Bitter is usually too long of extraction so try reducing your extraction time. Can you adjust the grind & tamp pressure? Generally you want a grind+tamp that results in about 9-12 seconds from initial pressure to espresso first coming out and then 20-25 seconds of pour for a total extraction time of 30-35 seconds. These all vary by bean, roast and batch so if you cannot adjust them then finding a bean & roast that most often results in these might be your only option. Keep in mind that these Miele machines do not maintain the pressures and temperatures of regular espresso machines nor do they use a proper tamped puck so it's difficult/impossible to get a good shot from them. For a semi-automatic a Breville Oracle (regular or touch) is a better option.

I have a Dacor plumbed coffee system and it is wonderful. I think it is more attractive than the Miele or Fagor, and it has an automatic milk frother. You simply place a quart container of milk into the slide out compartment on the left insert the milk hose, and when you press the latte button you get frothed milk with your espress--no need to stand there holding a cup under a frothing stick. It also makes wonderful chocolate milk for the kids. In addition, it has a slide out compartment on the right that keeps cups warm and an instant hot water dispenser. They have a wonderful self-cleaning filtration system that comes with the unit also (or you can buy it without it). Lastly, it has an adjustable dispenser that fits taller cups and some mugs.They cost around $3500, but I see them on ebay frequently for under $2000. THe plumbed model I have is CM24P-1 with filtration & flushing system. Here is a link that might be useful: CM24P-1

fpmom - I will try to answer the various questions. The machine is a completely different animal than the top load. There is straight wash on various cycles each of which is sort of named for their task (emphasis on sort of) and each has a specific fill level, temperature choices and agitator action. But there are a lot of them which is why the cheat sheet was done. Easier to figure out what to use for what with that. Some cycles (not all) have a cold prewash called heavy soil. I use that with less than a tbsp of Oxiclean for stain removal followed by a warm, very warm or hot wash. If you check the cheat sheet link you will see the job it did with DH's espresso-stained pants which is quite dramatic. That same prewash-wash removes blood without a trace and when our friends' little guy had an accident at night there was no worry at all about getting it out of the sheets or the bedpad. If you absolutely need a soak, Handwash is the closest and it's a 40 to 60 minute cold water cycle with occasional agitation. One cycle called Custom allows you to basically set whatever you want. With kids clothes this washer should be a dream. Mindstorm has a 3037 although she bought hers a few months after I bought my 3035. It said in some technical docs that it has an extra drum bearing. Alex may know more about any other differences. My impression is that it's not a major change. I use Persil megaperls and Caldrea (love sweet pea!) for most of my loads. I generally use no more than 1 TB per load of Persil or I get too much suds but we have a whole house softener. I use about 1 TB Caldrea. So a box of Persil lasts me a year (it rocks white loads). I generally go with Caldrea for underwear and colored clothing. With the Oxiclean booster in the prewash, I can go down to 2 tsps Persil. (Vaska was way too sudsy for my water). Most cycles have 3 rinses and there is a setting to enable more called "Sensitive". So things rinse out really well. No worries there. And if there is a question, I run the load through the separate 18-minute rinse cycle which is my backstop. For dark loads I like the Perwoll Dark Wash which does a nice job in cold water. I use that for the stretchy yoga clothes and fleece also. Our DD discovered Cal Ben pure soap which she uses for her family's laundry because the little guy has allergies. She has three, 7, 5 and 2 so there a ton of laundry. Very nice soap, relatively inexpensive, works in the Miele and rinses well. Another option. Here is a link that might be useful: Cal Ben

Judy, We ended up changing things around. We lowered the XXL steam oven so that it ended at 42" AFF, allowing us to put a full size drawer below it and started the coffee maker at 42", ending at 60". This allowed us to put a very usable cabinet above the coffee maker with two sliders so that we could reach the back of what would now be a 24" deep cabinet. As with everything it is trade-offs. I think if there were no other considerations at all the ideal height is more or less 42" to 60" and my thought was that bending a bit to use the oven was worth having the coffee maker easily accessible and in optimal location. Having said that, I think ending it at 6' is perfectly fine and if we had gone w/ the regular 18" size oven I am sure we would have done that. Once we went to 24", cabinet wise, it was much easier to either do one full size cabinet below (ending coffee maker at 5') or to keep the oven at counter height and end the coffee maker at 6'-6", which by all accounts was too high. In between was problematic.