Author Topic: What's caffeinating you today?  (Read 128247 times)

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #600 on: 03 June, 2019, 05:28:55 pm »
Ha  :P As I thought.

Do yourself a favour, go to Coffee Compass, go to the espresso trial pack (3×500g) Select Hill&Valley, Jampit Hit, and Cherry cherry. Then use the discount code I will PM you.

Then come back and thank me when it arrives.

https://www.coffeecompass.co.uk/collections/espresso-range/products/coffee-compass-espresso-selection

Manotea

  • Where there is doubt...
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #601 on: 01 August, 2019, 07:10:06 am »
After a week away going cold turkey last year, I've just bought an aeropress for this years hols...

At the risk of outing myself as a caffeine junkie cum philistine, I'm quite impressed.... a gadget that delivers!

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #602 on: 01 August, 2019, 08:04:14 am »
Na, the Aeropress is highly respected.  Just don't use a very fine grind in it or you'll get coffee that's acid enough to etch your oesophagus. DAHIKT.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #603 on: 05 August, 2019, 08:39:29 pm »
After a week away going cold turkey last year, I've just bought an aeropress for this years hols...

At the risk of outing myself as a caffeine junkie cum philistine, I'm quite impressed.... a gadget that delivers!

Probably because it was designed to rather than being designed as something to sell. Much like the original Sony Walkman. The man who owns the Aerobie Frisbee company told his research staff to design him something to make good coffee easily whilst he travelled. They came up with the Aeropress. He liked it and then decided to market it.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

BrianI

  • Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Lepidopterist Man!
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #604 on: 07 August, 2019, 10:11:00 am »
After a week away going cold turkey last year, I've just bought an aeropress for this years hols...

At the risk of outing myself as a caffeine junkie cum philistine, I'm quite impressed.... a gadget that delivers!

I bought one myself yesterday.  :thumbsup:
First use of it this morning, using Tesco Italian ground coffee, it certainly tastes smoother from the aeropress, than from my usual cafetiere.  :smug: 

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #605 on: 14 November, 2019, 08:42:01 am »
I think the time has come for me to change my coffee making apparatus, the current device (a 15+ year old Krups Crematic) is going the way of its identical earlier version and the low pressure piping is leaking. Having buggered around with its predecessor, what should be a simple fix really is not, and I'm resigned to replacing.

It makes a perfectly adequate espresso for me, and the filter is effective, too. My coffee habit is just a quad espresso topped up to a mugful in the morning, cappuccino is only ever an occasional guest thing. I have a basic burr grinder to duff up the beans (which I get from Coffee Compass, courtesy of Flatus' recommendation).

I've looked at a coffee forum or two, but their perspective is not entirely mine, if it was bike forum it seems to me they are discussing the merits of high end racing carbon and TT, and I want a tourer. I'm thinking of the Gaggia bean to cup although the idea of mechanising the process sounds an unnecessary complication to me, with little benefit beyond the (ok, considerable) convenience. Any recommendations?

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #606 on: 14 November, 2019, 09:25:27 am »
Honestly? I'd say either go all in (£1500  semi-auto machine + £500 grinder, minimum) or dont bother at all.  IMHO low-mid range stuff is pointless.

My recommendation would be a pod machine from Aldi (£45 ....when you can get them) capsules from Aldi

or...

a cheap Moka pot.

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #607 on: 14 November, 2019, 10:32:23 am »
or...

a cheap Moka pot.

mmmm.

My own take on the coffee thing is that while there may be a goal of perfection, if you can control the temperature and put a halfway decent pump, you get a decent coffee. The moka pot suffers from being over hot, and aluminium.

And coffee pods? no thanks.

I reckon I'd be happy with a decent "low end" (ie not toy) espresso machine, however the low end bean to cup machines do sound worrying

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #608 on: 14 November, 2019, 10:56:33 am »
I have a low-end Delonghi B2C. It's a fast, reliable way of getting an acceptable cup of coffee* but you'll never get a God shot out of it.

I also have a Europiccola which, unless you make a study of the things to PhD level, will produce a God shot about every 10 shots or so, give or take 200.

I got the Delonghi in May last year and so far my only complaint is that when it tells me to empty the grounds container it doesn't say please.

* with decent beans recently roasted, say 2 weeks old.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #609 on: 14 November, 2019, 12:58:49 pm »
One thing that makes me most wary of the B2C machines is the inability to control the tamping, which appears to me to have a significant impact on the output especially with a low end machine like my current Krups. Theoretically a B2C machine will be  adapted perfectly to the grind and pressure, but I dunno.

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #610 on: 14 November, 2019, 01:13:14 pm »
You cant control the water content either, or the dose, or the temp.

In fact you cant really control anything, which is why they are pretty pointless.

Hence pods.  End result is the same.

Regulator

  • That's Councillor Regulator to you...
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #611 on: 14 November, 2019, 01:15:18 pm »
You cant control the water content either, or the dose, or the temp.

In fact you cant really control anything, which is why they are pretty pointless.

Hence pods.  End result is the same.

You can on ours - you just have to read the manual.  And you can control the grind.
Quote from: clarion
I completely agree with Reg.

Green Party Councillor

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #612 on: 14 November, 2019, 01:16:58 pm »
Depends what you mean by 'control'.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #613 on: 14 November, 2019, 01:17:44 pm »
One thing that makes me most wary of the B2C machines is the inability to control the tamping, which appears to me to have a significant impact on the output especially with a low end machine like my current Krups. Theoretically a B2C machine will be  adapted perfectly to the grind and pressure, but I dunno.

Yeah, I get that.  They use pressurized filters, of course, which compensates a bit for the lack of precision tamping.

If I had the money to throw around I'd get one of those Breville/Sage/Riviera&Bar semi-automatics but for a single cup per day it'd be a waste.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #614 on: 14 November, 2019, 01:21:59 pm »
Depends what you mean by 'control'.

To be sure.  B2Cs aren't for purists, but I stopped being a purist a few years back.  I mean, £2000 just to brew a 10cc coffee?  You can get a half-decent bike for that.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #615 on: 14 November, 2019, 01:27:55 pm »
Is that half a decent bicycle?

(click to show/hide)


Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #616 on: 14 November, 2019, 01:31:30 pm »
I start from the perspective that I get an adequate - for me - coffee from my existing Krups, especially now with decent blends and all I want is to be able to equal that. Which for my money is a good espresso with decent crema. I'm not interested in God, whether he gets shot or not. Jura E6 looks a possibility. Which machines do you have (T42 & reg?)

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #617 on: 14 November, 2019, 02:31:30 pm »
Mine's a Delonghi ECAM 22.320.B.  They're out of production now.  List price was something like 450€ and I paid 219.

As I said earlier, with beans about 2 weeks from roasting I get a shot that tastes pretty good. The crema isn't as good as I could get with the Europiccola when it was in a good mood, in fact it's a moot point whether the topping produced by B2C machines is a 'real' crema or not, but I don't much care.  In a straight-sided coffee glass it looks like a miniature Guinness.

You don't sound to be interested in latte etc., but the panarello on mine produces a good foam.

Before getting the Jura I'd suggest having a gander at the operating instructions.  On the Delonghi I can get the brew unit out for cleaning, which also gives me access to a lot of the inside of the machine to remove stray coffee.  I know that on the Jura E55 the brew unit wasn't user-accessible, and over time stray coffee could build up and go mouldy.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #618 on: 14 November, 2019, 02:33:27 pm »
Everything is user accessible with sufficient determination.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #619 on: 15 November, 2019, 09:35:45 am »
Yebbut getting into mine doesn't invalidate the guarantee.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #620 on: 15 November, 2019, 10:13:29 am »
Depends what you mean by 'control'.

To be sure.  B2Cs aren't for purists, but I stopped being a purist a few years back.  I mean, £2000 just to brew a 10cc coffee?  You can get a half-decent bike for that.

Purists? Have you been to Italy? What do you see them drinking?

What you see them drinking is espresso, and they are consuming it in the way one might have a cigarette or a mug of tea. The consumer hasnt much of a clue what processes are taking place, nor where their coffee beans originate, so there is very little that can be said to be puritanical. It is at the level of a commodity, and yet coffee in Italy is consistent and always good.

But you wont see it coming out of a B2C machine.

It's either decent espresso or it isnt. And if it is coming out of a B2C machine then it isnt.  Which is fine, because neither your nor Ham are that interested in espresso. You are enjoying drinking something else.

I'm not convinced that a £500 B2C will produce anything better than a £20 Aeropress, in the cup if what you want is an Americano. But what it will do is give you a shed load of convenience (at a price), which means a pre warmed machine and a coffee in 20 seconds, rather than boiling a kettle and faffing about with fiddly devices and then having to clean up afterwards.

So maybe reliability vs price is the issue here.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #621 on: 15 November, 2019, 10:57:27 am »
Maybe it is.

Maybe purist is the wrong word: obsessive better describes the kind of fascination that results in a practitioner spending more time fiddling with the gear than drinking what comes out of it. And that certainly doesn't describe the espresso-drinkers you meet in Italian bars - most of whom probably make coffee at home with a Bialetti.

I've done the bit buying grinder after grinder, swapping up for better ones, ditto espresso machines, compulsive temperature surfing, bottomless PFs, etc. I even had my own roaster  Then came the epiphany that I was sinking a stack of good money into drinking two coffees a day - tiny coffees that were gone in under a minute, at that.  Oh, there's a sort of Zen to it, certainly, especially with a manual lever machine that doesn't have any temperature control, but do you want the Zen or the coffee?  Maybe you're getting both every time, and if that's the case good luck to you.

One thing you get out of a B2C is consistency. Another is speed and another is cleanliness. The coffee will never be startlingly good but given decent beans it's always good.  In other words, it's a compromise, and IME it's a good one.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #622 on: 15 November, 2019, 11:18:41 am »
You see your journey of obsession ended in abject failure.

Mine ended in the ability to make consistently brilliant coffee with no fuss. Certainly no more than making an instant coffee... and a fair chunk of that comes down to owning decent gear and knowing how to use it.

Temperature surfing=I've got a shit machine
Bottomless portafilter necessity=I've got a shit grinder
Weighing shots= I havent got a volumetric machine
Zen=You are having to mitigate shit kit with fastidious & laborious technique.

Ultimately, decent gear + knowledge= less work not more, greater consistency and brilliant results.

I come down in the morning, press the grinder button, fill the portafilter, quick tamp, press button, and what comes out isnt mediocre.


Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #623 on: 15 November, 2019, 11:31:23 am »


It's either decent espresso or it isnt. And if it is coming out of a B2C machine then it isnt.  Which is fine, because neither your nor Ham are that interested in espresso. You are enjoying drinking something else.
.

You may not be intending to say it - or you might - but it does sound as if you are saying that you either drink a PROPER espresso or you might as well drink horse piss/Starbucks, the reality is a little more complex. Decent coffee and semi decent making equipment makes a different drink to, say, the average capsule coffee machine, even if it isn't perfect.

If the best that a cheap B2C can do is the equivalent of a capsule, I'll stick with my faffage. I still maintain that I can get a decent (enough for me) espresso from my Krups, even if it doesn't meet your purist criteria.

The major area of faffage at the moment is from grinder to portafilter, fixing that would likely be sufficient for me, maybe that's what I need to look at, paired with a reasonable, basic espresso machine that has good temperature control.

Re: What's caffeinating you today?
« Reply #624 on: 15 November, 2019, 12:50:43 pm »
What I am saying is that cheap kit doesnt produce decent espresso, or risotto (which is what one is invariably served in Italy)

I suspect you arent even producing espresso because you talk about a quad shot. Do you mean four separate shots or just one great big one from the grinds you can pack into the portafilter?  Ratios matter, and if it isnt 40-50% minimum, it isnt espresso...its lungo.

That isnt to say it is bad, it's just not espresso, and the higher the ratio (60%+= ristretto) the more critical the kit seems to be.  Lower brew ratios seem far more forgiving, whereas higher ratios concentrate the flaws.

If you are just banging a load of water through some coffee in a portafilter then diluting it with more water then I go back to my earlier posts about aero press. Far more faff, but probably similar end results, but way cheaper.

YMMV which isnt a problem for me at all. We all appreciate things in different ways. For me though, I'd rather get a Kona filter and paper and do a pour over with some really nice coffee than stick it through a not very good machine.

FWIW I am viewed as a pleb in coffee circles because my favourite espresso is the rather bland northern Italian style, rather than over the top hipster fruity shit. Cant stand it. It's ok in milk but as espresso I'd rather drink my own piss.