Hi,
I've been using a Delonghi Dedica for years with the pressurised basket and found that it makes pretty good coffee (to my untrained taste buds).
Recently bought an unpressurised basket and handle for it, but having trouble getting good coffee out of it.
I'm grinding much, much finer that before (still using a cheap electric bur grinder). I've found this is the only way to get crema. If i go one step finer on the grinder, the coffee machine cant even pump water through the grounds.
Using about 10g of coffee and tamping hard to create pressure, but even with that little coffee I'm just getting very strong and very bitter coffee. Extraction time is about 30 secs.
If I grind coarser, there's not enough pressure and you get an acidic coffee with no crema. Adding more coffee doesn't appear to create more pressure. Tamping harder doesn't seem to make much difference.
I wonder if anyone here has mastered good coffee with this machine.
May try my hand grinder next time. Could be the grinder is too cheap.
Cheers
If budget is an issue (not everyone is able or willing to spend much money), you could look out for a decent manual grinder, those are cheaper than electric ones, but you can get a more homogenous particle distribution from your grind which helps a lot with taste and reproducible results.
I have a manual grinder and an electric one.
Both claim to be burr grinders, but who knows!
The manual one was from aliexpress...