Hi, I am new here hope to get some help. I had Elektra microcasa lever machine for about 2 years, it was great in the past 2 years( I make 1 latte everyday) until recently I found it has some issues but not sure if that is the problem of grinder or espresso machine. The espresso came out pretty quickly compare to the past, there is no preinfusion period anymore, it used to be 10-20 seconds preinfusion. Because I have a bottomless portfilter I can see the liquid came out like from a faucet, no long has a nice solid stream in the center. Of cause the taste of espresso is horrible. I don't know what could be the problem?

Usually this is a coffee bean or grinder issue as there is not much that can change with the mcal that could cause this.

The one possibility is the pressure stat drifted or failed and pressure is much higher blowing a hole through the top of the puck causing channeling and high temps burning the coffee.

You should see this on the gauge but the gauge with the machine sometimes fails because of these high temps which happened to me and after I replaced the gauge found it was sitting at .6 bar not 1.0. so I had the opposite problem direction on pressure.

The other alternative is the shower screen is not on properly and damaging the puck or flow of water in such a way to cause channeling.

Good luck let us know how it goes.

Thank you for your reply, I really appreciate. After I did some research I think it might be the grinder, it is 6 years old and I never replaced burrs. So I took this chance and upgraded a much better grinder:)

A better grinder can help, but how old was the coffee you were using, and did you have the same problem with another, freshly roasted coffee? This really is often a coffee issue, as noted above.

Hi thank you for your suggestion, my coffee is not fresh fresh, but I used pretty old coffee in the past and didn't notice any problem like this time. I certainly would try fresh roasted coffee when I get a chance to the coffee shop. My grinder would stop grinding if I set it too fine, but make a big noise, I think it is the problem. I will update here after I troubleshoot.

Hi just want to give you an update, I bought a new grinder and issue is resolved.

Congrats