I want to make proper coffee at home. I currently have Aldi coffee pod machine. I bought it for that caffeine hit in the morning. Now I am looking for something that also tastes good too. I guess I also need advice on a grinder, and good smooth coffee beans.
I hear that the difference between cheap and expensive machine are subtle. I just need something that makes better coffee than 7/11 automatic coffee.
If you want to take it to the next level then buy green beans and roast yourself.
Cheap way of doing this is using a popcorn maker. CoffeeSnobs for your green beans.
Then buy a decent grinder, but get a cheap machine. The machine doesn't really matter as long as you have unpressurised filters for it.
I see so many people with expensive grinders and espresso machines but they use supermarket beans in it.
Can't get through to them that it isn't about the hardware, it's all about the beans and how fresh they are.
Can you put brewed coffee in the fridge and heat it up? Might pop into a mates place and brewed couple of litres and reheat every morning. That would work out cheap.
Better off going capsule for convenience and cleanup. Its a matter of what you call acceptable quality to drink
There are about 3 that I like that produce coffee to my taste. The best being "Double Mac" at Parramatta. If I could make coffee like that, I would pay much more for the machine and beans. Anyone else tried Double Mac coffee? They are a hole in the wall shop, on Macquarie st Parramatta.
Can you? YES.
Will it taste any good? NO.
you're not serious .. right?
It's all abut the grinder.
I've got 2 medium entry espresso machines, sunbeam and breville. Both similar. Both make as good a brew as the expensive coffee shop machines, just slower to get the pressure up. And slower to make multiple cups. .
Then I bought a decent conical burr grinder, and what a difference that made. Fresh evenly ground coffee is the best.
Also finding a bean you like, and experimenting on technique.
The machine itself is minor, in my opinion. The more expensive, the faster the result. taste is all about the grind.
I think I am even more confused than when I started this forum. Maybe I am not ready for a proper coffee machine.
OK, let me make it simple for you.
Buy the Sunbeam PU6910 combo. You'll get a grinder and a decent coffee machine within your price range. At that price point, you can't go wrong. It'll be a big step up from a capsule system. Use fresh beans and work on your skills.
After you have had this machine for a while, one of three things will happen:
You'll find that making proper coffee is too much effort for you and you just want to push a button. (Unlikely, but possible.) You can always go back to the capsule machine.
You'll be perfectly happy with the setup you have and will end up using it every day for years and years. (Most likely.)
You'll learn to appreciate the finer points of coffee and start having a serious case of upgrade-itis. (Quite possible.) You can start saving money for the next piece of gear and replace machine / grinder years down the track.
Now, stop reading about it and start hunting for a good price on PU6910. ;-)
He's right though! The PU6910 is the perfect middle ground between good price and good coffee. And damn it's reliable. Because it is/was so popular, there's full teardowns and parts guides available online, along with heaps of hints and tips.
Stop listening to all the snobbery - a decent home setup with a competent person driving it will make a better coffee than any spiffy Italian machine being driven by most baristas.
I'd still throw the Breville Barista express in the hat - having owned both I'd say the Sunbeam makes a slightly better shot, but the Barista express definitely makes better milk (quicker too). You could change the wetness/dryness setting of the steam wand on the Sunbeam so that may have been user error, I never really fiddled with it. I'm splitting hairs. The cup warmer on the top of the Breville is useless but the Sunbeam cup warmer will burn your hand. The breville heats up quicker but they're both hot in <5 min - quicker than you could prepare the milk and coffee.
It is worth putting in bold the Sunbeam is unacceptably loud. If your kitchen is far away from bedrooms this is totally fine but it's a deal breaker for a lot of people. All machines are loud but we genuinely joked about needing a megaphone while the Sunbeam was brewing - you couldn't even yell over it. This was fixed with the newer machine (EM7000 has sound insulation on the chassis and pump).
The sunbeam has been as low as $450 recently but is sitting at $518 online at the moment. The Barista express can be had around the same price. Considering how similar the end result was to me, I'd take either one - so I'd shop on whether you have enough space to devote to a seperate grinder (ergo the sunbeam), and price.
But yes in conclusion lol - If this is your first "good" machine I'd probably suggest the Sunbeam too. Having a seperate grinder and the dual thermoblocks makes it slightly easier to tinker around and fiddle with settings - as you'll inevitably want to down the track. Also gives you a little more insight to the whole process of grind, dose, consistency etc than the breville.
If you already have a favourite bean then the breville works well - it's very much a "dial it in once and leave it alone"'machine.
Enjoy your coffee!
Any home machine less than 1K is not worth it, these mainly include the Brevilles, Sunbeams and Chinese-made Delonghis at a minimum
If you're after something better than a shitty-made espresso (e.g Gloria Jeans), go for a Nespresso Machine of the $500+ value. They're usually Italian made and if you read the manual, it does an awesome job for the 0 hassle
If you're after something really good ( I mean GOOD) then you have to fork out much more for a proper brand like KLM, etc
I got a refurb Jura machine for around $600 - highly recommend them
Here is my 2 cents. I used to work as a Barista while at uni for 5 years. I worked in a good cafe and have competed at Barista championships. (Never got close to winning any, but I think I can make a decent coffee)
All I can say is pick a machine within your budget and skills. There is no point buying a 2k machine and grinder that you don't know how to use. I would say making coffee is 25% machine and grinder(once you hit a certain quality of machine and grinder) and 75℅ what you can do with it.
With your 600 budget any of the more expensive sunbeam and breville will do, I personally have a gaggia classic (with a rancillio steam wand) and nemox conical burr grinder. I got it as a package when it was on sale for around 600 new. My ideal machine would be the rancillio silvia machine but it was out of my budget. The Gaggia is great anyway for the 1-2 coffee I make a day now. The grinder isn't top of the range but gives me good even grind.
Now to making a perfect coffee shot, it comes down to the pour time, which is determined by the grind, the tamp of the coffee and pressire in the machine. All the machines mentioned in this forum will give you the pressure you want including breville and sunbeam. You have to know how to adjust the grind to change the pour time, most people don't, so don't go spending thousands on a grinder. A decent conical burr grinder will do, again the breville will be fine, I have used it before.
Milk frothing a skill that takes ages to perfect, most barista's don't know how to do it properly. The pressure you get from your steam wand varies from machine to machine, this is where I find they vary most. I cannot comment on the breville and sunbeam, but I can say the gaggia and rancillio are great as I have used them. You would have to test them, but again if you are a novice don't get too caught up in it.
Lastly go do a Barista course if you want to get the most out of your setup. With a 600 budget you won't go wrong
great advice. you could fork out for a course or just youtube most of it. Pay attention to the sounds when frothing your milk. Steam pressure will change from machine to machine but the sound it produces when milk is properly aerated and swirled sounds exactly the same across machines. With the bigger capacity machines , you will inevitably end up with higher steam pressures, you will then have less time to react and your temperature curves peak a lot faster.
try a nicely extracted espresso with 50-55dc (instead of the typical 65dc+ that most cafes serve) well frothed milk (swirl milk in the jug after frothing and the best way to tell is if it sticks to the walls of the jug like wet paint) and you will thank me for it. You can taste your coffee from the very first sip and complexity of the beans are more prominent.
What you will realise is as you start enjoying and appreciating coffees, the milk becomes an optional ingredient as it comes between your tastebuds and the coffee for the lighter roasted SO/varietals. My ss espresso machine is seeing little use now that I've discovered the joys of filter coffees and they are ALOT less expensive to own maintain (less than a $100 gets you a pretty nice setup) but it takes time to get out of the habit of drinking milk based coffees.
I know it's a bit outside of your budget but we got one of these last year.
http://www.jetblackespresso.com.au/shop/p/lelit-pl41tem/
Great little machine and we use the breville smart grinder with it. It has real switches (not pads) and a brass boiler, should last quite a while. Was more than I wanted to spend but I have no regrets 10 months later. We only make 1-2 cups at a time and it does just fine. For beans we seem to keep coming back to he coffee snobs 'beanbay' sample pack, even though we've tried a variety of other locally roasted ones. Just a matter of taste I guess.
I use a $40 aeropress, $11 KG Aldi beans, a $50 electric grinder from tiffany and it tastes legit.
Note: The 'crappy aldi beans' were rated on the coffeesnobs forums and the posters who mentioned it were all "I'm embarassed to admit, this stuff is pretty good"
Aeropress takes some work but takes little space and I can take it with me places.
I happily use ALDI beans for my cold brew. Definitely not the worst beans going around.
Which one are they? I saw Aldi sells a few different ones
Honestly couldn't tell you the exact name, but they come in a brown paper bag and are medium roast whole bean, and as the OP mentioned, about $11 a kilo.
@OldMateNate: Thanks for that, I'll have a look around.
EDIT: I just remembered that I took a photo of all the coffee at Aldi the other week. The brand is called "LAZZIO" Brown (medium Roast) or Black (Dark Roast) $11.69/kg or $6.99/500g
If you want to be able to make cafe-style coffee for a few people in a row one of the better Sunbeams, Breville or Gagia are good.
Bargainkappa has good advice, but like he/she says, it takes a long time to get it right. The Sunbeam grinders are pretty messy, so try get a Breville smart grinder on a special if you can. First spend your money on a good burr grinder then use the remaining budget on a machine.
I've got a Sunbeam EM7000 machine which I got hardly-used on Gumtree for $300 and an unused Sunbeam EM0480 grinder on eBay for $100. Both very good deals.
I've just made a flat white right now :-)
Buying used could be another option.
I picked up a Jura for $300 off Gumtree
Buy a French press for $30 or so. Buy freshly roasted beans from a roaster in your area and ask them to course grind for the French press. Saves having to have the grinder - not ideal, but good fora week
Follow a guide online to make the French press…
Approx 15:1 water to coffee, add hot water, wait 6 minutes, plunge, pour and enjoy.
Can change coffee amount and be time as you get familiar.
Easy and cheap way to great coffee.
Then start looking at grinders to enjoy freshly ground coffee rather than pre ground.
$50 aeropress is magical
I'm sensing OP is more interested in buying a machine/gadget, and the fun in researching the product, than the coffee, judging by the comment above:
"Can you put brewed coffee in the fridge and heat it up? Might pop into a mates place and brewed couple of litres and reheat every morning. That would work out cheap."
Oh wow lol he might as well get a tin of blend 43 or whatever it is..
I know, right.
I don't know OP, but I think a lot of people suffer from gadget addiction like OP. I know I used to.
You end up spending hours enjoying the research and gadget acquisition process, thinking its going to revolutionise and transform your life, but ultimately you don't give a fig about the end result of the gadget acquisition. You buy the thing. Then you let it gather dust while you busy yourself researching the next big thing.
Ahh, capitalism. Fetishistic consumption, etc etc.
Op stretch your budget a bit more m Breville dual boiler with smart grinder from was posted recently on ozb for roughly 1_1.1k
I bought this one from the Good Guys last year around Christmas time for $549.
https://www.thegoodguys.com.au/breville-the-barista-espresso…
Same model so might be able to bargain them down. It's a great machine.
EM5000 for the lazy. Choose your own grinder and beans, and press a button to froth your milk. So good.
I got a Breville machine for Christmas. All I wanted was the one shot and two shot buttons. Nothing fancy with too many gadgets and dials. It has a milk frothier that I don't really use. I just wanted something easy to use and easy to clean. I love it. I buy the Harris 500g block of coffee from Coles. $5 and I get about 30 coffees out of it. I'm pretty happy. Saving a lot of money rather than buying a coffee for $5.20 from the coffee shop
Breville BCG820BSS Smart Grinder Pro $169.15 (RRP: $299.95) Delivered @ Myer eBay
Get it zealmax. Get it now!
Thanks for the link. Got one!
So, I've been using the Breville Smart Grinder for a few days now and it is definitely an upgrade from the Sunbeam EM0480.
In side-by-side comparison, besides being quieter than the Sunbeam, the Breville produces a more even particle size, which results in better extraction and less channelling. At under $170 delivered, the Breville was definitely a very worthwhile purchase.
This grinder is awesome. I have one. you can also request a shim pack from Breville and they send it to you for free to get the finest coffee setting possible.
Guys, a question:
I already have an Aeropress and a Breville Milk Frother.
Any thoughts on whether I should get the PU6910 for $399 or spend >$200 on the Breville Smart Grinder and be done with it for a while?? Not in a rush to buy a coffee machine although I will probably end up buying one in the future (next 1-2 years) in any case.
Manufacturer refurbished
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/like/182260225166?lpid=107&chn=ps