# Paralysis by analysis



## Stuthemong (Feb 19, 2015)

Same old same old.







New member, grand ideas, WAF, budgetary constraints....

Mainly drink latte / flat-whites. Want to learn espresso art, am unable to get decent microfoam with the POS machine I had so haven't got anywhere with that! Tend to drink about 4 cups between us on sat and sunday, and 2 per day every other day, so hardly high use, but seem to spend a lot of time waiting for milk to heat on our small delonghi machine.

I found this website browsing it's classifieds, and have seen a few temptations come and go (primarily the as new cherub & damaged ECM posted to on ebay!) so figure I should I should get involved a little so I can pounce if the 'right' sort of thing comes up.... but what is it??

We've gone through 2 classics in the past, and now a horrific delonghi thing which has just given up the ghost, so I'm of a mind to skip it and treat myself to something nice.... (been an excuse to dust off the stove tops!)

The Cherubs definitely tempt me, but I can't justify buying these new I don't think. In reality I'd say my budget was up to £500,and I'm not afraid to tinker / repair, £300 would have me much happier. Another posted linked to a ECM e61 on ebay in need of repair going for £350 odd, I wish I'd seen that in time! Rocket et al. all look darn cool to me.. sold on looks alone.

.....So I keep coming back to tank fed e61 style HX machines to have a play with as I think they look beautiful....... but I have a tendency to do this in life. Buy stuff that just looks cool, is a pain, and ultimately not as good as something more modern (my car choices revolve primarily around TVR's, I think the e61 hx style machines seem to be similar in approach - i.e. you've got to get it right, but the reward is knowing you do it ) ..... but then I see things like PIDcontrolled dual boiler dualit machines and I can't help but wonder if that's the 'sensible' choice, or indeed even spending a lot less and going back to a classic but doing the 'mods'.

How many people have gone for an all-out e61 style machine and regressed back to something more 'simple' or more 'modern' and preferred the outcome? Am I being tempted into getting something that is harder to use, slower to warm, and massive, because I'm a magpie for stainless, or should I go with my gut and try and get some kitchen bling?

and then the final twist, I'm an Engineer by trade. I'm kind of tempted to just design and build my own machine........

Matbe I should get a nice e61 machine to get me going and design and build something in parallel to take pressure off the execution!

Apologies for the musing, any sage advice or wise words appreciated. I feel like Im walking well trodden path here, but any experience always appreciated!

Stu


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

Hi Stu and welcome to Coffee Forums UK

I know of 2 people who went back to more simple machines - 1 due to health issue and the other due to financial issues

There are not many voluntary downgrades

More important than the machine - what grinder do you have?


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Hi little unclear what the options. Are you are considering

What would simple be ( classic ? Brewed coffee ? ! one of the sage machines ? )

What would more modern be , pods ?

As Glenn said grinder is key too.


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## Stuthemong (Feb 19, 2015)

Hi Both,

Thank you for your replies. We're currently using a low-end Krupps burr grinder, from what I can tell it seems to produce a consistent and fine grind. It's certainly not the bottleneck in our system at the moment. I guess if I got a decent machine and got a local coffee shop (probably someone like hot numbers, cambridge) to grind some for me too, I could A/B test against what our grinder produces to see if spending more there may help? I'm being lazy here and not searching, but I naively assumed that if a grinder produced consistent sized powder then all was good in the world? By both your comments I assume I'm miles off?

In terms of the options I'm considering I guess it's:

-Gaggia classic (mod myself or get with already done)

-Rancilo (I forget the model, but it's similar money a fraction more)

-Some sort of e61 beaut, 2nd hand most likely (Cherub, older ECM on ebay etc etc..) [heretic perhaps, but I'm not too fussed which e61 style it would be, but I Want tank fill, I think at this level I'd be more interested in getting what I could get for my money, than looking for a specific e61 style model, I can't be that choosy)

-Then I saw elsewhere the Breville BES920 getting a very good review, but they're a PITA re descaling and shipping back to usa, and aren't pretty. My gut feel is they'd probably make a better coffee in less skilled hands than the e61 beauts. Maybe one of these would be a better thing to get, but TBH, I think I prefer the idea of a e61, more beautiful design. MrBoots, these look a lot like the sage machine you mention.

I have seen some working cherubs and a minimally damaged ECM e61 machines going for 350 odd. At this price I think I have to have one. If it's more like >500 then the jump from a gaggia classic is maybe getting a bit large to easily justify the differential. Given throughput is one thing I'd like to increase, two classics makes financial sense if I end up spending too much on a pretty machine!

The thing is, as an Engineer I can understand why the e61's were made. But now days I wouldn't begin to try to achieve what they set out to achieve in the way they did it back then, which is why something like the sage/breville get more than a passing glance from me, but I can't love them, too ugly.

I feel like I want to get a e61, almost for the 'antique' value of it, and perhaps look into making my own system in the medium term. I've done a bit of googling in terms of DIY espresso machines but not found anything terribly inspiring!


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Hi you re correct the Breville machine are packaged as Sage in the Uk ....i believe newer models now have auto descale functions on them .


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

Get a better grinder. There's a couple of suitable ones going cheap in the for sale section just now once you make a few more posts


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## Steve7 (Dec 19, 2014)

I ditched home espresso.

It it was just a waste of beans, and dialling in, mess, and a ridiculous footprint.

Have hever once looked back. The commercial stuff belongs in a commercial setting and my life just doesn't need the hassle.

For others, they can't get enough. It's what you want out of it. If am happy to drink brewed coffee at weekends, and during the week I work. If I want espresso at the weekend I will go out and get a great breakfast and pay for one.

It it is worth pointing out that there is only me and the wife here, and she isn't bothered about anything but a normal coffee. I have swapped the hobby with one that gets me out the house, now, and feel better for it. I stil roast my own beans and drink great coffee... Just worked out that an espresso upgrade usually means something that really isnt meant to be situated in a home for one....

and before ore I am attacked, this is just MY PERSONAL opinion. You don't need to pick holes in the above as I don't quote it as truth! I have a classic and a rocky and they both live on a shelf in the garage, and I don't feel inclined to change that.


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## Obnic (Jan 14, 2014)

Never looked back from E61 but have looked sideways. Recently been using a sowden steeping pot and an aeropress. Both very good value and capable of some excellent coffee. Might at some stage look across again at a lever...


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## NickdeBug (Jan 18, 2015)

The Breville (Sage) machine that you mention is very easy to use and achieve good results with. Lots of additional features to play with when you decide the time is right for experimentation. Suits my lifestyle as I can set it to come on 15 mins before my alarm and it is primed and ready to go by the time I hit the kitchen. It actually only take 10 mins to warm up and has a heating element in the brew head to maintain consistent temp.

There are prettier machines out there (this does look like a very nice appliance rather than a gleaming showpiece) but it fits nicely under the wall cupboards and can be filled from the flip up bit on the front. All in all, a very well thought out piece of equipment that is made specifically for home use. In terms of results, I would have to be pretty arrogant to believe that it was the machine that was holding me back!

Descaling is done practically at the press of a button, as is the self cleaning function. Actually much simpler than I found the same task with my old Gaggia Classic.

I think that someone on here made mention of selling all their kit, which included a Sage DB, earlier today. Might be worth chasing up if it sounds like something of interest.

Other than that, I echo the advice of my esteemed fellow forumites and suggest that you look at the grinder as a starting point. It seems almost inevitable that people look to change their equipment as their interest grows and you might as well start with as good a grinder as you can. When I first started out I thought that spending £60 on a Dualit was nuts. Plenty of folk on here spend upwards of a grand on theirs!

enjoy


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## NickdeBug (Jan 18, 2015)

Oh, and a word of advice, people on here are incredibly well meaning and friendly, but also very very good at spending people's money for them. After all, they only want the best for you


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## Stuthemong (Feb 19, 2015)

Steve,

Thanks for the honesty. I totally take the caution. I have form for buying stupid cars, stereo systems, bikes et al. I am cautious to avoid filling the kitchen with too many boxes.

Since posting I've actually looked at the sage thing a little more. I can get one for 400 from ebay. Inbuilt grinder, the lot, small footprint. It's really not pretty, but I wonder if it would be a lot less faff than a larger system and actually make good coffee with minimal fuss?

I recently got a couple kilos of monmouth coffee sent over from London as they serve in Fitzbillies in cambridge as our favorite, but it just doesn't taste anything like it at home, and we're pretty sure it's our machine (my partner has a classic at her mums house and thinks coffee tastes a lot better there, no idea why I bought this ugly delonghi thing to be honest, impulse stupidity)!

Jeebsy,

I can easily spend more on a grinder, for sure. But playing devil's advocate, what would a more expensive grinder do better? I can see a lot of benefit re espresso machines (and can taste differences), but grinds, so long as they're the right particle size, I've never really noticed any difference, but then again I guess I've always attributed taste differences to the machine, water etc before thinking the grinder itself was effecting things!

MrBoots,

So if I did look into the sage more (inbuilt grinder, PID temp control, dual boiler), I guess save looks (I think I may have mentioned this once before







) and speed of frothing milk, what benefit would a e61 give? Would you really expect it to taste better from such a machine over the sage?

Kindest,

Stuart


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Better grinder , more consistent particle size , more even extraction , bigger benefit in the cup . Grinder and particle size has a bigger impact than say an e61 versus a sage ( caveat being both are capable of being temp stable )


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## Stuthemong (Feb 19, 2015)

Hi Nick,

Thanks to you too. I can't keep up with this forum! Interesting feedback on the sage. What you say re spending is no doubt true, with hobbies it's a lot of diminishing returns etc.. from my perspective as a product designer I get a bit jaded by marketing claims here and there, and want to generally understand the underlying benefit something offers to justify spending more. When it comes to HX e61 v.s. the classics of the world, you can clearly see a world of difference in capacity and speed (at the expense of warmup) and I'll take peoples word for it that stability etc.. is improved. I guess my gut feel is that the sage machine is probably going to be easier to get consistent with, but it does look like a mass consumer good trying to look well made to a cost (stainless panels etc.., plastic littered here and there to make it fit together), unlike the ECM rocket et al that just do look well made.

I don't want to end up with a system thats such a faff to use I don't use it, but we are used to making a mess with grounds and water and descaling with what we have, so it's not like a 'podder' who's going to get a nasty shock if I get a decent machine. The overhead is part of the ritual.

Obnic of course mentions the lever. I nearly bought a la pavoni a while back, and keep contemplating. They are art. Then I saw the londinium 1, luckily it's out of budget. There is an elegance in a lever machine, but it seems that really you have to go for quite old ones, or new ones are ridiculously expensive. To not have the noise of a pump would be a blessing!

I'd love a modern lever machine.

See. Paralysed by options. Until then we keep making a homage to the new hot numbers on trumpington st. cambs. It's not just the money on the coffee that stings, its the 500 cals from the chocolate and Guinness cakes that's hurting too!

Thanks one and all

Stu


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## Stuthemong (Feb 19, 2015)

Mr Boots,

Would the grinder in the sage be 'up to standard', or would you look standalone to pair with that?

Stu


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## Elijak (Feb 17, 2015)

Hello and welcome


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Stuthemong said:


> Mr Boots,
> 
> Would the grinder in the sage be 'up to standard', or would you look standalone to pair with that?
> 
> Stu


What is the budget ?

How do you envisage making your coffee and what features are important to you ( single dose, retention etc )

If you havent already please read this

http://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?17071-Grinders-what-do-you-get-for-your-money


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## Vieux Clou (Oct 22, 2014)

Hi Stu, welcome.

No advice here. Not competent. But: your penchant for "buying stupid cars, stereo systems, bikes et al" strikes a chord. I currently have 7 cameras, five of which haven't been put to serious use for most of a year. Since I bought a moka pot last week my own espresso setup feels a bit excessive, me being the only one in the family that drinks coffee.

Big shiny engineering of yesteryear does have its attractions, though, witness the West Somerset Railway. So if you get an E61**, more power to your elbow etc. But if you decide to engineer a machine yourself I'd be fascinated.

Cheers,

John

** born 1961. Last UK steam locomotive rolled out in 1964.


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## Stuthemong (Feb 19, 2015)

Sorry for the slow response, chaps. Been mulling this over and work's been a bit mad this week. Thanks again for your thoughts, Mr Boots. Another week's gone by and I'm still no nearer to buying a machine









Vieux Clou







- I'm very undecided.

I actually did a little bit of background research looking into what I'd do if I DIY'd this. Where I have reached is thus:

-Massive boilers, temperature stability, yadda yadda. As I say, with modern control huge thermal mass just isn't how you'd do this. So I'd go for local resistive heating and a PID controller on that around the group head, and I'd try to make the grouphead with quite a bit less mass.

-Lever machines are the clearly coolest machines, QED. Why? Well they look great, but I like the idea of a silent shot, I dislike the noise of a high pressure pump. I muse as to whether it would be possible to do something with a piston drive? Ultimately we only need to dispense at max 50ml of working fluid per extraction. Would it not be possible to use a reciprocating chamber to draw up 50ml from a reservoir through a 1-way valve (like a syringe) and then force it through the group. The water could be heated 'on-demand' during the 'pressing' phase. We're talking 50ml of fluid in about 30 seconds (ish) - that's about 500W or there abouts of heating power, so it's certainly within teh bounds of sensibility!

-Milk frothing boiler is easy

So has anyone seen such a machine? If not, why not? IT seems the only real reason to faff about with pumping lots of water through the system is to warm teh group, but I'd take of that with a far more accurate control system. When we see things like temperautre control moving throughout the shot et..c etc.. with a resistively heated, low thermal mass group, you could play temperature profile 'tunes' you could never dream about on a 'normal' machine, or just get it to do exacvtly what a 'normal' machine does.

So would this theoretical system not meet all the top end demands of what makes teh best coffee machines? Temp stability/profiling, pressure profiling (and no pulses, just pure clean pressure applied), very short warm up time (almost instantly up to operation temp in the group, obviously not in the boiler, although, again this could be on near on-demand too, which makes more sense than a boiler, but you'd need a pump to drive this (but it could be a quiet / low pressure one - you'd not be using a massively overspec 10Bar rotary/vibe to top up a 1 Bar boiler).

Has anyone seen any links to such systems / can point me in the direction of more inspiration? I'm sure many people must have tried similar in the past!

So yeah, I'm tempted to just buy a gaggia classic for now and continue musing on my home brew idea in the background with the few hundred I don't spend on a e61 machine..... unless a nice one comes up cheap in teh meantime!


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## noelweston (Oct 7, 2012)

Just wanted to add, in response to your earlier question - yes, the grinder does make a huge difference.

I went through various horrid cheap "expresso" machines before getting my gaggia classic about 3 years ago. Since then we have gone through:

- supermarket ground coffee

- blade spice grinder

- starbucks barista burr grinder

- iberital MC2, bought shortly after I joined here

And on to an RR45.

Apart from minor mods (rancilio wand & OPV valve), the machine hasn't changed - but the coffee has got better with every grinder update. The biggest single step was to the MC2, but then with the step up to the RR45 we get much more depth of flavour in the coffee.

Would I like to upgrade? Of course, and there would no doubt be an improvement - but I'd need to have £1000-1500 in spare cash to justify changing, and we're actually very happy with the quality of coffee we can get from the classic + decent grinder. A lot of the reason to upgrade would be convenience and ease of use (plus looks, of course.... Having said that, I don't steam a lot of milk.

Don't know if this helps any, but good luck!


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## Stuthemong (Feb 19, 2015)

Mwa hahahahhahha.

So I managed to catch one for a good price off eBay.

<heads over to the fracino sub-forum work out how on earth use damn thing></heads>

Noelweston - thank you for these comments too. Firstly I'll see how it goes with the new system and teh grinder I have, then try to A/B against a better one and see what to do. Finally on my way though


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## databator (Mar 31, 2015)

Hello, I have gone backwards quite successfuly from plumbed in e61 pumped with a commercial grinder.. to a tiny setup = Vario and La Pavoni pro. I love the simplicity, the silence, it's pretty and absolute fun to use. Not to mention my shots are better too. Yes, it's a challenge at first and only for the lowest volumes. but do consider the lever. Both from an engineering and coffee drinking point of view - simplicity can be good.


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