I am trying to dial in my second type of coffee on my new Breville Express and am facing with alot of spraying, big mess. A few shots ago I did have a great shot however. Would you increase or decrease the tamp. (1) Spend more time with the WDT and tapping the pf on the counter. (2). Change dose (3). Change grind (4). For a the first few seconds I had a good looking stream then it got messy. Im lost. Hello Houston do you copy?

Thanks Jeff. I did adjust the burr inside the top of the grinder to get my first batch fine enough and have left it at that perhaps 6 vs 7 approx. I am 8 on the higher setting outside the machine. I bet it could be that with this grinder I am only going to get decent brews if I dial in all the other factors near perfect. I enjoy the learning and science of it all but I dont want to be dinking around with along time with the WDT to make a quick cortado. What kind of money are we talking to get a grinder that will make a decent cup of espresso? Couldn't you find a decent used grinder on Ebay for a fraction of the cost? I dont really want to look into returning as it was a gift and I dont want to hurt feelings.

Moderator note: Merged in with OP's existing thread on effectively the same kind of problems

I am going to use this post to ask about my new Impress and then touch on my findings. I upgraded to this model for an extra $150 because I thought it would nice to automate the dosing and tamping and thus eliminate another variable. I was happy with the first couple shots, no channeling and nice looking flow, yield was not too high. Tonight my first shot weighed like 78g and my basket only holds about 15g of coffee, this is in 33 sec total time. I went down one or two clicks for a finer grind but got spurting but the yield dropped to 53g. I want to keep time constant. My. pressure reads about 10 o'clock on the dial and my preinfusion is a constant 10s on this machine. Temp should not be adjust I would think. I just want the variables to get in the ballpark. Any feedback on the machine or my logic flow would be appreciated.

I've spent a lot of time with the BBE having owned one and helped a few relatives dial in theirs. A big mess typically indicates the puck is breaking apart prematurely. The BBE's OPV is set very high from the factory so your puck may be hit with 15bar if you don't get your grind just right. So I'd recommend either going coarser if your dial is past the 11 o'clock mark or looking up the OPV adjustment to adjust it down to 9 bar. Be aware that the OPV bypasses to the drip tray so you will use more water.

WDT typically doesn't take much time. A few rotations as you raise the tool and a few scraps to level the bed. Then tamp. The included tamper is pretty junky so I went with an amazon billet tamper for not much more expense (like $15.). It made it easier to get a good solid tamp.

Hope you get it dialed in. The Breville is a pretty good package for the price but has its peculiarities compared to higher end machines.

Thanks for the reply Milligan. I now have some hope. I thought I had wasted alot of money on a machine that was not worth a hoot. I will try and figure out how to dial down the OPV as I think my pressure reads around 11 o'clock now and coarsening the grind has not helped yet.