Coffee Appreciation

If you don't currently have an espresso machine now and are looking for a grinder to do the job for the moment. I'd say focus on getting a decent grinder for filter then make the jump to something that can do both well when your about to get your espresso setup.

I feel like I bang this drum too often here but I can't find anything that I'd use for both that's cheaper (at least going by current RRP, not sure on the second-hand market to be fair) than the Barazta Sette 270 that I went with (I think I got it at £350 or so). You can easily pick up a great grinder for filter for less than a third of that (the Svart for example).

I’ve come to realise that making a good espresso at home is really involved - which isn’t a bad thing, but it starts to become a hobby and making decent filter at home is the right balance of time and money input for the coffee you can make at home. I’m not gonna wake up and start trying to dial in an espresso for my morning coffee (although it is a fun thing to do on the weekend).

Also this ^ is definitely something that I feel doesn't get said enough.

I recently shimmed by burrs for the Sette (both the filter and espresso burrs were a bit too close to the edges of the settings for my liking) and even with a grinder I've used every day for more than a year, it still took me a good few shots to get things dialled in again (granted, small boiler lever machines aren't exactly ideal for dialling in a grind setting).

It takes a fair amount of effort to get as consistent a result as you'd get in a decent coffee shop. Definitely a fair step up from making filter at home which is much more forgiving.

If I'm never really making more than one or two coffees at a time, it doesn't really make sense to look for the 270W or 270Wi versions, does it

Can I use the standard 270 & just add the weight of beans that I want in the top, and not even worry about grind time?

Yes, except for popcorning. But I'm not sure if you should really care about that.

I had no intention of looking at those variants to be honest. In fact, I originally ordered the 30 with a view to upgrade to the stepless adjustment assembly (https://www.baratza.com/shop/sette-270-270w-adjustment-assembly) at a later date, but figured it was just worth getting the 270 up front. (BTW, allowing customers to buy the entry level option and separately purchase the upgrades if possible is a great move IMO)

I just weigh and single dose my shots as the Sette is pretty good regarding grind retention like you say. I've got a single time setting programmed of 10 secs that I just stop once all the beans have passed through.

There will undoubtedly be an advantage to weighing the actual output as however low the retention might be, there will still be an amount retained. But yeah, didn't think that justified the additional costs for the W/Wi versions

Good stuff.

Obviously it's entirely on you if any of this goes wrong.

Cheers!

Hah! Honestly I'm very happy with it and I'd be hard pushed to consider anything else if buying again. (Granted I'd probably have a closer look at the Niche Zero and Rok hand grinder first)

The only downside I can think of is the noise (one of the downsides of the straight-through design), but even that isn't loud enough to wake my toddler upstairs, so can't be that bad. (Also, between very noisy for 5 seconds vs pretty noisy for 10-15 seconds, I'd choose the former)

Yeah, I think you are all right. It's probably wisest to get a grinder that does filter coffee well, and then if I decide I want to get into the espresso game later on, sell up and get something better suited to that. +1 on filter at home being the right balance of time and money input for the quality of coffee.

There was an offer up yesterday for a Sage Smart grinder which gets good reviews for £130, but that's gone out of stock. I've found a Wilfa Svart new for just under £100 from a European shop, so I'd just need a plug adapter, which I think I have a few of lying around anyway. I'll keep thinking about it for the next few days, but I think I'll end up going for a new Wilfa Svart.

So Coffee Italia / Caffè Italia / Bar Italia Club are a bit shit, aren't they.

They're who I bought my Europiccola from. From looking at their site it looked like it was in Bermondsey (I was in Peckham at the time). Wasn't too happy to find out it was being shipped from Italy and took somewhere in the region of 2 weeks to arrive.

I've heard less than stellar stories around returns/warranty, but if you're getting the La Pavoni I'd not be considering sending it off to someone else to fix if it breaks!

Any regular moka pot brewers use hot water in the base? I tried it the other day and was not sold. The water seemed to come through really fast and result in a pretty weak brew (by moka pot standards). I felt like cold water would have spent more time bubbling up through as it came up through a simmer to a proper boil.

Starting from cold means that the top half heats up way more, and you can end up boiling your coffee as well as the water.

Starting from cold, the extra time for the water to come through doesn't, afaik, translate to more water / coffee contact time.

I'm not sure what hot vs cold water is supposed to do. As far as I understand the way a moka pot works is by heating up the water so that it produces vapour, which increases the pressure on the liquid water at the bottom and pushes it up and through the coffee. That the water at the bottom starts cold or hot means you spend more or less time heating it up, but that's it. What should make more of a difference is grind size and heat (low heat to push the water more slowly).

Using warm water at the start sounds like more faff and recipe for burnt hands to me.

edit - I see what you mean TW. I've not experienced that in practice though so would still take the less faff-inducing cold water option.

They’re fucking useless! Do not use them

d more or less time heating it up, but that's it. What should make more of a

The idea is that it stops the coffee getting burnt while you are waiting for the water to warm up. James Hoffman explains his process on YouTube.

If you're switching from cold to hot water you will need to have the heat turned down since it doesn't take much to get the water coming through and hence not have it come through too fast.

Had a gaggia and mazzer sj in the past, but fell out of love with chasing perfect home espresso, sold them, and have been enjoying v60 and aeropress for the past 4 years.

I think it's time i upgraded my 5 year old rhino hand grinder.

I've inherited my brothers old gaggia, so might do espresso on occasion, but really 80% of the time it'll be filter.

With that in mind I'd like a really nice hand grinder, budget probably 200 to 250. Watched the James hoffman vid, probably will buy the comandante c40. Is there anything else worth considering? From memory that's very much bottom of the range espresso capable automatic grinders. Don't really want to go ex commercial again for size reasons.

Don't fancy a little Wilfa or something similar?

I didn't think the svart could do espresso and didn't want to spend as much as the uniform

1zpresso jx-pro

Right sorry thought you only wanted to do filter!

Got new 'mitts' for Rob today.
Didn't miss 'em before, won't be without 'em from now on - they make it so much easier to get great coffee from this machine.

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I've had a Wilfa for about a year maybe more. It's solid. It probably needs a clean. But it works it smashes the beans for pour over or Moka. It works. I get my buzz on.

@StevePeel are you still doing forum discounts for yellow bourbon beans, if so what is it? Starting to run low on some monmouth beans and wanted to stock up before lockdown 2 starts..
thanks

Put ‘doaskid’ in the box for 20% discount 👍

That looks fucking great!