The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

Just got delivery of a Spaz today with a mazzer mini e grinder and I can't seem to get a shot that doesn't choke. The shot will start then after a few drops of coffee the pump stops.

Things I've tried:

1) huge variations on coffee grind
2) huge variations in dose from 15g to below the ridge in naked portafilter
3) watched the gauge jump to 9 bar during the shot

At this point a sink shot would be a great improvement. I'm getting over a full 2 oz of water on a blank shot but with coffee, it always stops within a few seconds.

Any assistance would be appreciated. Don't be shy about pointing out anything obvious I might have missed since this is my first espresso machine.

Bugbus, how does your machine behave when you do a backflush?

If you were actually choking the machine the pump would continue to run, little or no Espresso would come out & 3 temp lites would be flashing together. As John suggested try a backfush & see how the machine behaves. The large manual from CC explains the backflush how to if you haven't done that yet. The pump cutting off sounds like a volumetric dosing issue but you say you're getting over 2 oz so that shouldn't be it.

2oz of water from a blank shot ain't much, it's probably OK for a single but I'd try to reprogram the volumetric dosing to get more fluid out of that thing. Load up some coffee and reprogram it when it's locked and loaded.

Wow you guys really know your stuff. After wasting a ton of coffee trying different grinds and doses I came to the same conclusion (after trying literally everything else first) that the machine just wasn't dosing enough water. The double button was preset to spit out exactly 2 oz with no coffee which appeared on the surface to be right but as Niko said it wasn't enough.

Thanks for the quick responses everyone. Maybe the next new owner can read this and avoid a wasted afternoon like me. On the bright side I've learned a hell of a lot about the machine.