Gunder posted:

If you go to a cafe, you'll generally get full-fat cow's milk used in milk drinks. I tend to use oat milk, as I don't drink dairy. I like Rebel Kitchen's Barista Mylk, as it steams and pours very similarly to cow's milk, and tastes good too. It's a blend of a few different plants, but the main ingredient is oat.

Edit: The reason cafes use full-fat milk is that higher-fat-content milk tends to taste better when steamed. It may also pour better? I'm not sure.

Bandire posted:

I'm not entirely sure there's a consensus on how to make a cortado, but I usually do latte style foam in mine.

BrianBoitano posted:

Original cortado: 1:1 with a single shot, no foam / texture

Modern you'll get in most shops is 1:2 or 1:3 with latte style foam

If they also sell a piccolo latte then you've a better chance of 1:1 or 1:2, since the piccolo is 1:3.5 or 1:4. The above was from when I cross-checked Epicurious, James Hoffmann, and European Coffee Trip.

I can make my notes pretty if anyone wants me to share!

Google Butt posted:

I'm down for notes!

I've been a black coffee drinker and home roaster for so long that I'm not super interested in heavy milk drinks. I figure that I'll be mostly making straight shots, macchiato and cortados (using my nanofoamer for the "modern" cortado).

QuarkJets posted:

The drip machines recommended on page 1 are broken links or currently unavailable. What's the current hotness in drip coffee machines that aren't $200?

QuarkJets posted:

The drip machines recommended on page 1 are broken links or currently unavailable. What's the current hotness in drip coffee machines that aren't $200?

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

My friend, you’ve stumbled into the thread where most of us have $1000+ in coffee gear. $200 is pretty cheap at this point.

404notfound posted:

I also have a Bambino Plus, but it's been nothing but frustrating lately. I thought I was really bad at dialing in a shot, but it turns out the machine (my individual unit, anyway) is just wildly inconsistent. I'll prepare two pucks the exact same way—same weight, grind setting, needle-tipped WDT and a spring-loaded tamper—and every shot after the first comes out way more restricted for some reason. Like, it's consistently inconsistent, always very ristretto on shots 2/3 to the point where sometimes a decently pulled first shot will lead to just a few drops coming out on subsequent ones.

I always make sure to run a blank first to preheat, so I'm not really sure what else I'm doing wrong. I could grind coarser after the first shot and/or forgo the saved setting and always pull manually, but it's clearly not how the machine was designed to be used. At this point I'm really ready to just shelve the machine and stick to my Kalita and Aeropress, because the frustration and all the wasted beans just aren't worth it.

sellouts posted:

press so hard the beans pulverize

GoodluckJonathan posted:

I wont begrudge anyone dropping $$$ on a grinder. I'd just like to offer up:

If you live near a shop with an ek43 or better, and you brew your coffee in anything other than an espresso machine, you're better off getting your coffee ground at the shop than doing it yourself at home.

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

What grinder are you using and how fresh are your beans? The pressure gauge isn’t great, but it does function, so what do you see pressure wise on the good shot vs the bad shots?

It’s not the saved setting. The saved setting saves water flow only (as in it’ll make sure only 2oz of water pass through, or 1.5oz, etc) so the setting vs manual doesn’t actually matter here.


I’m going to guess your issue is either

A.) you have a crappy grinder that’s incredibly inconsistent
B.) your grinder has a ton of retention, so when you dial finer you’re not clearing it well enough, causing your first shot to be a mix of corse and fine, and subsequent shots are all fine so they choke.
B.2) the retention issues cause you to have random weight of ground coffee (you put 16g in and get 14g grounds out first shot, than 18g grounds out second shot)
C.) your beans are too old and you won’t be able to get any consistency.
D.) (less likely) your shower screen is clogged as gently caress and you need to backflush/clean the shower screen.

404notfound posted:

I also have a Bambino Plus, but it's been nothing but frustrating lately. I thought I was really bad at dialing in a shot, but it turns out the machine (my individual unit, anyway) is just wildly inconsistent. I'll prepare two pucks the exact same way—same weight, grind setting, needle-tipped WDT and a spring-loaded tamper—and every shot after the first comes out way more restricted for some reason. Like, it's consistently inconsistent, always very ristretto on shots 2/3 to the point where sometimes a decently pulled first shot will lead to just a few drops coming out on subsequent ones.

I always make sure to run a blank first to preheat, so I'm not really sure what else I'm doing wrong. I could grind coarser after the first shot and/or forgo the saved setting and always pull manually, but it's clearly not how the machine was designed to be used. At this point I'm really ready to just shelve the machine and stick to my Kalita and Aeropress, because the frustration and all the wasted beans just aren't worth it.

404notfound posted:

I think you might be thinking of a different Breville/Sage machine, because there's no pressure gauge on the Bambino Plus. As for the grinder, I have a Kinu M47 hand grinder, which I've never heard anything bad about performance-wise, though I admit I haven't tested how consistent it is. Retention is another aspect I haven't really looked at, but might explain some of the shot inconsistency. That one should be easy enough to test by cleaning it out more thoroughly and grinding a few throwaway beans, though I'm not looking forward to making my espresso process even more complex by having to clean the grinder every time first.

The machine automatically signals when it needs a cleaning (both descaling and backflushing), but it wouldn't hurt to give it another cleaning cycle while I investigate. And I've tried both old beans and fresher ones, and have had trouble with both. Obviously fresher beans taste better, but does that really have much of an impact on shot consistency?

Thanks for the tips, and I'll definitely try them out, but it's really just highlighting to me how fussy espresso can be. I thought a semi-auto like the Bambino Plus would be a decent entry into the world of espresso, but I feel like I would've been better served with a more pared down manual machine like the Flair, though I would've needed a separate solution for frothing milk.

GoodluckJonathan posted:

I wont begrudge anyone dropping $$$ on a grinder. I'd just like to offer up:

If you live near a shop with an ek43 or better, and you brew your coffee in anything other than an espresso machine, you're better off getting your coffee ground at the shop than doing it yourself at home.

sellouts posted:

Yeah no. What a pain in the rear end to do ~weekly to have old grounds for half a bag or more.

Just get a used encore or something for less than or around $100. Then you get fresh ground beans daily, it’s great for everything but espresso, and you can order nationwide and try a variety of stuff for at worst the same price as the local shop. Probably a buck or two cheaper if you can snag free shipping, which further amortizes the cost of the grinder which will last decades.

I’m very aware of diminishing returns but there is a point where spending a little bit will yield significant improvements. No one is saying you need a Niche or Monolith Flat Max.

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

Apologies, about the gauge. It’s not actually important, but might have helped pinpoint the issue.

Espresso will always be incredibly fussy no matter how much you spend, outside of super-autos, but even with super-autos unless you’re spending like $3k+ you’ll just get ok results.

Outside of extreme budget machines, The machine is the least important part in all this. You’d very likely be experiencing the exact same woes with a flair.

Retention:

I suspect this is the issue. You do not need to clean out the grinder to fix retention issues.

Here’s how I would verify this as the issue. This will be easier on a shot that runs fast than one that chokes. You can test it in any range of like 36g/30sec to 60g/30sec, but they’ll be less close the bigger the ratio.

• Pick your grind setting
  
• clear the grinder as much as possible with normal cranking
  
• Run 10 gram coffee through (you can reduce this to 5g or less if you’ve verified this as the issue) and throw them out
  
• grind your shot
  
• weigh the grounds to verify what you put in is what you got out. Grind a bit more until you hit the correct weight of grounds.
  
• use the stock tamper (see below in the tamper section)
  
• without changing the grind setting, weigh the grounds out for 2 more shots at exactly the same grind setting (no need to run and throw away the 10g again). Make sure you notate shot time and shot weight so you can compare.
  

If they’re reasonably close, retention is your issue. If not, see below.

Beans:
Old beans can cause this issue, but new or old beans proves it’s probably not a bean issue. The only other thing could be unrested beans (basically roasted less than 10 days prior), but I very much don’t suspect this.

Grinder:
Your grinder is generally considered fine for espresso, so it’s not a quality grinder issue. What may be the case is the burrs are poorly aligned. If they are, you could have a super varied grind which could cause this issue.

I don’t actually suspect this to be the case, and you should investigate this as a last step as it’s a pain in the rear end to fix and you should rule out other stuff.

Tamper:

Your tamper could be poorly calibrated or not fit well. Do you still have the tamper the bambino came with? If you do, for your testing you should use it, and just tamp the absolute gently caress out of the coffee bed. You can not overtamp, but you can undertamp.

Cleaning:

My Breville yells at me like once a month to clean it, which is probably too infrequent. If you’ve done it in the last two weeks, it’s probably fine, although the shower screen may need a clean if you’ve never done it.

hypnophant posted:

what happens if you grind beans for two shots together, but pull the second shot first?

GoodluckJonathan posted:

I wont begrudge anyone dropping $$$ on a grinder. I'd just like to offer up:

If you live near a shop with an ek43 or better, and you brew your coffee in anything other than an espresso machine, you're better off getting your coffee ground at the shop than doing it yourself at home.

Nephzinho posted:

Encore is one of my favorite housewarming presents for exactly this reason.

Google Butt posted:

Do you guys actually use saucers on the regular?

nwin posted:

Lol no

Google Butt posted:

nwin posted:

Tbf, I also slam my coffee and drink it black unless I do a cappuccino so I have no need to stir anything.

kzmn posted:

Welp. My uncle got me hooked on homemade cappuccino while I've been visiting for Thanksgiving. I see the thread doesn't seem to have a high opinion of the super-automatic machines, but would a semi-automatic + automatic grinder be good enough for a beginner who is a little intimidated by the manual stuff? Also, any recommendations on what to get on a 5-600 budget?

edit: reading back through the thread I'm seeing a lot of praise for the 1zpresso manual grinders. I suppose I would be willing to give one of those a shot as well if people think they're really worth it.

Google Butt posted:

Does anyone know the distance between the base of the robot and the bottom of the naked portafilter? The scale I'm getting is .75" tall and looking at one of those kruve propel glasses but they look pretty tall.

sellouts posted:

Yeah no. What a pain in the rear end to do ~weekly to have old grounds for half a bag or more.

Google Butt posted:

For sure no. If you're not brewing espresso just buy a capresso infinity for $100 and be done with it.

Bandire posted:

An inexpensive burr grinder is still worth the investment even for basic coffee.

I've never understood the people that have to have their coffee every day but treat it as a necessary evil. It doesn't have to taste like poo poo if you don't want it to.

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

If you buy your beans weekly at that shop, sure.

Letting coffee sit pre-ground for 2 weeks + is going to be gross. Realistically, after 2-3 days it’s gonna effect taste and such but most probably won’t notice that subtle a change.

quote:

Hello all backers

Great news, our shipment fo the new chaff collector is about to leave the factory via airfreight, so we are on target to start shipping our first block of machines to backers over the next 2 weeks. from then on it will be all hands on deck to complete shipping as quickly as we posbbly can.

To our first block of backers, we will be emailing you later next week to confirm your delivery addresses, expected shipping date etc. In the meantime please go into your Indiegogo account and update any address details if you have recently moved.

May thanks from the Kaffelogioc Team