On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 21:50:27 +0100, Tony Raven <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Ian Smith wrote on 31/07/2006 21:15 +0100:
> >
> > From that as a base, I prefer to put in varying amounts of water to
> > get something between espresso and americano. This actually gives you
> > good coffee taste, with relatively little caffeine. It's relatively
> > difficult to get good coffee taste in any other machine. A Glass
> > vacuum pot beats a pump or lever espresso machine, but most other
> > techniques are less good.
>
> You need a proper Italian coffee bar Gaggia to make proper coffee (and
> not one of the poxy domestic versions neither)
Actually, I prefer a Rancilio. They only make one domestic-sized
machine (Miss Silvia), and it's only available from one UK importer
who don't bother to advertise the fact, but it's a better machine than
most (arguably all) the single-head Gaggias. In particular, it's
built like a tank and uses a socking great brass boiler and brewhead -
giving good thermal stability. It can take a commercial portafilter,
and I use a commercial one in mine. The other bonus is that it's
trivially easy to dismantle, and you can therfore easily add a PID
controller for boiler temperature.
A properly commercial coffee-bar machine will be a HX, not a boiler,
and is not suited to domestic use - I only make four or so shots per
day (a few more at the weekend) and plumbing in a machine and keeping
it switched on 24/7 (as needed for a commercial HX based machine) is
wasteful. In the domestic situation, the only thing you lose in using
a single boiler machine is the ability to steam then brew in rapid
succession without needing to let a boiler cool. I never brew after
steaming - I steam about twice a week, and always last thing at night
(a frothy chocolate is sometimes pleasant of an evening).
The other key benefit of a boiler in the domestic situation is that
with PID control it will sit on standby indefinitely, no need for
flushing to get the temperatures right.
A PID Silvia will at least match the performance of any commercial
machine if you're making one (single or double) shot. The things it
won't do is make another one 35 seconds later, and another 35 seconds
after that and so on, nor will it interleave brew and steam on a
useful timescale.
My PID Silvia, with my daily beans roast, and grinding immediately
before brewing beats the coffee I've had anywhere any time in the
last three years. I've more-or-less given up drinking coffee out - it
always disappoints.
regards, Ian SMith
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