Levelling the Coffee Machine

How to correctly level your espresso machine

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I often see a forum post that says "my coffee comes out of one spout more than the other when using the double portafilter, can anyone help". The answer will be to level the machine properly. A machine should be level from front to back and from side to side.¹

Occasionally I have seen a post from someone who says that the machine is level, but the coffee still comes out of one side more than the other….the problem is usually how they have levelled the machine and this has actually happened at a coffee meet, where I explained to someone why they thought their machine was level, but it was not and demonstrated it on the machine in question. In the photos below you can see a red and a green line. The red line is where people normally check the machine is level…the green line is the place you should actually check (right across the middle of the group). There are 3 reasons for this:

• You do not know for sure the drip tray is horizontally aligned with the group this depends on the case cut and fit, plus any cup tray.
• You do not know if the group is actually mounted straight with respect to the machines case
• A combination of both the above

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Footnotes

1. Now there are a few lever machine portafilters that are made with a flattish base and 2 holes, where the issue may not be as simple, because they have a flat bottomed portafilter with 2 actual holes, rather than a single hole and a twin spout attachment.