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
Get a good espresso grinder (hand grinders are fine, as long as they're made for espresso. No Chinese knockoffs. Yes, they look the same. Yes, they're much cheaper. They're almost always worse.
Get good water. Reverse osmosis water is good enough, cheap, and readily available. They make purpose-built espresso water, but it's expensive. It is, admittedly, much better, but if your budget is tighter, spend that money on the grinder, and use RO water.
Clean your machine. It looks very dirty from the picture. Keep every part that touches the product consistently clean.
Let the machine, filter basket, and the portafilter heat up on the group head for at least 5 minutes before you add the grinds and pull the shots. It makes a difference.