Hi ristretto owners
I had a ristretto up until a couple of months ago when I was able to scrimp/save/sell my soul for an upgrade.
If you do a google search under sunbeam ristretto site:coffeesnobs.com.au you will get a mountain of hits. Maybe some will be advantageous to your quest.
Some things that I found whilst owning:
For the price range it is killer
Now that you have the non pressurised baskets the leaking will prove to be quite annoying - experience has shown me this
I did not get the group head seal, but from what it sounds like this is just a replacement seal and probably would not help you (unless the seal is thicker material than the old one - thus bringing the portafilter in tighter - it would not create a better seal) What was recommended to me and what I did do was grab some plumbers (threading) tape and line the basket with it so that it acts sort of like a washer between your portafilter and your basket. This will in turn bring the overall PF closer to the grouphead and thus seal better. I hope this makes sense - I just checked to see if I had any photos but I dont.As for tamping etc, I found that the shower screen in the ristretto is very high which means you need to dose and tamp to just under the lip of the basket so that it is touching the shower screen - this I have found is quite important to a good shot.
The downside to this as expressed earlier is the explosion of grinds that can happen due to no OPV. What I have found is that if you leave the PF in place for a little while after the shot and remove it slowly it helps some - some

This baby can produce a good shot and it can be really consistant as well. As it is only 53mm and not 58mm you are always going to struggle to get a true double - in fact the double basket really is only a single in commercial or prosumer terms, but that is OK - just use smaller cups if you like it stronger.
I think a grinder is probably a big thing to get a decent shot out of the non pressurised baskets. Being able to dial in the grind as it ages (and to the machine to start with) is very important - if the roastery grinds for you and gets it wrong by just more than a little bit it will easily choke the machine, or gush it a bit.
I was lucky enough to have bought my rocky at the same time as buying the replacement baskets so I could adjust things.
Hope this helps some. Persevere - it may not be the bees knees, but I tell you I was surprised by its performance even compared to the Botticelli which I have now.
Grab yourself a half decent grinder if you can and youll be going great guns.
Shannon.

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