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Yes 100%. Then you get into talking about flat burrs over conical burrs as opposed to blades.
Fuck me tyoing this I realise I need to get out clubbing badly
Coffee mail order
5 days later
RichM how’s it going with the new grinder mate?
Mine arrived yesterday. Had a bit of a reg trying to align the new burrs yrsterday and was worried I was well out of my depth with s flat burr grinder, but think it’s all good now and had my first couple of coffees today - things are looking good.
Just having a Nescafe Gold Blend before my morning run.
Cheers!
Late to this thread but in the market for a new machine. Nespresso and pods have had their day. Not looking to drop 2 large on a machine and it needs to be easy maintenance. What is there in the 500-1000 range. All in, grindr an all.
That’s a good budget Tom.
Few questions:
What drinks did you want to make?
Are you interested in steaming milk?
Did you want to learn how to steam or would you prefer the machine to do it for you?
How much do you want convenice / quick warm up time?
Did you want new or would well looked after 2nd hand be of interest?
How much worktop space have you got?
Living the dream Millsy, living the dream.
Old-Dutch if you’re a pro in this area, can you help a brother out, Dutchy? Straight up Espresso machine, no milk elements required and very, very easy to maintain and clean
Cuppacinos. Definitely yes to steamed milk! Steam it myself. Quick would be good for the 0620 coffee. Minimal maintenance.
Currently using nespresso and aerocino. Needs to be a decent step up from that.
new.
Old-Dutch loving it so far, although as it’s producing much better grinds than my old blade grinder I’m having to clean out the baskets much better. Found after a couple of coffees the delonghi was struggling to pour anything. Realised the fine grinds were clogging up the holes much more compared to previously. Need to get some non pressurised baskets for a better pull.
Made myself a nice Vietnamese coffee with coconut condensed milk this morning, lovely stuff.
Great stuff mate - yes, unpressurised baskets for freshly ground coffee.
When the machine struggles to pour it is a sign of choking - the grinds are probably too fine, so maybe move the grind setting up a number higher. Also worth stirring the grinds with a cocktail stick to break them up.
Old-Dutch cheers mate, will give that a go. So much to learn as you start to delve further into this coffee malarkey. But am loving the whole experience of spending more time each morning in it. Previously I would have ground up enough coffee for the week and it would have been a quick process to make a coffee each morning, but now it’s a slower but more rewarding process.
What are your thoughts on tamping? I just use the plastic thing you get with cheaper coffee machines, but thinking might be worth getting something better now I’m using better grinds in the basket. I’m holding out buying a new espresso machine, so exploring where I can make improvements elsewhere
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Lol at pro mate. I didn’t have a scooby about any of this until 9 months ago when I started looking at getting my own equipment. But I have read a lot and watched a lot of videos.
I am using the Sage Bambino Plus, which personally I think is a great machine. It has a thermojet heating system so once you turn it on it is ready to go within 3 seconds (fucking incredible when you think about it). It is very user friendly and I got mine on a special offer for £229 last year. They are about £400 in most places. The good thing with the Bambino is that it is packed with modern technology and features which make it incredibly easy to use. You also have the ability to use the pre-programmed settings or take a more manual approach such as pre-infusion times and how long you want the water to flow for. I just use the pre-programmed settings on mine which I find makes excellent coffee.
It has a steam wand which can steam milk with 3 separate heat and 3 separate foaming consistency settings. Again you have the choice to do this manually if you want to hold the milk jug, or you can stick the jug on a sensor on the drip tray that switches off the steam once it gets to 60 degrees. I find it gives me great foam by just letting the machine do it’s thing so haven’t even tried to do it manually.
In terms of cleaning, it is very easy to do. The machine itself prompts you to clean it after every 200th shot you pull. The machine goes into a cleaning mode which you need to activate. You need to put in some cleaning powder (I use Puly Caff) into a blanking disk in the portafilter and ther machine performs a series of backflushes to clean it all out inside. There is also a scaling clean function which the machine indicates you need to do when it detects scale. When it comes to coffee machines scale is your worst enemy so I use bottled water (Tesco Ashbeck 5 litres cost £1.35). Apparently you should only use either Ashbeck or Volvic or get yourself a reverse osmosis machine to give your machine the best chance in life. Some bottled waters are just as bad as tap water so rule of thumb is to stick with Ashbeck or Volvic when using bottled water. Living in London, I’m steering well clear of putting tap water anywhere near my machine.
I always pull a shot with the protafilter in the group head before making a coffee to warm everything up and let the water drip into a cup to warm this up too. I also pull a shot after my coffee to clear off any grinds stuck on the grouphead and give it a quick scrub with a little brush. On a weekly basis I unscrew the group head and take off the shower screen and put this in a litre of diluted puly caff with the basket and steam wand tip. It’s all quite easy to do but probably beyond what most would do.
Where Sage machines tend to be criticised is that when things go wrong and they are out of warantee they become expensive to repair. The new law coming in on the right to repair may change this. Lakeland give a 3 year warrantee on their products which is pretty good imo.
More experienced users tend to suggest going for machines like the Gaggia or Silvia as a first machine, but they seem a bit of a ball-ache from a user perspective unless you fit a PID to control the temperature. When I was reading about all of this and temperature surfing - I thought I couldn’t be arsed and went for the Sage instead. My first machine did have an issue, which I contacted Sage about and they sent me out a brand new unit no questions. I suspect my machine was £229 because it was old stock - I now have a brand new one as a replacement.
One point to consider with the Sage is that the portafilter is 54mm as opposed to a standard 58mm portafilter. The machine come with the protafilter and both pressurised (for pre-ground) and unpressurised (for freshly ground) baskets and a tamper. There’s also a trimming razor tool which guides you on the amount of grinds you put in the basket in terms of volume. For a starter machine, I can’t really recommend it enough.
I am selling my own Sage Smart Grinder Pro if you are interested. It’s in mint condition - has only had about 6/7 kilos through it and it’s 9 months old. It works perfectly well - especially as a starter grinder and I got it through Lakeland with a 3 year warantee. I’m only selling as I decided I wanted to move from a hopped fed-grinder to a single doser, so I can switch up my beans whenever I want and I had a lovely couple of wins on the nags last week that paid for it.
Also if you are not going with a big UK retailer (Curry’s, John Lewis, Lakeland etc.) be careful who you buy from - there are a lot of companies out there who are ripping people off. You can trust Black Cat Coffee and Bella Barista but I’d recommend steering clear of anything outside of the UK as it is a risk in terms of duty fees etc. plus a massive ball-ache to send back if you need to for whatever reason. What might look like a better deal for the sake of £30 / £40 could end up a very expensive mistake
This is a pretty good deal for the Sage Barista Express at Costco as you are getting the grinder and machine for £500
Personally I’d advise to buy separate machine and grinder so you can change one or the other independently of the whole unit. Also there are far less steps in the inbuilt grinder than there are on the SGP. The Barista Express doesn’t have thermojet, but the Barista Pro does. It’s about £700 in most places.
For £600 you can get the Bambino and Smart Grinder Pro as separates new.
This is a good thread. They don’t mention the Sage - they tend to not be fans of it on the board, but there is a lot of snobbery on there. I can only speak from my perspective as an owner of one and this is the only machine I have ever used. Longer term I have my eye on an ACS Minima, but having just got a new grinder, this one is a couple of years off for sure:
https://coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/16160-machines-what-do-you-get-for-your-money/
Actually the threand is from 2014, so the Sage wasn’t even around back then as far as I am aware. Certainly I don’t think there were thermojet systems back then.
Good thread here:
https://coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/58929-buying-sage-for-convenience-will-i-regret-not-buying-a-%E2%80%98machine%E2%80%99/
Don’t think BB stock Sage
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This is quite a good deal: https://www.blackcatcoffee.co.uk/collections/eqipment/products/bezzera-bundle-hobby-bb005-grinder-accessories
Might be worth phoning up and speaking to Dave @ BlackCat Coffee about it. He’d probably advise to go this route over the Sage from the repair / longevity perspective. I suspect it doesn’t have the pre-set functionality of the Sage, so you will need to be more hands on with it.
Apparently Sage give a 20% discount to NHS staff @benson, so if you e-mail them (using your NHS address) and enquire you can probably get this discount from the Sage appliances directly from them. This may be the gamechanger for you
Its coffee lads. Steady on like
Old-Dutch Any reason not to buy this that you can see, Dutch?
Lol Sean. Lockdown has absolutely fucked me.
Along_the_Wire - If you’re thinking bean to cup route - I’d recommend going with a manufacturer like Delonghi.
This looks like a pretty good deal - fairly sure these were about £400 or so back in June when I was looking at what to get. IIRC I think @Millsy has one.