# Coffee Machine



## EllaBella (Aug 31, 2021)

Hello,

I've been lurking on this forum for a few weeks as I'm after a coffee machine, having decided to part with my pod machine.

Complete newbie as never owned anything other than a pod machine. I've been looking at Sage machines but they seem difficult to use. Tried looking at some at Currys but obviously couldn't try them out. Also looked at the Delonghi dinamica plus and primadonna soul, which seem straightforward to use as in you press a button and off you go.

What would your advice be?


----------



## Davebo (Jan 9, 2021)

Bambino plus is very straightforward but capable of good results. Try the YouTube videos that abound (especially coffeebloguk).


----------



## dutchy101 (Jun 12, 2020)

Plus one for the Bambino here too. It is the machine I bought when I started off back in June 2020. The beauty of the Bambino is that it can be fairly automatic or manual so you can get a feel for the machine using the auto settings and take more control with it manually if you want to. For the price it's a fantastic machine. If you do a Sage masterclass you'll also get a discount code


----------



## soymilk (Aug 22, 2021)

I am a complete newb and bought a Barista Touch about 3 weeks ago. It is very user friendly and the settings are customizable for grind, brewing time, foam level, steaming temperature, etc. There is a ton of Youtube videos to learn from. You will need to buy a scale to weigh the beans.

What I do i weigh the beans and pour it in the built in grinder. I set my grind time to 20 seconds which is long enough to grind 20g of beans with no problem.

So the grinder is empty after each cup.

I highly recommend Barista Touch.


----------



## Sim7 (Aug 16, 2021)

Thank you for the replies.

I hadn't even considered the bambino so will look into that. Which grinder do you use with it? I know people on here recommend the more expensive ones but as I'm starting from scratch I'd like an entry level grinder. Also, I wasn't aware about the Sage discount so thank you for that.

SoyMilk - did you have to do much tweaking to get a good shot? Your review does reassure me. Do you mean a normal scale or is there another type for coffee?

Would also be interested to know which beans people are using.


----------



## dutchy101 (Jun 12, 2020)

I paired my Bambino with the Sage Smart Grinder Pro which cost £200 at the time, although it did drop as low as £150 in certain sales after I bought it. This was my initial set up and they worked well together. I've since upgraded the grinder to the Solo from Bella Barista which was £400 (courtesy of some good wins at Chelthnam earlier this year)


----------



## soymilk (Aug 22, 2021)

Sim7 said:


> SoyMilk - did you have to do much tweaking to get a good shot? Your review does reassure me. Do you mean a normal scale or is there another type for coffee?


 My wife had a bag of old coffee beans from Costco and I practiced with it.

This is the quick guide that came with my Barista Touch. It tells you what to do when your outcome is certain way.

Breville quick guide

The problem with judging with the amount of crema was that I was using old beans which had lost most of its CO2. So it was not a good way to tell whether I had the settings correctly or not. I could create fake crema with double wall basket but I started out with the single wall basket. I used the double wall basket once and went back to single wall basket.

Then a Youtube video that I watched said to try to get 35g of coffee out with 18g of beans.

And most people online say the tamping pressure is not what makes or ruins a coffee. And Breville tamper is clearly marked how low it should be pressed into the basket.

If the puck is wet, either I put too much coffee and/or it is too fine.

If the puck is dry and the extraction started to come out before 7 seconds, it should be ground finer and/or I should use more coffee.

Re: brewing time, I vary it between 25 sec and 35 sec.

Grind size: I use 12 the most. 11 or 13 occasionally with different beans.

Some roasters provide the exact numbers they recommend. For example, 20g of beans, 20 ml of coffee, 35 second brewing time.

The only unknown is then the grind size.

I enjoy making attempts at making good coffee and it is not frustrating.

I am new to making and drinking coffee and espresso shots are too bitter for me. I like latte or Americano. So less than perfect extraction still tastes good to me. LOL.

I bought this scale from Amazon and it works well enough for me.

$17 Scale from Amazon


----------



## 24774 (Mar 8, 2020)

Sim7 said:


> I know people on here recommend the more expensive ones but as I'm starting from scratch I'd like an entry level grinder.


 I know the impulse is to go cheap but there is kind of a minimum you have to spend on a grinder, a 'cheap cheap' one just won't work well for espresso. There's a couple of Eureka ones at the low end (around £200/£250) that people use, ask BlackCat Coffee on this forum about those. There's the Sage Grinder Pro which isn't bad but is inconsistent from what I've read on here (it's a suped up version of what's in the BE and Barista Pro). I was reasonably happy with the BE grinder for the most part, it is what it is, a half decent starter.

I think for that money most people would say go secondhand, maybe a cheap Mazzer, although you'd need to research the foibles of something like a SuperJolly or Major.


----------



## zoglet (Jun 1, 2010)

Don't underestimate the importance of a quality grinder, and take into account that a 'one for all' grinder is hard to come by. By based on your coffee preference, pour-over or espresso machine. I started with the Eureka mignon and found it to be very good, although tending to clump at the finer settings, requiring a good work through with a whisk. Although you can get some great second hand deals, watch out for someone selling a good grinder with worn out burrs. I would also add that for me, one of the things that is relevant is how much coffee I drink. I used to hoover the stuff down but now I only have a cup, maybe two a day. My ideal grinder would really be one that is best or better suited to single dosing and minimal retention, so that I am always using fresh grinds. If you're drinking through the day, you can get away with a bit of retention. If you are having one or two in the morning and none until tomorrrow, try to find a grinder that has low retention and you can use or pimp to not hold a months worth of beans going stale in the hopper.

Anyway key point, don't think of the grinder as an afterthought to your desired coffee machine. Consider your max budget, add a hundred quid (ie the money you later would regret having not spent 😉 ) and then look at what are the best grinder AND machine you can afford at that price.

On the back of that, things to consider would be do you see yourself happy with that system for ever or hankering to upgrade. If so, perhaps consider what your upgrade path might be and buy into that.

Even with the best systems, you will have noticed from lurking that there are many additional items that are bordeline 'must haves' if you are completely new and are looking for a great start. Scales, Bottomless Portafilter, Good Tamper, Blind basket, Detergent, Descaler. Frothing Jug? Distributor? Pro basket? All of these eat into that budget and not having them will at best compromise your end product.

Also, accept that the sky's the limit with this passtime and you will always be compromising. get the best you can afford that fulfils your ambitions and expectations and be happy with the improvement. Maybe you want to be the next world barista champion. Maybe you just want that one nice cup of coffee in the morning. Look at what works best for you and accept that you are buying with that in mind.


----------

