Coffee machine recommendation - boiler not thermoblock

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jonathan18

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#2214153 10-Apr-2019 09:56

Lots of good points in the above post.

Your mention of temperature reminded me - I reckon a thermometer is a really valuable piece of kit, especially when first starting out . No-one likes a cold coffee, and milk heated even a few degrees over optimum will significantly change the flavour (for the worse). For work, I bought one for a couple of bucks from eBay, and it does the job perfectly.

On grinders - I'd be wary about buying an espresso machine with one built in, for two main reasons - what happens if it cr@ps out, or you want to upgrade your espresso machine?; plus I'm not too convinced of the idea of having beans sitting in a hot location.

Not sure which is the Breville 'dose grinder' you refer to, but it may well be the one I've got, which is the Smart Grinder Pro - it's excellent and great value for money; I paid less than $200 (https://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=2724134).

On the pressurised baskets matter - the cheap Sunbeam I recommended above provide these in the box, but one can order the standard baskets as well; a pity they're just not included.

jlittle

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#2214190 10-Apr-2019 10:00

sen8or:

the things you want to look for ...

Thank you for that summary.

On the interwebs there's those who swear by roasting their own coffee. Any pointers about that?

sen8or

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#2214279 10-Apr-2019 10:39

Ive been home roasting for about 10 years or so. My first foray was a "coretto" (username of coffeesnobs member who came up with the concept), a heatgun and a breadmaker. Breadmaker was a trademe special breville, about $50 I think, an ozitto heatgun from Bunnings, also about $50 and a home made wooden stand. Use the breadmaker in dough only mode to agitate the beans and the heatgun for the roasting part. Its a pretty inexpensive way to try roasting your own beans, takes 10-15 minutes to go from green through to second crack on most types of coffee. The downsides of this are that its messy, really messy and an outside activity only. You also need a way to cool the beans as rapidly as possible (I used a pedastal fan and a colander). Its a very manual process, but you get to learn the behaviour of the beans, watch the stages of the roast closely and how you can shorten or lengthen the roast time (more or less heat, more or less beans etc) I roasted that way for about 3 -4 years I think, went through kilos and kilos of beans and rarely had a bad batch.

You can also use a popcorn popper machine, these are good for roasting 50-75gr of coffee at a time, takes about 5-8 minutes I understand (never tried this method).

I now use a Behmor 1600+, looks like a toaster oven, sits on our oven hob below the extractor fan. Not a set and forget machine, you still have to monitor the final 5 mins or so of a roast (if you leave the machine unattended, it auto shuts down 75% of the way into the roast) but the roasts are more consistent than with the coretto and I find the coffee has more flavour.

I buy the beans from a few sources, www.greenbeanhouse.co.nz (who also sell the Behmor) and www.coffeeworkshop.co.nz

One of the aspects I like is being able to try different coffees from different regions, I really like the sweentess of Brazils but have also enjoyed some Ethiopian, Columbian and Indonesian coffees as single origins too. A bonus to the home roasting is the price. You can buy a kg of green beans for about $12 or so (up to $25 and beyond for specialty coffee), when you compare that a bag of 200gr stale beans from the supermarket is normally at least $7, the savings add up really quickly.

I currently have at home Brazil, Columbian and 2 "pre mixed" blends from coffee workshop. I blend the Brazil / Columbian 50/50 and roast this, its a fantastic rich flavour with plenty of depth. We go through about 400gr of roasted coffee each week so I tend to buy in 16-20kgs at a time (4 lots of 4-5kgs of different coffees).

jonathan18

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#2214286 10-Apr-2019 10:58

Two people in my family have bought one of these coffee roasters, designed and built in NZ (Dunedin, I think): https://kaffelogic.com/index.php/home

They both purchased one as part of the Kickstarter fund-raising, and I recall their delivery was delayed. I'll have to find out how they find it, if indeed they have been delivered.

Fred99

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#2214288 10-Apr-2019 11:01

jonathan18:

Your mention of temperature reminded me - I reckon a thermometer is a really valuable piece of kit, especially when first starting out . No-one likes a cold coffee, and milk heated even a few degrees over optimum will significantly change the flavour (for the worse). For work, I bought one for a couple of bucks from eBay, and it does the job perfectly.

Thermometers don't display temperature instantly, there's a lag of a second or so, even if they're electronic / thermocouple. Your fingers are better.

This is less of an issue with slow steam output on an inexpensive themoblock machine, but a problem with a boiler machine, the larger the nozzles and the faster they steam, then the more overshoot you'll likely get.

So I suggest use the thermometer with the steaming jug filled with the same amount of water that you'd use for milk, get a feel of the the amount of overshoot you'll get, it may be that if you stop steaming at 65deg, then after 5 seconds the water is at 70 deg (usual suggested max to avoid scalded milk). After a while you'll get used to doing it by feel and not need to use the thermometer at all. Could use milk of course to do the above, but you'll probably waste a few litres experimenting.

You have to try making scrambled eggs using a steamer on a boiler machine. The lightest fluffiest scrambled eggs I've ever had, but a hell of a mess to clean up.

sen8or

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#2214302 10-Apr-2019 11:11

Have heard about the scrambled eggs, but no, never tried.

I tend to be lazy and even after years and years making coffee, still use the thermometer. My finger is fairly well calibrated to 60deg when I can be bothered trying to monitor temp manually, but I like the relaxation from just watching the thermometer without having to think. The sound is as much of a giveaway as the thermometer / finger test with a notable change in pitch between cold and hot milk.

sen8or

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#2214304 10-Apr-2019 11:15

jonathan18:

Two people in my family have bought one of these coffee roasters, designed and built in NZ (Dunedin, I think): https://kaffelogic.com/index.php/home

They both purchased one as part of the Kickstarter fund-raising, and I recall their delivery was delayed. I'll have to find out how they find it, if indeed they have been delivered.

I saw that the coffee workshop that I linked to earlier has these on their site under home roasting. Quite pricey for a roaster that only does about 110gr of coffee at a time but looks like a nice machine. Probably ok if you are a small consumer of coffee (1 x 200gr bag lasts more than a week or so).

There is also the Gene Cafe, comes in around $900 I think, does about 250gr of green beans (about 200gr when roasted)

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jonathan18

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#2214305 10-Apr-2019 11:17

Fred99:

Thermometers don't display temperature instantly, there's a lag of a second or so, even if they're electronic / thermocouple. Your fingers are better.

That's something that comes with experience and focus.

Even now, after using a machine daily for a couple of years, I use a thermometer, because that results in a more consistent outcome in my situation - most of the time I'm making coffee with three others bustling around the kitchen; I'm usually trying to make toast at the same time, being bombarded by a rundown of the most recent Dragonball episode from one of the brats, and listen to Morning Report!

I've also had a number of luke-warm coffees made by others who don't apply much method to their making - despite the inherent problems (the lag you mention), using a thermometer would do wonders to improve their coffee. And this applies to a number of commercial baristas as well!

Fred99

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#2214312 10-Apr-2019 11:28

sen8or:

Have heard about the scrambled eggs, but no, never tried.

If you give it a try, keep the nozzle deep and shut the steam off before you lift the nozzle up, or you'll coat the machine, the walls, yourself with egg.

dafman

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#2214363 10-Apr-2019 13:29

jonathan18:

On the pressurised baskets matter - the cheap Sunbeam I recommended above provide these in the box, but one can order the standard baskets as well; a pity they're just not included.

One of the advantages of pressurised baskets is that you don't need to buy a grinder. Pre-ground supermarket coffee (expresso, not plunger) works fine - which is great if you are starting out, it helps reduce the expense, just the Sunbeam is required for starters. Before we had our Rancilio and Apartmento, we started out with a Sunbeam and moved up to an Ascaso Dream. Both the Sunbeam and Ascaso had pressurised baskets so we operated fine without a grinder.

Fred99

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#2214384 10-Apr-2019 14:34

I'm not a fan of pre-ground beans no matter how the coffee is made. I've got a small hand grinder with ceramic burrs on our boat, makes a really huge difference for French press having freshly ground beans.
I've tried it at home and it's possible to get the grind right for espresso, but it's a laborious process to grind 30 - 40g of beans for a couple of double shots.
Hand grinder cost $100 or so, made in Germany, but I can't remember the brand, and I'm away in Dunedin ATM.

mdf

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#2303024 21-Aug-2019 13:57

jonathan18:

@mdf: A risky question, given where coffee-related threads here on GZ usually end up! (It's there a bit already, with the 'nespresso vs espresso' argument being raised earlier.)

As such, I am running the gauntlet for suggesting you don't need to go expensive and European to produce a decent espresso.

I suggest the Sunbeam Mini Espresso (https://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?q=sunb&p=4462590). Ostensibly a RRP of $500sh, you can easily pick it up for around half that - eg JB Hifi for $239.

I bought one so I can make myself coffee at work; it was to replace some DeLonghi nastiness from Briscoes, and I was after something totally affordable but decent enough. I was really surprised at the quality of the coffee it makes. I got one soon after it was released, but I see Consumer has since tested it and also rates it highly. I think it would be hard to find a machine that can produce such a decent coffee for anything near that price.

Of course, it's more basic than other more expensive models - eg single thermoblock, so you can't heat milk and make coffee at the same time, but this isn't a big issue given the price and the quality of what it produces. Also, many may not rate anything that uses a thermoblock, but given this is your first machine I'd recommend dipping your toe in with a machine that is totally affordable but still produces decent coffee. If you get bitten by the bug you can always upgrade later (and a spare machine is always useful - as it's relatively compact, we take mine on holiday rather than the bigger machine at home!), but if not you've not had to spend much...

Thanks for the recommendation @jonathan18. I have just been given* the Sunbeam Mini Espresso for my birthday. Only two cups in and am already surprised at how good a coffee it/I can make, even using some supermarket coffee since I don't have a grinder yet. Another hobby seems to beckon...

* Not really given. "You're too hard to shop for, here's some cash, go buy whatever you want".

jonathan18

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#2303540 22-Aug-2019 09:57

Great to hear you're enjoying your new machine, @mdf.

After the earlier posts on this thread I tried to track down a set of the single-wall baskets for my one, given I use relatively freshly ground coffee in it (I grind a couple of days' worth at home and bring that to work). Sunbeam were really difficult to pin down, but after much mucking about they ended up sending me a set for free. So if you do end up getting a grinder there is indeed a way of getting these baskets, you just need to persevere.

(In regards to grinders - I'd recommend keeping an eye out for the Breville BCG820 - cheapest it's got in the last few months is $217 at HN, but even at that it's totally worth it - not only a decent enough burr grinder, but also incredibly easy to use with adjustable timers for 1 and 2 shots etc.)

mdf

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#2458050 9-Apr-2020 11:11

So, it turned out this thread has pretty much been a lifesaver in the current unpleasantness.

I ended up with the Sunbeam mini espresso, single wall filter baskets, and the Breville grinder. Combo makes a super cup of coffee generally, but undoubtedly the kitchen MVP at the moment! Currently serving as my lifeline to normalcy and general uprightness enhancer!

Cheers @jonathan18 and everyone else in the thread.

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