Hello. Been working hard on making perfect espresso now for over a week. I picked up a kyocera hand grinder cm-45, and a bag of fresh roasted dark beans. My question is on how much espresso I should be getting on my pulls? I'm using a la pavoni professional 16 cup model. I have consistently been getting just under 2 ounces, depending on my tamp and grind.

I know the manual says another 2.5 ounces. Am I way off then?

Two ounces seems like an awful lot. I think many of us here prefer a short pull, ristretto. I also tend to prefer shots with a full body and heavy mouth fee; this gives me a 1 oz shot. To achieve this, I stuff as much freshly ground coffee into the basket as I can: 16g-18g. Next, a solid ten second pre-infusion, (2) pull close to half-way down (no espresso should fall, (3) lift up the lever, hold for 2 seconds or so (4) pull down (5) if I don't have near immediate resistance, then I lift back up (6) pull down (7) enjoy. Oh, and don't pre-heat your espresso cup.

As has been said elsewhere:
Do you have a scale for dosing?
Grind on your finest setting.
Fresh, great, coffee beans. Fresh meaning 2-7 days (some say 14 days - I don't).

Let us know how it goes.

-phillip

I think I read somewhere that overdosing on a La Pavoni is not recommended if you want more volume as the more coffee you put in the basket, the less water can flood into the chamber. But I guess the difference would be small...

The tiny shot volume was the main reason for me giving up on my La Pavoni