New to coffee - find me a machine!

[shaithis]

I'll get slammed for this but never mind...

For a budget of £100 and for someone 'getting into' coffee are the espresso pod machines so bad? Really? Don't just blurt out an answer, actually think!

You can buy machines for £100 that do pods and normal ground coffee....and considering the pods massively limit what you can use, I can't see how a pod-only machine becomes worthwhile....unless of course, it is a lot less then £100.

[Biscuit]

I dont think i would go for a 'pod' machine anyway!

[Rob_B]

It’s convenience (for me at least) I fancied getting one not just for the coffee but it’s a nice routine if that makes sense to anyone (?)

For 29p a coffee and no cleaning up as well as a reasonable selection of blends it’s a good starting point, yes grinding my own would allow more freedom but it’s more manual and I wasn’t sure I’d even be bothered with it after a week (I recently threw out the bread machine that had been in the garage for a year)

As I mentioned it’s only really a stepping stone up to a stupidly overpriced ‘proper’ machine the size of a small tank that allows me to pretend to be a Barista and, for the difference in the espresso, probably isn’t worth the extra

[scaryjim]

For the "wake up to fresh coffee" experience you've only really got two option - get a standard coffee machine with a timer, which will probably be about £50 (more with a thermal pot), and a coffee grinder so you can grind your coffee the night before*, or get the £150 cuisinart.

Since I don't have a separate grinder I can't really comment on the difference between coffee that's ground the night before and coffee that's ground straight away, but we did used to buy freshly ground coffee fairly regularly from Ashton market a couple of years back, and I didn't notice a huge difference between that and ordinary shop-bought ground coffee. I do notice the difference with the cuisinart. I strongly suspect it's down to the rapid loss of volatile oils: pre-ground coffee tastes more bitter, while the fresh ground has a much rounder taste. In fact, I used to dislike anything pre-ground above a "3" roast: with the cuisinart I've actually enjoyed drinking darker coffee, up to a "5" roast. You may find that grinding fresh the night before retains enough of the volatiles to still get that more rounded flavour; I don't know how quickly you lose them after grinding...

*or, obviously, you can just buy pre-ground coffee.

[kalniel]

For the "wake up to fresh coffee" experience you've only really got two option - get a standard coffee machine with a timer, which will probably be about £50 (more with a thermal pot), and a coffee grinder so you can grind your coffee the night before*, or get the £150 cuisinart.

Or a well trained partner/child/family member/cat...

[scaryjim]

Or a well trained partner/child/family member/cat...

In our house that's me

[Biscuit]

Just remembered im also going to have to get a decent water filter because of the scaley southern water

Maybe in a few years once i have figured out what i do and dont like a bit better i will look at spending a bit more over the odds. Right now im going to get a fairly cheap Cafetiere, water filter, an Aeropress and a coffee machine with all the features i want. That Moka pot looks good but having to keep a camping stove in the kitchen puts me off a little bit.

Might go a bit over budget but i reckon thats me covered for the moment

thanks chaps!

[burble]

The Cuisinart has a water filter in it, you clip it into a plastic assembly then put the whole thing into the water resevoir. That said I put filtered water into it anyway because the water at home is very very hard.

[Biscuit]

The Cuisinart has a water filter in it, you clip it into a plastic assembly then put the whole thing into the water resevoir. That said I put filtered water into it anyway because the water at home is very very hard.

Aye so is mine, its unbelievably different to what i grew up with. You get in the shower and it feels like someone is giving you a good ass kicking!

[Flibb]

I use my moka pot on my electric hob, also works fine with a gas hob.

To be honest if I was in your situation I would get one of the pod systems, and an aeropress. Pod wise its worth doing some research on http://www.singleservecoffee.com/ and look at price per serving and variety. I moved from a nespresso to gaggia expresso machine and used a hand grinder, but eventually got bored with hand grinding and grabbed an proper electric burr grinder.

[Willzzz]

What grinder did you end up going for? How much was it?

[Flibb]

IBERITAL MC2, cost me about £100. Although I did pickup the Gaggia coffee machine cheap on ebay and fixed / serviced it. I also have a Hario hand grinder. At the moment the Iberital is set for expresso, and the Hario is set for a coarser grind that I use in the Aeropress and moka pot.

[burble]

expresso

Espresso

The MC2 is a very good grinder, I have one of them but it doesn't quite go fine enough to get a good espresso out of the Silvia so I use the MC2 for brewed coffee and a Rancilo Rocky for espresso.

[Biscuit]

I popped down to Wilkos and got a a water filter and a french press to keep me satisfied till i have settled on a machine. This Grumpy Mule coffee is delicious!

[Biscuit]

So in a complete reversal of what i said, i just bought the Cuisineart

£138 from GoElectrical

I ordered a load more beans from Grumpy Mule, any other recommendations?

[burble]

Good choice

I get all my beans from Has Bean or Square Mile. In the last week I've gone through a bag of Yirgacheffe Wote Natural and a bag of Brazil Fazenda Passeio Pulped Natural. They're very different, the Yirgacheffe has a blueberry muffin taste and the Passeio tastes very much like a KitKat chunky. Scrummy.