Nice. I’m curious how the fully automatic stuff works since making espresso seems a bit involved with a number of variables to dial in, although I admittedly only pay attention to a few of them, and the biggest variable seems to be regular vs decaf beans and how long I need to grind to get the right dose.
Maybe we need a general coffee thread, but I am curious about coffee recommendations.
I have tried most of what Costco carries, which admittedly isn’t going to be days fresh like the local roaster down the street. I really like their Kirkland brand espresso roast. I tried the Lavazza brand espresso roasts and they were ok. Maybe freshness was more of an issue with them if turnover is slower. A few that I frequently used in our drip coffee maker did not make good espresso, I think they were just too lightly roasted.
Decaf has been much harder to find…Kicking Horse dark roast decaf is pretty good, the kirkland brand decaf is passable, the amazon Columbia decaf was quite bland.
I have some green coffee beans from ethiopia yirgacheffe region that I attempted to roast for the espresso machine, but did not get them dark enough. Those are good on a lighter roast in the drip coffee maker. Might try again this weekend.
I need to check out the what the local roaster has at the shop 5 minutes from my house. Their stuff is usually top notch. Costco carried one of their varieties, but it was unremarkable.
Full auto is full auto. Super simple, high convenience factor. Much less consistent.
You can do better with a semiautomatic machine, but it’s kind of a hobby at that point. Get a good grinder and start working on extraction. Grams of beans in, fineness of grind, brew temp (not available on all machines), balancing grams of coffee out vs time. I’m a few months in and still not fully consistent. Every time you get a new bag of beans you’re tweaking. Or even within a bag as they age things can shift.
How important is all of this? Depends how picky you are and what you drink. Straight espresso is unforgiving, adding milk and sugar can mask a multitude of sins. Take a very mediocre shot and dump it into a latte and it’s delicious. And if your benchmark is Starbucks, it really doesn’t take much to do better, imo.
Oh, beans. Fresh beans help, especially if you want more crema. Somewhere around 1-4 weeks after roasting is ideal, 6-8 weeks is fine by me, after that you are exiting flavor country.
I suppose I’m working with two primary beans at any one time, working mostly off extraction time. If extraction time is correct, i think the volume of coffee in the portafilter might approximate the weight dimension. Keeping everything the same, I’ll have a bit of water on top of the coffee in the portafilter when i run decaf…i think larger and more grounds keeps the extraction time the same, less water remains in the system, and if it all works out, the right volume is left in the cup.
I could try and prove this all out, but agree, that’s getting a bit into the hobby aspect of it. I’m running through Costco roasts, which is more of the volume option but gets through the learning experience a bit, and results are still pretty good. I’ll fiddle with it more if i find a great roast to dial in. My main challenge is keeping the caffeine consumption limited.
Yeah, you can use the volume of beans in the portafilter as a proxy for weight of the beans, and the amount of espresso in the cup as a proxy for the weight of the espresso. Without a scale it’s a little less scientific.
Rough rule of thumb, if the coffee is on the sour end, you are under-extracted. So you want either higher temps, longer extraction time, or a finer grind. If the coffee is too bitter you’re over-extracted, so it’s the opposite, lower temps, reduce extraction time, or grind a bit coarser.
Mine has some hidden settings, which I’m working on now before I stop caring. I turned up the aroma and temperature (though these seem unnecessary because who wants luke warm unaromaric coffee?) And the quantities of water, milk, and beans I think can be adjusted for each drink. Maybe something about water softening? I dunno. And the grinder has a knob so that’s easy enough to dial.
I saw a review comparing it to a $1k ($800 on sale) semiauto breville, and he said the Breville was better due to puck-size, pressure, and frothing quality, so I think customization is less of an issue than overall quality.
Anyway, it’s fine. I’m way more interested in ease of use. Both me and my wife are unlikely to touch anything that requires fiddling and cleaning before work.
Not sure if it’s just a low/high type of setting or if it’s in degrees. Most people are generally around 195-200F for darker roasts. Lighter roasts are harder to extract so more like 200-205F.
My machine is huge, my grinder isn’t small, and then I have the tamper out there, plus the milk pitcher. I totally appreciate how compact the fully automatic machines are.
Interesting, sounds like you still get a few of the important things to adjust. I watched one of the review videos in the amazon link, kinda cool how it makes all the steps happen internally.
I do make a bit of a mess with mine throughout the week…the grinder sometimes tosses a few grounds off the portafilter that end up on the machine drain and elsewhere around it. Not a big deal (and easy for me to clean up where I have it), but I think it would be a bit much to have in the kitchen on top of the regular coffee stuff (my SO prefers the drip stuff).
It’s also a personal preference thing beyond the brewing temp. Would you like your coffee more toward floral and fruity, or more towards the chocolaty, smoky, and nutty? No wrong answers. I used to make exclusively dark roasts, but mix it up a little. I still generally prefer dark roasts or medium dark roasts. My current beans were labeled “medium-dark” roast which I generally like but I think might have been mislabeled. Seems light-medium to me, so I cranked up the temp and steep time.
There is zero consistency in how this gets labeled.
The other related thing I’ve noticed is what people label ‘espresso’ beans varies widely, as tastes have changed. Historically it would be a very dark roast, but modern espresso beans are lighter, so YMMV buying ‘espresso’ beans.
Jaspess is ready to fight our hand mixer. (More bc the accessory tub is a super pain to snap on than its actual function.) So I’m potentially in the market for a new one. Anyone have experience with a cordless one? If not, which one do you like?
Speaking of merging hand tools with kitchen utensils, I bought fillet knives for that 1970’s looking electric knife we had lying around that never gets used. Now I use it to fillet fish. Noice.
