A shot under 20 seconds may taste bitter to you as well. Is it watery-bitter? From my recollection, levers can tend to run longer shots, (like 30-40 seconds?) while still tasting good. Choking is too fine of course, but maybe you're back too coarse again...?

Could be you need a new head gasket - If it is old you don't get a good seal between that and the rim of your basket. May as well try a new basket as well - as stated they are inexpensive. 6-8 dollars approximately. HTH

Talked to Phil from Cirqua and he confirmed that they are going to be offering an A/B formulation that one would mix into your RO/Distilled water to make the perfect water. All aimed to be easy for the home user to do. I told him I thought it was a great idea - feeling that a lot of home users

I saw that too - I think it's a great idea - how it translates into reality may be a different story obviously. Seems like it would at least make a moka-pot type coffee. Paired with a hand grinder could be a great little 'on the road' brew device. I would want to try it! Video promo I

I forgot to mention: I talked to Cirqua and was told that they are working on a mineral combination system that could be mixed into a 5 gallon jug of distilled or RO water to create the perfect water formulation. It sounded like it would be one or two small bottles of liquid. I left a message for Phil

I have been sprinkling the cake of grounds (post tamp) with Calcium Carbonate (CC) for a couple months to supplement my RO water. I found it did indeed improve the taste quite a bit even over, and in addition to, an inline calcite filter. I have always thought that this would be due to the straight ...

Thanks for adding the picture Dan! I figured it'd be good if you had 11 friends over and all wanted to sip a single at the exact same time - as a toast perhaps

Here's an espresso machine your wife won't mind! {link} {image} Now There is a setup your wife wouldn't mind on the kitchen counter! lol

If there is only one pump on the Cyncra, would not the overall brew pressure drop a bit if more than one group is engaged at once? Not familiar with Synesso machines. I have experienced approximately 1 bar of pressure drop when engaging both groups at once on a Faema, and often wonder what would be ...

So from what I read here, and on Synesso's site, it appears that while you can pre-infuse while running shots on one of the other groups, it is not able/recommended to pull shots simultaneously - is this correct? Being able to brew on more than one group without affecting overall brew pressure would...