Coffee Appreciation

Ascaso iSteel. I don't measure out by weight, I fill up a spare basket as evenly as possible and throw it in the grinder – not ideal I know, but the process is already so fiddly...I find it hard to believe that a few grams here and there could make so much difference and some of the shots are coming out tasting almost burnt/salty.

I'm not suggesting you weigh every shot but just have a session where you grind and dose a load of shots then weigh them with a dealer scale to see what the variance is in your usual method. 1g higher than ideal can mean a slow drippy underextraction resulting in the salty burnt flavours you describe, 1g lower can be a fast sour thin shot. Give it a try - Find the dose that gives you a great shot then make one at 1g lower and another at 1g higher.

I would recommend that you iron out any inconsistency in your dosing and other areas before spending time and money on equipment [insert bike gear analogy here], particularly a PID conversion as despite having your water temp locked down to 0.1 degree you will still have an uncontrolled variable in your dose and your problems will prevail.

Research ways of tuning the machine as it stands - particularly pressurestat, OPV and pump pressure adjustment - you can improve the performance for no outlay.