[greglepore]

There aren't a ton of hotrod tricks for pump machines-the funny thing is, aside from stuff like solid brass pf's on the expensive machines, they're pretty much the same. Yeah, the more expensive machines step up to larger/brass boilers and 3 way solenoid valves, but none of that stuff is really necessary to making good shots, although it helps simplify things and becomes more important when you start to pull multiples.

I'd get some idea of what temp your water's really at-use an electronic kitchen thermometer. I then experiment with the steam temp switch to sort of 'force surf" the boiler-with mine, I get nice 190 deg water if I hit the steam switch on for around 10 seconds before I pull my shot-turn it off before you pull, or you could get steam at the end, not good.

The other key is if your machine has a pressurized pf, lose the pressure valve and maybe open up the remaining hole a bit. I don't know that on a perfect shot the pressure valve messes stuff up much, but I find that I get better results without it, and you can pretty much tell by the color and consistency of the crema whether your shot was "on" or not.

Grinders, on the other hand, can almost all be taken apart and have the base setting adjusted to get a finer grind than out of the box. This may be necessary, maybe not. If you google on this, there's an English guy who's got a couple of pages of different grinders with photos.

Oh yeah, one last thing, if you change coffee you'll need to play slightly with the grind due to moisture/oil differences; after a couple shots it'll be dialed in again.