Rant - never had a decent cup
I bought a Silvia V6E and Eureka Silenzio 50 around 4 years ago, both were new at the time. I usually buy beans of medium or medium-dark roast from local roasters, always fresh (ish). To tell the truth, I haven't ever had a decent espresso from this setup, not once - it's either battery acid or bitter battery acid.
Since I bought the machine, I did the following things:
- Replaced the shower screen with an IMS screen with a flush screw
- Adopted always grinding by weight
- Added WDT routine to the puck prep
- Tried different basket types (stock, IMS, convex)
- Installed Gaggimate Pro, tried various profiles
- Tried different beans and roast grades
The end result is more or less always the same: it's bitter, or highly acidic, or astringent, or all at once. I ended up always drinking americanos to make the coffee palatable. Any 1:2 or 1:3 shot is not drinkable on its own. I actually grew to like americanos as I enjoy longer coffees anyway, but the fact that I cannot pull a semi decent espresso from an espresso machine is very frustrating.
I still hope that there is something I don't understand that is fixable. Did any of you face the same problem with Silvia?