Coffee Machines - advice

wba31

If buying for someone else why not buy them a John Lewis voucher and let them decide...?

Mr_Toad

People have mentioned the pod systems, Senseo and Nespresso, and how they are expensive and have limited choices of coffee.

That doesn't have to be the case as you can get re-usable pods for both machines that you fill the coffee of your choice.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/CoffeeDuck-Refillable-Capsules-For-Nespresso/dp/B006ZM1FFG

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ecopad-refillable-reusable-coffee-machine/dp/B0007INM5A

I used Amazon as an example but they can be found on eBay and may other places.

I have a neighbour who has a Senseo machine. She uses the reusable pods and is very happy with it, much cheaper.

Mr_Toad

I nearly forgot.

If you're a real cheapskate I'm told you can refill a used Nespresso pod then cover in foil before putting it in the machine.

I've never seen it done but one of the guys I see regularly at meetings tells me he does this and is happy with the result.

Horlock

Thank you all. Extremely helpful and gratefully received info.

vacheron

I have a £15 cafetiere and a £1300 Rocket Giotto Espresso machine. Both make great coffee so it really depends on the kind of coffee you are after.

Firstly: The beans are most important of all. Find yourself a great supplier who loves his work and buy your beans freshly roasted (within the last 3 days - 4 weeks), not ones which have sat on a supermarket shelf for months (Personally, I use Steve at Hasbean coffee http://www.hasbean.co.uk/,).

Secondly, Get yourself a half decent grinder, buy the beans "whole" and grind them yourself just before you use them. For a cafetiere / filter machine, a £50-£60 burr grinder will be fine. If you want to grind for espresso, a grinder is essential and, in mine and many peoples' opinion, more important than the coffee machine. So a little more investment may be warranted.

Thirdly (and this is the least important if the 3): is the coffee machine / cafetiere. Without freshly roasted and freshly ground beans you will never make great coffee (especially espresso). Before my Giotto I had a £150 Gaggia machine which made excellent espresso with full, rich and persistent crema because I followed rules 1 and 2.

Focus on 1 and 2 first, then look at 3. Of course, if you decide to go the espresso pod route for convenience then you can disregard all of the above.

APennySaved

I need some advice too: re the best coffee percolator to get!
I want an electric version, BTW.
Anybody know the best brand/model to get??

I have tried a cafetiere in the past: OK for the days when I was a student+, but in no way produces a strong enough cup of a really 'grown up' style/flavour of coffee! ,-)

Then I got a gift of a Senseo with its pods ... it seemed a gem of an invention till I tasted the result! Sorry, Philips, but it tasted worse - and weaker - than a cup of instant coffee!! :-( I even tried replacing the pods with a Coffee Duck plus ground espresso coffee: sadly still an awful insipid taste.

So I have finally decided to go for a 'proper' coffee-maker i.e. a percolator!
(We don't have space for any oversized 'barista'-type machine, so none of them will do.) In any case, I have fond memories of the sight & sound of my mother's stove-top percolator - metal & Italian - from days gone by. What a super smell & nifty little bubble-in-the-lid!

I've avoided buying one so far as I remember my mother dis/assembling it for washing up - WHAT a palaver, with all its separate bits! ,-D But it looks like all the 'short cut' coffee gadgets just don't do the trick. So as I've now got time to brew a real coffee, I feel I should join the adults ,-) of this world & invest in a 'real' coffee maker.

I am going to avoid a stovetop version, as I favour the safety & no-nasty-spills-on-hob of an electric version.

Any Best Products out there to be recommended??

I have heard the Dualit Cordless Coffee Percolator Chrome (model 84036) (www.dualit.com/products/coffee-percolator) is a good 'un; but I have noticed it has no on/off switch!! Is this normal in electric coffee percolators? as I've now researched a few more brands & none of the electric coffee percolators on the market seem to offer this facility. (It seems odd! as I haven't seen a kettle without an on/off switch for years!) We have little room on our kitchen work surface to lean around & reach the plugs, so I'd really need the on/off design.

All help appreciated!

brewboy_2

I was in a friends house the other night and we got talking about coffee machines, she has a nespresso machine and I have to say the coffee was good. The coffee she made used a purple pod and then she added some milk and it produced a nice cappucino.

Her argument was that espresso machines have alot of maintenance and cleaning and they generally take much longer to make a coffee.

She stated that she bulk orders the pods and it works out approx 25p per cup of coffee. How do you guys find it works out per cup for a good coffee using an espresso machine?

What are your thoughts on the nespresso machines?

I want to make good coffee but at that stage of the year its looking like a Christmas gift so i'm going to have plenty of time to research/torment myself, my concern would be that with a nespresso machine is the coffee going to be strong enough...

Yolina

brewboy wrote: »

Her argument was that espresso machines have alot of maintenance and cleaning

I backflush my machine once a week and descale once a month, so not really what I'd call a lot of maintenance, but then I have been doing for so many years that it's second nature.

and they generally take much longer to make a coffee.

It's about 30 seconds for an espresso however you need to leave the machine to warm up beforehand

How do you guys find it works out per cup for a good coffee using an espresso machine?

I have an annual subscription with Has Bean (all their coffee is truly excellent, and with the subscription I get a different one every week) which works out at £4.80 per pack inc. p&p . Not sure *exactly* how many cups, but ballpark 10g per cup so 25 per pack which makes it just over 19p a cup. But obviously the cost of the machine and grinder is a completely different league from the pod machines. Still, coffee is one thing I will absolutely not compromise on

What are your thoughts on the nespresso machines?

Not sure what to say - obviously many people do like them and I suppose they make things easy as there is no need to learn how to get good coffee from a machine (get it wrong and it *will* taste horrible). They're not for me though - I grew up with "proper" (for want of a better word) coffee so I find the pod stuff a bit meh really. But since you said you found the coffee from your friend's Nespresso good, maybe that would be the right thing for you?

APennySaved

With a percolator: Should I use ONLY fine ground ("made for an espresso machine") coffee, or will ANY type (e.g. coffee made for a filter machine/cafetiere/etc.) of ground coffee do?

Yolina

Espresso grind is too fine for a percolator, you need it coarser and about the same as for a press/cafetiere type.

For a very good, cheap manual grinder, then look at the Hario mini mill - it's about £30 IIRC, adjustable ceramic burrs (and can go fine enough for Turkish). I do have one of these as a back-up.