that either the espresso doesn't start flowing until the lever is halfway down sometimes even further. Also sometimes very little even comes out at all. My instinct tells me this is due to having too fine of a grind, is this correct? The lever doesn't really require much pressure at all to push down.


Also should I consider using the Fellini move now or wait until I get the normal process down?

I had a similar problem with mine, until I adjusted the grind to finer (much finer), tamped lighter, bought a MCAL double basket from Orphan Espresso, did not overfill the basket, and got some really nice fresh beans. The consistency is now there for my shots, but it takes some pressure on the handle.

Do the Fellini, just to see what happens...