Along_the_Wire @benson
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
https://www.costco.co.uk/Appliances/Small-Kitchen-Appliances/Coffee-Coffee-Capsules/Sage-Barista-Express-Bean-to-Cup-Coffee-Machine-Including-Milk-Jug-BES875UK/p/8798
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.
https://www.johnlewis.com/sage-ses878-the-barista-pro-coffee-machine/silver/p4081414?sku=238004068&s_ppc=2dx92700055554107474&tmad=c&tmcampid=2&gclid=CjwKCAjw6fCCBhBNEiwAem5SOz7lPmm3nvxX5R_IxXwMg0qe_Oh64udgvERQycHOyw1t6ha_K3nzARoCIgIQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
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/
