A few months ago I bought a Solis (Breville) Grind & Infuse Compact not knowing that I was actually buying a new hobby . I immediately got some fresh beans from a local coffee roaster and started making mostly cappuccinos. I didn't have a lot of experience at the beginning so I mostly tried to keep the gauge in optimal, which meant I had to set the grind to about 4. Fast forward, I now know a lot more and am less happy. There are a couple of things that are troubling me and I'm not sure if it's the fault of the machine or me.

The first (minor) thing, as seen in this picture, the portafilter could be used to make to espressos in one go, but my portafilter has a preference for the left hole. I cannot really make two espressos like this.

The second thing, as seen in the video below, the brew head spits water together with steam at first. I don't know if this is normal. Could it possibly affect the brewing? Lastly, and most importantly, the grinder doesn't seem to grind fine enough, the coffee still has a slight sourness at the finest setting. Although I think it's close to balanced, I cannot confirm because it cannot grind finer. I also compared the texture of the grind with the one at the roaster I bought the beans, and his grind was much closer to flour/turkish coffee texture than mine at the finest setting. Below you can see a picture of the grind.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to manually tweak the burr, like in the non-compact models.

Solis did offer to check the machine, but I'd like to hear your opinions before I send it out.

inconsistencies from the brew head are going to impact the espresso so that is going to be a problem. you may want to try and purge the brew head first before you start your espresso. You can try and remove the shower screen and make sure it is clean and there are no obstructions in the little holes but if not it may just be a problem with the design.

if your coffee isn't fine enough, which it sounds like it's not, then you'll never quite make it with the espresso. Often times you can remove the burrs and put a shim below them to raise the burr and allow for a finer grind but every machine varies if this can even be accomplished. I've done it to a machine using 0.1 mm and 0.2 mm shims (basically really thin washers) to slowly lift the burr and it worked great and now the grinder is fine enough to do espresso. if you do it too much however the burrs might get damaged if they come in contact so you might want to see how the burrs look on your machine and if shimming is possible. if you do it, do it a little at a time and each time tests the burrs at a course setting and slowly go finer and if anything sounds funny turn it off because the burrs may be touching and cause damage.

there are some tricks you can do even with a slightly too coarse grind. there is something calling a nutating tamp which is putting the tamper on an angle and rotating it around slowing levelling it off. This compresses the puck even more and can slow your shots which may help increase the extraction bringing the shot from sour to better. as a bandaid approach, you can also try and put an Aeropress filter paper at the bottom of the PF. this helps the coffee from not clogging up the basket holes and can help with more even extractions. you can also put a paper filter at the top which helps prevent the puck from early erosion especially if your brew head is a little off. both help increase extraction but because you have a coarser grind it may run a little fast, so if it's too fast the top filter may be more benifical for your case and don't worry about the bottom one.

Nothing for scale, but that looks like a medium or maybe fine drip grind. Until that's resolved, espresso will be nearly impossible. (I'm not counting using a pressurized basket as "espresso".)

Left/right unevenness might be an issue with a fine enough grind, but if you can't get ~1:2 ratio (say 16 g grinds in, ~32 g in the cup, or 18 and 36) in about 25-30 seconds from turning on the pump and stopping when the shot "blondes", you're likely not grinding fine enough. As a result, water is just pouring through the puck. You might be off level or the machines might favor one side.

The grinder sounds like it needs to be fixed. There really isn't anything you can do with tamping, as the puck will have roughly 500# of force on it during a typical extraction (8-9 bar * 14.5 psi/bar * 4 sq.in.)

That's funny, I developed this nutating tamp independently as I found it helped slow down the extraction. Unfortunately, the best I can do is 1:3 in about 25-30 seconds. About the brew head, I'm afraid it was like this from the start. It automatically purges itself every time it's turned on and I also purge it after using it.

After reading your replies, I think I'll send the machine back for repair, but I'm afraid that it's like this by design. I also just read a review by someone complaining the grinder does not grind fine enough. Too bad I didn't know anything about espresso brewing when I bought this one, otherwise I could have returned it.

there's little you can do with a tamp, a nutating tamp will only get you small results. a part of the process is learning how not to do espresso and it's important to understand things like the impact of the grind. if your machine has a pressurized basket you will have to use that to get something near espresso with a coarse grind or get a new grinder. if you are still in a buyers return period like the first 30 days maybe you can just return the unit and get a different one. Usually, it's best to get a machine without a built-in grinder and buy the grinder separately then you get to control all these different parts but it gets expensive. when I got into coffee my first burr grinder was about $100 bucks and to me that was expensive... now it's over $1000 and you can always go higher.

I asked if I could still return it, but unfortunately it was not possible. Still, after looking around at standalone machines, I think the one I have is a quite good (entry level) espresso machine for the price I paid, namely €430. Better standalone espresso machines like the Rancilio Silvia cost about €550 here and you still need to buy a grinder. I think that I'll keep using this machine and buy a nice grinder at some point. For now I'll try your suggestion to raise the burr. I also tried regrinding -- I now it's risky to do so -- and got very good results, 18g in 44g out in 28 seconds and the taste was very good.