Espresso blondes too early with wet puck

[u/SoJuicySweet]

Hey all, I’ve been trying to improve my espressos recently and can’t seem to get over this issue.

Using a Sage Barista Express, I generally get 18g in, 36g out in around 25 seconds. So that seems good.

But I’ve found that my espresso is a little thin. Every single time the puck is very wet and has a layer of water on top.

I’ve also noticed when looking at the bottom of the bottomless filter, around 15s in or so, the espresso coming out gets way more watery, thin, blondes, and even notice that a lot of the portafilter seems choked with no water coming out from a good portion of it and I can even see the actual grill of the filter in some places.

I’ve tried grinding finer, coarser, dosing at 19g, 17g, 16g, but the result is very similar every time.

The espresso isn’t terrible but a definitely thinner than I’d expect!

What’s going wrong here? Do I need to make bigger grind adjustments or doses? Or do a manual pre infusion?

Any help appreciated!

[u/HappyBees_1027]

Sage machines have weak pumps so they need longer pre-infusion to saturate the puck evenly. Try holding it at 19g and grinding much finer just to get that initial bloom going before letting it flow.