I’m using this recently acquired bad boy here to brew my espresso (bought it for $40 used), after having used a nespresso capsule machine for a few years.
I have a bit of a hard time brewing a consistent Espresso with it though. Often the flow is absolutely terrible, and barely any water flows through the coffee, despite using the exact same amount of beans. I measure on a scale with 0.01g accuracy, not my regular kitchen weight.
Is the grind consistency really what’s messing it up for me? I’m using one of those “blender style” grinders at the moment and it has served me just fine for French press in the past, but I know they’re terrible for controlling the fineness of the grind.
I know you don’t want to spend too much but there’s also no point buying something that misses the mark in terms of the grind you need for the espresso you want. When I was looking at grinders for espresso I narrowed it down to the 1zspresso J-Max for a hand grinder or the Baratza Encore ESP for a machine grinder. Both are a bit more expensive than the basic options but give much more versatility for dialing in grinds.
Completely agree, no point in spending half now if I’m just replacing it with the more expensive option in a few months…damn it, this is getting expensive 😅