Got the machine
got my lavazza espresso grind coffee
coffee is tasting good 🙂

Some tips tho if you please?
How long should a double espresso take to come thru?
why is the coffee like sludge in the portafilter?
is the portafilter (i think it is) the same style and size as the gaggia one – 3 tabs ad a 50mm bore in the basket?

How long should a double espresso take to come thru?

20-25 seconds

why is the coffee like sludge in the portafilter?

because the machine doesn’t have a 3-way valve

is the portafilter (i think it is) the same style and size as the gaggia one – 3 tabs ad a 50mm bore in the basket?

My Gaggia classic has 3 tabs and is 58mm.

Glad you like the coffee!

is 58mm the o/s diameter?

why is the coffee like sludge in the portafilter?

Does it have a pressurised portafilter? If so, that. The pump stops pumping, the pressure drops and the valve closes trapping water in the portafilter with the grounds.

is 58mm the o/s diameter?

No, inside. 58mm is the ‘commercial’ size portafilter, many domestic machines are smaller.

makes sense – thank you

Grind to brew ration is 1:2.
So 17g of coffee grounds makes 34g espresso.
Get a cheapo set of digital scales that read 0.00g as 34g of espresso is not 34ml!

As said, 20 – 25 seconds. I prefer slightly longer at 30 seconds.
But this all come down to how the coffee is ground. You’d usually grind it finer or coarser to get your time correct. As yours is pre-ground, you could try adding more or less coffee to adjust the extraction time verse weight.
A fast extraction can give a sourness, lack sweetness and a quick finish. ie, once you’ve had your drink, the flavour leaves your mouth quickly.
Too long and you get bitter / dry notes.

Just play around, take notes of your recipe and mark which ones you like and don’t like. If the numbers don’t match, but it tastes great, who cares!

why is the coffee like sludge in the portafilter?

If you mean that it’s not a solid puck that you can knock out whole into the bin, that may not be just down to the machine. You might find that increasing the dose/amount of coffee results in a more solid puck, but this might choke the machine (equally you might like the results of increasing the dose). What you won’t be able to do is increase the dose and at the same time coarsen the grind to compensate and thus prevent choking, because you are using pre-ground.

I’ve seen some people working in ‘coffee shops’ using decent commercial equipment (e.g. in Marks and Spencer) use a brush to wipe out the sludge betwen shots, which I would take as a good indicator that they have not been properly trained to use the equipment and the coffee is probably awful.

In your case providing the taste of your coffee is good, it doesn’t matter.

Even the 20-25 second criteria is just an indicator of whether the shot is likely to be a bad one. It doesn’t guarantee that a shot within that time is definitely a good one, but if you get a 5-10 second gusher and taste it, you can be pretty confident it will be bad (but I suggest you taste it to find that out for yourself as part of your learning curve). Shots over 25s can be OK, even very good, so again taste it to see what they are like with your machine and coffee.

all interesting :-)(and food (drink) for thought 🙂