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Thanks for your replies.
@Jonny69 - Yeah I agree with you to an extent. I'm not looking for that perfect shot every time. Reading the forums, I'm not going to switch the machine on, wait an hour for it to heat up and reach equilibrium...etc etc...
Having that baseline of a decent tasting espresso is where I'm trying to get to.
Forgot to add, basket.@useless - Yep, from what I've read, under extracted. Can't go any finer on my grind, don't have a picture to hand sorry.
No to the coffee shop question but I guess that's an option, at least then the grind size is fixed and I can work on the other variables in order to get something that tastes OK.
IamNotACrook-
Did you mention which grinder you’re using?
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Forgot to add, basket.
Ok, that's got quite a taper on it, top to bottom. So 16g-ish is about right for the dose. The Gaggia Classic basket has much straighter sides which probably accounts for the bigger capacity. You can get a straight-sided basket for the Silvia which holds 21g, so this makes sense.
Personally, I don't think it's a problem having the puck pressing against the top. If your grind is marginally too coarse and it's running a little too fast, you can use this as a bodge to correct things because it compacts the puck slightly and chokes the flow.
Try also letting the shot run for a bit longer. You'll get an idea if you're under or over extracting by the taste. Then if you can, adjust the grind so that the extraction and the concentration are correct. Not quite so critical in a milk drink though.
JB
Jonny69
Sour is under-extracted, right?
Other things being equal, a smaller dose should be less work to extract, so being too small should err in the direction of over-extracted (bitter, rather than sour).
So either the water is mostly bypassing your coffee, or the grind is too coarse ...
Just for comparison, have you tried asking a coffee shop to put a fresh bag of beans through their commercial grinder? Or just order a bag of ground from Pact if you're using them anyway.