Enjoy!

By David Buehrer a.k.a. Greenway Barista

Source: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/06/home-brewing-coffee-tools-barista-equipment.html

As a professional barista, I’ve thought about how non-baristas can get the most out of that simple, beautiful bag of beans. Personally, I achieve sensory overload every time I see those fateful commercials of espresso-making at home.

The truth is, making espresso at home to replicate a commercial environment is near impossible, even for the serious home baristas. The water filtration is incredibly different, the home brewing machines are not designed similarly (for the most part) to commercial espresso machines, professional coffee grinders are a breed of their own, and—let’s face it—the home barista just plain doesn’t have eight hours a day to perfect that great technique, let alone get paid to do it.

So what’s the big idea? How do we get that great shot of espresso, or that award-winning cappuccino, at home? Well folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it takes some serious cash. Don’t worry however—there’s light at the end of this tunnel.

Why Skip Professional Equipment?

A serious espresso machine can cost upwards of $5,000 to recreate similar brewing parameters and temperature stability as those big hunks of precious metal sitting on your favorite cafe’s counter. Settle for less? Sure, you could, but if we’re talking about brewing perfect espresso at home, what’s the point of spending a few hundred on a machine that won’t make the same product you receive at your favorite coffeehouse?

As for a grinder, that big hunk of blades, plastic, and iron looks sexy with all those barstools and open ceiling around it, but wait until that monster gets home—it can reduce your livable space significantly, especially next to a 70-pound espresso machine. All this insanity and electricity for the perfect espresso and cappuccino at home?

Let’s say that you do get to the point where you can finally sit back and experience the ultimate in quality and detail from the comfort of your favorite couch. But wait—the electricity bill just jumped up, and the house is getting warmer! Realistically, high volume environments are the only feasible espresso-making locations. So what’s the passionate home barista to do?

5 Ways to Hand-Craft Your Coffee At Home

Handmade coffee. Some would say that making a delicious cup at home can be therapeutic, almost a daily ritual. Variables are easily controlled and equipment is incredibly affordable, even for professional quality. Here’s a list of five great home-brewing methods and equipment for making that perfect cup every morning:

1. Thermometer: Needed for double checking water temperature precision. You can get a waterproof pocket digital thermometer from LatteMaestro for $15.
2. Water Kettle: Thompson Owens from Sweet Maria’s suggest the $69.95 PINO Temperature Stable Water Kettle. Hot water is important—this guy won’t you down.
3. Coffee Grinder: LelitPLO43
4. Food Grade Gram Scale: Much needed for measuring exact amounts of coffee per cup made. This saves you money in the long run and you can guarantee repeatable results when measuring all aspects of your cup: coffee beans, water, and brewed coffee. Get a Electronic Scale from LatteMaestro for $35.
5. Brewer: This is where the fun comes in. I suggest starting with a Chemex brewer and checking out different brewing styles for later entertainment. A 6-cup maker is available from Espresso Parts for $33.90.

There’s a wealth of information out there on each brew method and I imagine once hooked, you’ll be excited to try them all. It may seem like a large investment, but once you have all the tools to hand-craft coffee at home, the amazing coffee makes it all worth it.

I know how frustrating can be the process of choosing your perfect grinder. This article, hopefully will give you some idea what to look for.

Source: http://www.fullyautomaticespressomachine.org/365/choosing-the-perfect-grinder.html/

A mill on the willingness to make the most of your first day of morning coffee. There are some points to consider before choosing the right mill.
A good grinder is the best tasting coffee.
Coffee grinders has tons of options, with different characteristics. Choose a model that suits your preferences and needs. Discover the main features and qualities of what you buy.
Here are some guidelines to help you select the appropriate model for you.
A good-sized mill should produce a uniform soil. It should not be illegal extraction and waste on the bottom of the cup. It is very finely ground or chunky, such as raw sugar. It should never be any burn. A good grinder creates little friction. It should not produce excessive heat which affects the taste of coffee.
Coffee grinders for home use are the simplest. If you are planning a business as a commercial coffee grinders are made with more metal components, making them more expensive.
They have large hoppers that can serve many customers. In a commercial complex in place, you can choose from a subordinate or a mill doserless. Feeders can handle volumes of coffee, allowing the beans are a lot of grinding. Holds up to 6 doses of reasons. The need for freshly ground coffee exceeds the static problem. Dispensers can result in consumption patterns is not used.
Most homeowners prefer a coffee grinder doserless. There are two types of mills, you can choose.
Blade grinders have a sharp metal blade that can cut the beans into grounds. It is suitable for coffee. However, not recommended for espresso machines.
Burr grinders, on the other hand, using a rotating grinding wheel that can produce a more consistent coffee. It even allows watering and tamping of the grounds. Grinding is the most expensive.
Burr grinders have two types – wheel and conical. burr wheel-shaped plate, in turn very quickly. The type of cone has a lower speed for the effect of the reasons aromatic and flavorful. wheel burrs are the best for espresso machines. Conical grinding wheels are the ideal type for grinding coffee clogging oil. Some prefer to buy mill conical, and which is marketed for home use, using a plastic burr carrier. It is much better with a flat style that has a set of metal burrs.
The grind is important, especially for the control of the mill. You can choose from more mills and infinitely adjustable. Stepless has unlimited size parameters of the mill. has always stepped preset adjustment.
A good grinder should be easy to maintain. Search mill design that has a detachable compartment, dishwasher for easy cleaning. A mill must be free of disorder during routine operations.

Q. What’s the difference between the old PL041 and the new model ?

A. The only substantial changes are the steam wand and the OPV. The OPV on the new one is adjustable but Lelit recommends not to fiddle with it. Lelit just did the right thing and adjusted it down to 9bar in the new version which should help make already great shots even better. What they really needed to do was make a significant improvement to the steam wand. The new one is the same length (which is just a little bit short) as the previous one. Regardless, with practice and proper technique as described elsewhere on CG, it’ll steam with the best machines in the class.

1. When you’re loading coffee beans into the container, make sure that no extraneous objects get in it.

2. Use fresh ground coffee ONLY. (Ground coffee loses its quality much faster than coffee beans).

3. Clean the bean dosator and bean bunker every week!

4. Check the burrs once every six months

5. Avoid getting any water inside the coffee grinder.

6. Do not use coffee that’s already been ground; use coffee beans only.

At the Beginning of the day:

1. Put the coffee beans into the container. Leftover beans from the previous day should be stored in the refrigerator in a tightly closed container. The same goes for ground coffee.

2. Grind a small amount of coffee and check the ground for the consistency. You can mix the previous day’s ground coffee with the fresh stuff.

At the end of the day:

1. Take away any leftover beans from the container. Put them in a small jar with a tightly closed lid. Repeat with the leftover of the ground coffee. Don’t grind more coffee in the end of the day that you’ll be able to use that same day.

2. Clean the grinder with a brush.

Once a week:

1. Clean the coffee bean container in warm water with a special solution. It’ll remove the oily substance that’s left on the walls of the container and which has a negative effect on the freshly ground coffee.

2. Clean inside the dosator using a special brush.

3. Finally, clean outside the dosator with the same brush.

All across America, the story is the same. Someone enters a retail store, purchases an appliance at what he or she thinks is a good price point, takes it home, and tries to put it to use. After the while, a time increment, ranging from a week to a few month, the appliance stops working and needs to be replaced.
When that someone goes about replacing the worn-out appliance, one of two things happens. That person had either learned his or her lesson and spends more money to purchase a better appliance or the same appliance again or one at the same price point and develops the same problem down the line.
The market for every appliance is different but it’s accurate to generalize and say that frugality isn’t the consumer’s friend. This is particularly true when it comes to our area of interest, espresso machines.

When espresso machines first came onto the market over a hundred years ago, they were most likely status symbols. They weren’t perfect, but since there were half a handful of manufacturers, a certain level of quality was maintained. The prices of espresso machines were high and they were machines built to last.

Today, you’ll find that espresso machines are no longer a status symbol. The consumer market is saturated with cheap and low-quality espresso machines just as the consumer market in general is saturated with low quality appliances.

This form of market egalitarianism is great for manufacturers and for China, where half of the world’s manufactured appliances are produced, but not so great for consumers who have to wade through a market littered with low quality appliances. It might be said that if consumers choose to remain ignorant about what they’re purchasing then what they get is their own fault.

I disagree. I don’t think anyone should have to deal with espresso machine lids that don’t close, faulty wiring and boilers that scald . It’s unclear, (meaning no one has come forward to claim responsibility) went wrong here but somewhere the message that factory workers are producing items to help people, not hurt them got lost. It’s a really a sign of the times, isn’t it?

Products used to be made by made manufacturers to help people…but now, it seems, many of them are made mostly to meet earning expectations of stockholders. (The irony is that customer service has become a distinctive department in all businesses in the last 25 years.) Public outcry won’t change the environment that creates shoddy and sometimes dangerous products and that’s an unregulated environment of intense economic competition.

Work and supplies are sub-contracted more than ever, making it difficult to locate the original suppliers of materials.

Due to these unchanging circumstances, the use of lead paint used on name brands food poisoning and the practice of using cheap and dangerous substitute materials by isn’t going to go away completely.

There are safety laws in China and there have even been people “put to death” to make amends. But it remains dubious to whether China is willing or able to enforce the safety laws that it has on the books , because it will be, as they’ve put it, ‘difficult’.

Among the hundreds of items that are recalled everyday, are espresso machines, all of which are made in China.

Here are some of the worst offenders.

Black&Decker Spacemaker Coffeemaker
Manufacturer: Black& Decker
Made in China. Cost $40

The main problem with this machine is that its brew basket can become dislodged allowing hot water to spill out. This presents a general hazard for scalding. They can be returned to the Black& Decker, if they were purchased recently, for a new one. That is, if someone wants another one.

Jura Impressa Automatic Coffee Center Espresso Machine.
Manufacturer: Eugster/Frismag
Made in: Switzerland.

It’s surprising that this product was made in Europe which is known for its strong safety laws.

The problem with this machine is its faulty circuitry. Electrical connectors erode which creates a significant fire hazard. To give Switzerland the benefit of the doubt, the creation of the electrical connectors may have been outsourced to China. On Eugster/Frismag’s website, they note that they have moved “production” into a tax free zone in Shen Zhen, China. This is great for investors but precarious for consumers.

Vendors:

SeattleCoffeeGear.com
Located in Seattle, Washington. Just to show you that shoddy products or services aren’t just limited to faceless strangers working in other countries.

What they do: Sell obviously used coffeemakers but list them as new.

The only thing more frustrating than a deficient espresso or coffee machine is deficient customer service. Apparently, they refuse to do refunds. To their credit, they have an online presence which they use primarily to control public image. In other words, they’re out there Googling their company and actively replying to deny anything they’re accused of in online discussions.

There are a lot of other shoddy brands out there. There are more than I can reasonably address…but there are a few good brands out there. These brands will be considerably more expensive but you will, in most cases, get what you pay for.

One brand that sets the bar for excellence is Lelit. Founded twenty years ago and located in Brescia, Italy, an area known for high caliber manufacturing, owes its excellence to a healthy R&D department in addition to its highly skilled workforce. It sounds cliche, but they’re truly one of those manufacturers “committed to excellence”. I’d recommend the Lelit PLO 42LET model. It’ll bring you many years of great espresso.

There are a few other brands out there. New products are introduced and disappear all the time so it isn’t easy to keep track of but there is no other guidance that can be given than to be other than to be informed. (Starting with love4espresso.com is a good start). How much information is enough appears uncertain. It’s impossible to have all the information needed so there needs to be constant vigilance from everyone; industry, government, independent consumer groups, and consumers themselves.

Be proactive,
By Sergio Louissaint
The Coffeemaestro

notes:

Another thing to make a note of is that espresso machines are never repairable. If one breaks, it has to be thrown out completely. Because repair involves skilled labor interchangeable parts, and standardization it is avoided. Standardization would equal regulation of some sort. The silver lining of this cloud is if recent trends in product customization pick up pace, Sooner or later, the appliance market will move in the direction of standardized parts and customization, the way cars have.

It seems that many of you still want to know more about the technical differences between Lelit’s PL053 an PL043 Coffee Grinder models.

Lelit Coffee grinder PL043

The newer model, the PL043, exhibits the graduated wheel for the world to see, which makes finding the best grinding setting a very easy thing to do. The PL043 is visually more contemporary. It would be a good choice for having something enjoyable to look at on the counter of the kitchen for years to come because it’s easy on the eyes. It could possibly be a long time before the PL043 begins to look dated.

Of course, I’m talking about aesthetics when I mention the PL043 model’s contemporary look. Aesthetics are vulnerable to personal and popular taste. Your preferences are your own.
The main difference between Lelit’s PL053 and PL043 Coffee Grinder models is that the PL043 model is easier to use and looks more contemporary. Lelit claims that both models are stepless but outside experts on coffee machines disagree since numbers
are still set by pressing down the switch on the PL043 model.

Lelit PL053 Coffee Grinder

I really appreciate the e-mail questions I’m getting, I really do, but I’m afraid that this will be the last time I answer questions about the differences between the two models on the blog. There’s a comprehensive section in the FAQ that covers today’s topic. There’s some new information in today’s blog post, which is why I’ve decided to post on the matter today.

In my next entry, I’ll be talking about the differences between the most commonly used coffea plants whose beans are used to make coffee. I can’t promise that it’ll be a thriller, but I can promise that’ll it’ll be informative.