# Piccino - the start of the journey !!



## Bruce Boogie

Today I collected my Piccino from Crown Coffee and Water, a commercial coffe supplier to the trade, industry and leisure industry. They are located in a lovely part of Hampshire near Newbury. They had the Piccino and a matching grinder as a demo model in their showroom. However, it didn't catch the buyers eye and it was hardly used (it looks brand new). It was all boxed up with two 1kg bags of Dowe Egbert Espresso coffee to start me off - very kind of them.

I've looked and looked and thought about what to buy and what I can afford. the Iberital all in one machine, but locked into a little known foreign machine could leave me with maintenance problems. I can drive to Fracino in just over an hour, so no worries there.

i realise that lots of you have mighty machines, but this is my starter for ten. So any useful advice welcomed.

Boogie On

Bruce Boogie

www.boogiebopboys.co.uk


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## Daren

Your starter for 10 is bin the Dow Egbert's.

Congrats on the new machine. Post up a picture and show off your pride and joy


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## cappuccino crackers

think the dow was a test. he failed byb taking them with him ha


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## Eyedee

I thought the Piccino was great, I learned lots just by having one and using it daily. Faema naked PF showed me what was happening with the shots.

Enough steam that I messed with different nozzles just trying to improve my milk steaming. Only a personal thing but I finished up using a single hole tip, I seem to remember drilling it out to maybe 2mm.

Water in this area is as soft as a fairies fart so no descaling issues but that is my only reservation with the Piccino.

Enjoy it.

Ian


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## Bruce Boogie

Is all commercial packaged coffee unusable? Is small roasted stuff the only decent coffee?

BB


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## Bruce Boogie

Our water is hard and we have a ceramic filter on the tap and the Piccino has one inside so I hope that this OK.


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## 4085

Fresh is an interesting word as there is no actual definition of what it means. In coffee terms, we know that most beans, once they go beyond 4 to 6 weeks after toasting, quickly start to stale. Manufacturers put them into bags with one way valves and give them a shelf life of a year but the person buying them in brand knows no better.

If you stock control your beans carefully, then buy from reputable smaller roasters and try to use them within the suggested time scales


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## Bruce Boogie

Crown Coffee and Water are major Dow Egbert sellers, they have tons of it in their warehouse.

Is it all rubbish or is there coffee snobbism?

I'm new at all this!

BB


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## Eyedee

Taste it and compare it with some fresh roasted quality beans.

Ian


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## michaelg

If you don't want to bin them, see if anyone wants them for seasoning a new grinder. But definitely buy some freshly roasted beans. Get yourself a kilo of Rave Signature for about £13 for example - great value and infinitely better than anything Douwe Egberts will produce.


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## Guest

Nice share guys ..


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## Eyedee

michaelg said:


> If you don't want to bin them, see if anyone wants them for seasoning a new grinder. But definitely buy some freshly roasted beans. Get yourself a kilo of Rave Signature for about £13 for example - great value and infinitely better than anything Douwe Egberts will produce.


Rave have a free postage code for forum members until Dec 17th, makes the buy of a kilo rather attractive.

Ian


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## michaelg

Ah didn't realise the deal was on so long. Definitely get yourself a kilo of something from them then. Italian job is less than a tenner delivered this way!


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## Coffee Dog

How are you getting on with it BB? I'm considering buying a used one.


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## Bruce Boogie

Looks like I'm going to get some seasoning in on the little grinder and then move onto RAVE coffee from nearby Cirencester.


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## Bruce Boogie

It's a Christmas present so I won't be brewing until after the celebrations.

I'll let you know in the New Year.

The little Fracino suits us for size in the kitchen, its enough to pay for a first machine. Fraction being in B'ham means the servicing, problems are straightforward, I've heard a lt of good about them on the Internet Coffee Circuit.

More to follow.

Bruce Boogie

http://www.boogiebopboys.co.uk


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## hotmetal

That's a cracking machine to get started with. Dual boilers too so none of the messing about between shots etc.

You may as well use those Douwe Egberts beans, not that a small bag will season your burrs much but when you get your bag of Rave or whatever then you'll taste the difference I'm sure.

PS Just had a look at your website.


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## Bruce Boogie

I've got 2kg of DE so practice on the grinder and get to grips with the Piccino. Roll on New Year (in some ways)!!


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## Glenn

Bruce Boogie said:


> Is all commercial packaged coffee unusable? Is small roasted stuff the only decent coffee?
> 
> BB


No, not always the case.

When fresh (as with small batch roasted coffee) it can often be brilliant. More often than not it is a blend vs a single origin - but then again this is no bad thing

I have had many commercially roasted coffees that would be indistinguishable from a small batch roaster

It's a tad harsh to brand all coffee from a supplier as rubbish if speciality is not their main aim. There is a wide audience who prefer commercially roasted coffee to small batch / specialty

We are the minority at present.


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## Bruce Boogie

That's a positive approach - thanks!


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## hotmetal

In my unknowingness when I got my first setup (Classic and MC2) I used a stack of beans dialing the grinder in because I didn't really know what I was doing and tried to do it by taste instead of by weighing grams in vs grams out with a stopwatch. Having 2kg of 'free' beans that you might not be too bothered about means you can get the grinder dialed in nicely before realising that you just wasted £7 worth of good coffee and now have to start again because the other bag you have is different! *shameful* On that note, I presume you've got a little pair of jewellery scales all ready for when you unwrap that bad boy? Just a set of the £7 ones on that well-known auction site is all you need so long as they go down to 0.1g. You don't (IMO) need to be doing this every time you make a coffee but it can be helpful when setting up your grinder so you can time the shot and know how much your dose is, and then how much espresso you have at the end of your 25-30 seconds. Because that really is the easiest way to dial in. Once the machine is dialled in, it usually takes maybe 2 or 3 shots to dial in for a change of bean. But when the grinder is new, for all you know it could be set to French Press coarseness and then you have to figure out how much of a turn of the adjuster does what to the grind. You can easily tear through 125g or more the first time you use a brand new grinder. That DE will be just the job.


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## hotmetal

Just to add, what Glenn just posted while I was typing makes good sense too. Something like Douwe Egberts might be an easy bean to get along with, as it is intended for wide appeal rather than mad refractometer-toting spressoheads who enjoy unfeasibly light roasts. The first 'speciality coffee' I tried was from Square Mile, and the combination of my uneducated palate, inability to master the equipment I'd just purchased and general n00bness made me pull a face like a bulldog chewing a lemon. Which is what I thought I was doing. Thing is, now I have a bit more experience with making espresso, and have tried a few different beans, and have better kit, I'm sure the very same coffee would be lovely. You may well really get on just fine with the DE. And moving on to Rave from there will hopefully be a pleasant surprise rather than a culture shock. At the end of the day though it will come down to what you like the taste of, and that itself may change over time.


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## Bruce Boogie

Thank - very helpful!


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## Bruce Boogie

Opening it after Christmas, so it will be a few weeks before I can comment.

i liked the style, the size, the B'ham factory and the price fitted my budget!


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## Bruce Boogie

Well Christmas is getting closer and so is the Piccino and grinder. How excited are we? ? ?


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## 4085

I have been using one of these a bit recently. quite surprised how capable they are. You will enjoy it Bruce. I left it switched on from 9am to 7pm and it never fluttered!


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## Bruce Boogie

Back home on Saturday and then unpack the Piccino and let the journey begin.

One Christmas present was three 250g bags of Allpress cafetière coffee, can it be put through the grinder to get it fit for espresso? Sorry if this is blasphemy!!


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## 4085

Never put ground coffee into your grinder! You will knack it!


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## Bruce Boogie

I knew I had to ask and thought it would be NO ~ but thanks VERY MUCH for the positive response.

Lesson learnt and committed to memory.


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## Bruce Boogie

Here we go, here we go, here we go !!

The DE coffee beans took a hammering this morning getting the Fracino grinder something near correctly set.

it was too coarse for ages until I got braver on the dial.

20g of beans gives me about 16g of ground, some gets left behind! Once the grind was fine enoughish and I didn't crush the basket too much with the plastic tamper I got a double shot in about 25 seconds.

Even with the DE beans the coffee was as good as many a "coffee" shop.

It took me about an hour and the kitchen was covered in beans and grounds.

"Things can only get better!"


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## Glenn

Things will get much better with a real Tamper!

Bin the plastic one and treat yourself. Decent ones start at about £15 (and go all the way past £150)


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