Hi all,

First time posting. I've been hanging out on the forum for a while now, thank you all for the awesome information everyone shares here.

I'm a complete newbie to coffee and in need of some help from you experts. I just took delivery of my GS3 and right away ran into some problems:

1. As of now I'm using the water reservoir with bottled water. All parameters below the minimum ppm suggested by the user manual, essentially very soft water. Will this damage my machine? Can you recommend any water brands?

2. This is probably a dumb question but none of the baskets fit in neither of the portafilters? The baskets are loose, don't click in at all, they just sit on top even when I try to press them in. This isn't normal is it? What am I doing wrong?

TIA!!!!!!

Welcome!

There are some versions of multiple bottled water sources that are less prone to building limescale in your machine, but I don't recall which ones they are. It's actually pretty easy to mix your own water with pharmaceutical grade potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3) and distilled water. You can buy a 4oz packet of KHCO3 from Amazon for around $10, and it'll last you a year. That mixture will not form scale in your machine. I've got the exact weight needed per gallon written on my package downstairs, so I don't have it handy, but you should be able to find the recipe in the water section of the forums.

For your baskets, check to see that the spring is installed in the portafilter handle. There's a groove that it fits in. The spring itself is basically a squared off c-shaped strip of spring steel wire.

Thank you for the pointers! I'll definitely give your water recipe a try. Also I couldn't find the spring on the portafilter, even looked everywhere in the accessory box yet nothing. Can't believe they didn't include them! I'll reach out to customer service tmr. Thank you again!

Welcome!

When you get them, bend the springs to allow easy basket removal

They're not strictly necessary. Some people remove them so that they can grind, dose, tamp into the basket and then put the basket into the portafilter without disturbing the puck. You may need to hold the edge of the basket with your thumb when you knock out the puck to avoid your basket flying into your knockbox.

I thought I'd update you guys on my missing spring experience.

I emailed La Marzocco the following day and they kindly overnighted 2 springs out for me, arrived this morning. Superb customer service!

My eagerness to try the machine got the better of me, so as soon as they arrived I forced the basket into the spring loaded portafilter, even though super tight!

And my first shot of espresso tasted... awful...

There's a long journey ahead!