Gaggia Automated Espresso - Questions

[Steve Freides]

As I've mentioned before, a few years ago we bought a used Gaggia
Syncrony, a fully-automated espresso machine, and have been very happy
with it.

For a few reasons, we now own two of them, but the second one is a
newer model than our first. I'm pretty sure this model isn't made any
longer - I think the Gaggia Titanium is their replacement.
(Corrections to any of my history are welcomed.) We bought the second
one because our first model has just started showing signs of its age,
we didn't want to be without, and this one was a bargain because it
was untested from some sort of auction hour on ebay - we paid $160 for
the newest-to-us machine.

The newer machine does something we don't understand and can't seem to
fix - as it dispenses the coffee, it seems as if it's overly aerated -
the entire cup is looks like crema until it sits for a bit.

The second thing we cannot figure out is why, with the same water, the
same home-roasted coffee, and have tried every combination we can
think of for the grind, coffee amount, etc., the newer machine's
coffee is more bitter - it is also blacker to the eye once the cup
full of crema has settled down.

We went so far as to remove the brew unit yesterday, partially
disassemble it, clean what we felt we safely could, put it all back
together (a minor miracle, if you ask me!) - no difference in the
results.

The coffee we're using is, again as previously mentioned on this list,
2/3 Sumatra Mandheling and 1/3 Six Bean Espresso blend, both purchased
as green beans from CoffeeBeanDirect.com in NJ and roasted here by
yours truly once or twice a week.

Any thought on what to try next, any leads to user groups for this
sort of machine, etc. would be appreciated. We're frankly not sure if
what the newer machine produces is rightly considered "better" but I,
for one, don't like the taste of it as much as what we get from the
older machine.

Many thanks in advance for your replies.

-S-

[Trickster]

Steve,

From what I see online, the Syncrony has a high-low temperature setting.  Have you tried lowering the temp?  The bitter taste and darker color could indicate that the coffee is over extracted, which could result from high temperature or a fine grind.  Have you tried all 8 grind settings?  You might want to compare all of the options to see if there are differences between the two machines. I wouldn't worry about the increased crema on the new machine, since that is generally seen as desirable.

[Steve Freides]

We noticed that our old machine was set to the highest of 5
temperature settings, and the new one set to medium - we raised the
temperature of the new machine and the coffee is now much, much closer
to what we like, which is what we get from the old machine.

You'd think it might work the other way, that a higher temperature
would mean overextraction but, in our case, it doesn't seem to. Funny
how the temperature setting made such a difference - the coffee from
the new machine was so odd that it was starting to bother my stomach.

We have set the grinder and doser to the same on both, and played with
both those settings on the new machine but they don't seem to make
much difference.

One other person suggested pressure - we haven't yet investigated if
the pressure is configurable on either machine.

-S-