Your Coffee Machine Running Reports

[Beany]

B. Beany is 100% incorrect.

Beany has always been a wrong 'un.

Beany has just run out of coffee.

Bugger.

[simon_g]

I had a few Nespresso models for most of my life which were pretty average, then I watched some James Hoffmann stuff on YouTube 2 years ago and thought I’d try and up my game. Bought a Sage Barista and found it so much work that it put me off coffee - 6+ minutes of work and cleaning for 1 cup which tasted 10% better so I returned it a few months later. And that was after 40 cups of fine tuning the settings and trying different beans…

As he says, espresso at home is a hobby (if you care about quality anyway) and that's fine if you want to fiddle about endlessly.

V60 or Aeropress and a decent grinder works for me. Wife has a Nespresso thing for making milky coffees.

[scotta]

I have this one - its basic but makes a decent brew. Would like a bean to cup one but its only me that drinks coffee in the house and cant justify the cost.



https://www.breville.co.uk/coffee/espre ... CF125.html

[dinny_g]

I was going to get this for no other reason than we’ve got the rest of the set in our Kitchen

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/swan- ... 18097.html

[ZedLeg]

B. Beany is 100% incorrect.

Beany has always been a wrong 'un.

I like coffee but I'd struggle to justify spending more than I've spent on a car on a coffee machine.

I have a strong want for a Slayer coffee machine but you're looking at about £9k to get one. Not sure I could ever justify it

[Sundayjumper]

[ZedLeg]

Sadly not related to the band.

[16vCento]

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/brevi ... 81434.html

We've had this for about 18 months, the wife uses it a lot, but I cba with the cleaning.

It does make nice coffee though.

[DaveE]

I was going to get this for no other reason than we’ve got the rest of the set in our Kitchen

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/swan- ... 18097.html

The friends we were visiting in Scotland last weekend got one of these when we were with them

It's fine for the money (c£100 I think) IMO

[scotta]

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/brevi ... 81434.html

We've had this for about 18 months, the wife uses it a lot, but I cba with the cleaning.

It does make nice coffee though.

Ive had three of them - all broke. Swapped under warranty for the mini barista one.

[Beany]

Sadly not related to the band.

Definitely not worth £9k then.

[Sundayjumper]

Sadly not related to the band.

I know, but it was a good excuse to say

[DeskJockey]

I've got a cafetiere that I think was £40. That does everything I need (from a coffee perspective).

[MikeHunt]

I moved house earlier this year, so this is more of a belated end of the road report.

For just over 2 years, I has a Neff built in coffee machine. The positives were that it made decent coffee without any real effort. The water tank was huge, circa 3 litres and it was internet enabled so controlled via iPhone. On the downside, it was poorly designed and was literally full of coffee dust and very difficult to clean and maintain. It also needed to pump water on start up, as most coffee machines do, which made the app useless as you couldn't leave a mug under it and 'order' a coffee online.

[McSwede]

I have a Melitta B2C machine and it's been brill but yesterday it decided to have a hissy fit and now won't work

Exciting update time

My Melitta was kaput so I ordered a new but open box DeLonghi Dinamica bean to cup machine.

Initially DeLonghi sent me the wrong machine so I had to wait for them to collect, receive, and then check the wrong machine before they'd send me the correct machine.

It finally arrived yesterday and first impressions are good! It seems to make a much more luxurious coffee than my old machine (with the same beans). So much so that I may drop to a single shot coffee rather than a double.

The steam wand works really well but I'm not that fussed for frothy milk. It operates more quietly than the Melitta too, which is a bonus for when I'm away very early.

All in all, I'm very happy with my purchase!!

[Gavster]

My old DeLongghi Magnifica S sounds like it wants to eject half the mechanism out of it's casing, makes periodic loud 'CLACK' noises, has a habit of dumping coffee grounds into random parts of the machine and occasionally refuses to make coffee. I think it's time to go. It's been a great piece of kit and has served me endless espresso every day since I bought it second hand in 2016.



I've been watching quite a lot of James Hoffman recently and decided to upgrade to grinder + espresso machine.

I've got a slight predeliction with Sage kitchen equipment so I grabbed a Sage Grinder Pro off ebay last week - it seems to be a really good grinder with all the adjustments needed to make a decent espresso



I was originally planning to get a Gaggia classic for espresso, however have decided to look for a matching Sage Duo Temp Pro instead, as they're better value. They're both decent machines, and the Gaggia is better when modded, however, life has taught me that I prefer things that work nicely out of the box.




Of course, the Sage kit will also match my kettle, toaster, blender, stand mixer and food processor...

[Sundayjumper]

The Sage styling is nicer for a domestic setting. The Gaggia is very industrial.

[Sundayjumper]

Update on my machine that started this thread. It's OK. Not blown away by it though. The highlight is, ironically, a feature I never use - the frothy milk. It will draw milk from an external receptacle (a glass or whatever, even straight from the bottle but I'd be worried about accidentally contaminating a whole bottle) and pump it straight into the cup. Very easy to use.

The coffee is fine.

It's minor things that stop me loving it. The water reservoir is on the side so you need space next to the machine. The DeLonghi pulled straight out to the front. Similarly the hatch for pre-ground coffee is on the other side whereas the Delonghi was on the top next to the bean hopper. The DeLonghi had separate buttons for short / long coffee so you could just press the one you want and off it goes. The new one you have to select what you want, then press start, so if the last person had something different there's TWO button presses required. Serious first world problems. And finally the new one dumps a heck of a lot of water into the drip tray. The DeLongi was literally just a drip tray. Between the slightly awkward water tank and needing to empty the drip tray a lot more regularly, it feels like it needs a lot more routine effort.

So overall meh. The wife loves the frothy milk so for her it's a win. For me I'll look for something different next time.

[DaveE]

I still just batch brew with a large, 10 cup Moka pot

But some friends gave me a cheap milk heater/frother that they weren't using and it's great

I'm sure there are better options, but given that I tend to drink quite milky coffee, this has lifted the experience and makes the coffee that bit more special

[Mito Man]

Milky coffee, just wait till you discover a latte