Bean to cup coffee machine

[Beardy]

We’ve been long time users of Nespresso coffee pods, but our current machine is becoming unreliable. Nespresso are now heavily pushing their new pods and machines and thus there is now a reduced choice in the ‘classic’ pod machines and there’s a trend developing with the coffee choices favouring the newer pod style.

The newer machines take even more control away from the user, given that the pods are bar coded to tell the machine what to do. And the new pods add a premium to an already expensive way to drink coffee at home.

I’m also getting rather twitchy about the amount waste that pod machines produce, even though Nespresso take our used pods away for recycling.

All this is a long way to say that we’ve decided that pod use is probably coming to an end in the Beardy homestead and I’m looking to a been to cup machine to meet our needs of drinkable coffee without too much fuss.

I am therefore looking to the collective to share their knowledge and experience in using bean to cup machines, what to avoid, and what’s good? If you’ve made the transition yourself, what would you do differently? Where do you get your beans? What do you do for your evening cup of decaf? All comments and advice welcome.

Thank you.

[ian]

I do bean-to-pot for extended caffeination, ha.

I still swear by my Cuisinart coffee-bot, which grinds beans and makes a thermos pot full of coffee every morning. The coffee says hot for a couple of hours, so I can make three mugs-worth to drink at my leisure. It's American, so you have to turn the setting to strong and put a bit less water in it than it demands for the number of cups you've selected. All the gubbins go in the dishwasher and it has a timer so I have fresh pot when I get up each morning.

I get all my beans from the Algerian Coffee Shop on Old Compton Street.

[John Stonebridge]

Cuisinart Grind & Brew for us for all the reasons ian said.  Its good for 4 mugs worth (where each mug will be 2/3rds coffee & about 1/3rd frothed milk (Lavazza) which is perfect for 2 of us working from home).  Neither of us drink coffee after lunchtime so its always piping hot from the flask. 

I buy high roast beans from Valvona & Crolla (swanky Italian deli) in Edinburgh when Im over the other side of town, if not we’ll happily make do with ground coffee (local Co-ops French style is fine).

While the machine can handle both we prefer the stuff made from beans.

[yoav]

What is your budget?

Our first machine was the Delonghi Magnifica. It has gone through various versions but it's their starter model at about £300.

Ours worked very well for 10 years, though it needed to go back to Delonghi for service once in that time. It needs a good clean every few days and you need to run a descaler fluid through it once a month or so. Other than that, it required little maintenance. The coffee was good, although it never came out that hot, so you have to drink it more or less straight away. But maybe that's a good thing as coffee that is overheated or kept hot for long periods can get very bitter. Also, the volume of a single cup is a little on the low side for me so I tended to put large mug under both spouts and make a double. Obviously, you can make all the usual coffees; americano, espresso, latte, cappuccino, froth milk etc.

When it needed to be serviced again, we decided it was time to upgrade, which we did to a Jura E8 (£900). That's a step up from the Delongho. The coffee is nicer, hotter and there are more choices regarding volume and types of coffee. It doesn't require returning the machine for service but the consumables are greater in that it has a disposable water filter so you don't need to descale it but you do clean it with a special tablet once a month. YMMV but we like it.

As regards beans, we settled on Lavazza beans in 1kg bags from Costco after trying several different brands. But we're alway trying different ones out, including those from Valvona & Corolla.

[CAMRAMan]

I've got separate grinder and espresso machine, so can't recommend anything, but I get my beans from redber.co.uk . I've tried other suppliers, but find myself drawn back to Redber because of their quality and speed of delivery.

[jiberjaber]

I invested in a Gaggia BTC machine almost a year ago next week, so far its been mostly good. Makes an OK coffee but I don't use all the features on there that I thought I would, it was about £500. 

It tells me I've made 1655 drinks in the time I've had it, which is about 5 a day (probably more as I mostly use it weekdays).  I just use beans from Aldi about £2 a bag for 230g or so which lasts me just under a week per bag.

I've had to descale it 3 times in that time, it came with a test strip to set the water hardness setting which is then used to work out when it needs a descale. Descaler is about £20 for 3 bottles of descaler.

It needs a weekly clean, which is a 5 min job, mostly just a case of pulling out the bottom tray, opening the side, pull out the brew group and give it all a rinse. Forgetting to do this weekly leads to some mould in the brew group area, easy to clean off, but better to try and clean it weekly.

The unit has a bypass for pre-ground coffee, one of the reasons I bought it. I thnk I've used it 5 to 10 times at most, I probably wouldnt bother again.
Coffee grind is adjustable, volume of shot is adjustable, water temperature is not adjustable.

Water temperature has been a pain for me, its consistent, at 85C (I think) but thats too cold for an americano for me, I need to drink it straight away, so I now just brew a double espresso and boil the kettle, which kind of makes some of the functionaility redundant!

It takes up a fair bit of counter space, I refill the water reservoir each morning, empty the pucks maybe once a day or every other day.. it holds about 10 pucks before asking to be emptied.

It's got a proper steam wand (which also is where the hot water comes out of if it's not for a coffee) - I've used it a few times, but usualy only if I am making coffee (or a hot choc) for me and others. I don't bother with it when it's just me.

I'd probably buy just a BTC espresso machine if I were to do it again.

[T42]

I bought a Delonghi Magnifica in 2018 after fiddling with an espresso machine & grinder for a few years.   Experience much as Yoav says: I muck out the spent-grounds box every day and soak the brew unit every couple of weeks, at which time I also poke around inside & remove stray grounds & any dried-out coffee gunk from the odd surface. No problems so far. We have soft water so I've only had to de-scale it once in 4 years.

My machine was ex-showroom & never used, and I got it at half-price.  Might be worth casting about a bit - Backmarket does refurbs.

[ian]

I confess I've never got on with espresso-type coffees, I'm the filter coffee refusenik, fighting a rearguard action against the dastardly steaming Italians.

[perpetual dan]

I use a filter paper in a ceramic thing (V60?)  that goes on top of the mug. I get coffee from Bond Street Coffee and Small Batch (both Brighton), the house filter blend, ground for me. Pot with a special measuring spoon just for dry coffee. Water from the kettle. Which is low fuss, easy cleaning, little waste and tasty.

I too take the view that i can get espresso easily enough while out and about, but prefer a longer drink that's less intense when i have the option.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[pcolbeck]

I confess I've never got on with espresso-type coffees, I'm the filter coffee refusenik, fighting a rearguard action against the dastardly steaming Italians.

Me too.

[ian]

Let's face it, if you're in a gritty police procedural, sweating the perp in the interview room, you want to be knocking back yesterday morning's filter coffee with a cigarette end in the cup, not serving a flat white. Look I made a heart in the foam, now tell us again, where were you at 9.30 pm on the night in question? You want a soy milk latte, then talk.

[Wobbly John]

I’m not that seriously into coffee, but want something that tastes better than instant. I’ve been using a Melita bean to cup machine for about 6 years and like the taste and simplicity. Mrs WJ hates the noise.
They do need regular maintenance, removing the brewer unit and cleaning it, descaling and cleaning tablets.

[De Sisti]

I bought one of these. Dead cheap. £11.50
https://www.johnlewis.com/la-cafetiere-hand-coffee-grinder-black-clear/p6271274

[Beardy]

I prefer my coffee as espresso, whereas Dr Beardy prefers hers a little longer (oo err Missies) and sometimes with a little added flavour. This is why the Nespresso has been such a success in this here abode.

I’ve convinced Dr B that she can get syrups for flavour, and after jiberjaber mentioned preground bypass which will allow for the occasional Decaf without issue, we’re on a trajectory for a pre Christmas purchase. Budget is around £500 which pretty much hits the sweet spot for the facilities we want.

[Beardy]

The Gaggia bean to cup machine has landed at Beardy towers and now the search for a coffee bean we both like begins.

We’ve also got to use up our stock of Nespresso pods and an extra month’s subscription worth (guess which div didn’t cancel the Nespresso sub  ) although we might be able to donate some pods to the beardlings.

[T42]

Health to use it, Mr. B.

I also have a vacuum pot.  It turns out a very decent long coffee as well as providing entertainment. 60-70 g/l makes a good brew.

I tried making hot chocolate with the panarello the other day. It works but the panarello is disgusting afterwards. 

[rogerzilla]

I can't make coffee that tastes better than that from a moka pot (or, better, a Brikka, once you learn its foibles).  SO has a bean-to-cup machine and it's ok, but the beans she buys aren't my favourite.

[robgul]

Tried some early bean-to-cup machines ages ago but unless you got a mega, plumbed in machine they weren't brilliant - we've had one of these for a long time now, using a a Lavazza ground coffee day-to-day and grinding artisan roasted beans on high days and holidays.   The machine also provides instant hot water for tea making.



Machine is plumbed in for water and overflow which obviates the need to reflll and clean the water reservoir  (it's on a Hive programmed socket to go off at night and save electricity)

[rogerzilla]

From a Brikka pot, with appropriate genuflections made.

20221223_123151 by rogerzilla, on Flickr

[T42]

I used a Brikka for a good while - even got quite adept at using it without burning myself.  It was OK with the right coffee & the right grind.

[pumpkin]

That's some crema. I would have to waste hours/days to achieve it

[Hot Flatus]

That's some crema. I would have to waste hours/days to achieve it

S'easy.

Just use coffee with a bit of robusta in it. When you look at the names of Italian big brand coffees like Lavazza (the worst of the big brands) you often see things like 'super crema' or 'gran crema'.  Just means it's full of lower quality robusta* beans but easy to smash out espressos that look good.  There is this mystique about crema but if you dip a spoon in it and taste it then you realise it tastes horrid, like a mouth full of ash. It adds something though, probably oily content, but more is not always better. There's a weird quality to it when it's not great quality, it sort of collapses on itself.

* and to be clear, there is good robusta and bad robusta, but this is usually of the bad variety.

[T42]

That's some crema. I would have to waste hours/days to achieve it

S'easy.

Just use coffee with a bit of robusta in it. When you look at the names of Italian big brand coffees like Lavazza (the worst of the big brands) you often see things like 'super crema' or 'gran crema'.  Just means it's full of lower quality robusta* beans but easy to smash out espressos that look good.  There is this mystique about crema but if you dip a spoon in it and taste it then you realise it tastes horrid, like a mouth full of ash. It adds something though, probably oily content, but more is not always better. There's a weird quality to it when it's not great quality, it sort of collapses on itself.

* and to be clear, there is good robusta and bad robusta, but this is usually of the bad variety.

Or roast your own coffee and pull a shot the day after while it's still outgassing.  Although with that - and the Brikka - it's not strictly crema but foam, or so the pundits will tell you.  AFAIC, crema is foam with its little finger lifted.

[pumpkin]

Never seen a bricks. I understand about the crema now. James Hoffman on YT enlightened me

[rogerzilla]

Brikka is only about 3 bar pressure but (because it's basically a pressure cooker underneath the receiving jug) the water is really, really hot when it meets the coffee.  You don't need much of the latter as the extraction is very complete.

The instructions were presumably freely translated from the original Italian and are completely wrong.  It took me a year to figure out how to use it.  If you have a Brikka that does nothing but flood your stove top with superheated coffee, PM me and I'll mansplain.

AIUI Italians normally use a moka pot at home and espresso machines are left for commercial premises.
  My cousin-in-law is from Florence so I could ask her.