The Otto has two baskets. The espresso basket with many holes for espresso ground coffee, and the supermarket basket with about 30 holes for courser grinds.

Pre ground coffee, even the espresso grind while using supermarket basket, extracts over 60 mls of coffee, tastes terrible, and has limited steam pressure.

Freshly ground coffee beans, with a burr grinder on fine setting using the espresso basket produced more drinkable coffee; 60 mls in 90 seconds, no crema, limited frothing of milk due to low steam pressure that took up to 7 minutes.

Using burr ground beans with the supermarket basket produced 30 mls of espresso in 90s seconds, great steam pressure, milk frothed in a few minutes and produced a very fine cappuccino. Proper extraction and good steam pressure are closely related. With my beans, I was unable to “choke,” the Otto. In the DVD that comes with the Otto, the recommendation was to have about 15 mls of espresso in each glass. You can get up to 30 mls. Other users have more success with the espresso basket, depending on the quality and age of the beans.

I have not managed to get much crema from my current choice of beans. Others have had more success. The light foam that develops at the end of extraction is not crema, it is the product of over extraction starting, so you should remove the collection cup at that point.

So in my experience to get the Otto to work to its full potential, the espresso should be dripping a drop at a time, not pouring out, to get 30 mls to 60 mls total in 90 – 120 seconds before the extraction starts to cut out. If you get too much, you are under extracting and will have limited steam pressure, and just end up with coffee, not espresso.

My reference for what makes a perfect cappuccino is the local hospital cafeteria that is run be an experienced barista having years of experience using a heavy duty commercial machine. The cappuccino from the Otto is not as good as his, but it is better than most of the cappuccinos I have had in other restaurants and cafes.

As the DVD that comes with the Otto states, it is not a pushbutton machine, and it will be somewhat frustrating initially to get the results you want. It took me three weeks to get it in the zone.

The website http://www.coffeecrew.com has a forum and review of the Otto.