What’s on your coffee bench?

[simplemind]

Originally Posted by MikeD

Have you tried a lactose free milk like Lactaid? It tastes the same as regular milk.

I have been off of milk products for 10+ years, but got the Kirkland lactose free 2% for lattes and it works quite well and I don’t seem to be bothered by it.
Having just gone down the espresso rabbit hole and invested some dough, I have my fingers crossed. That 2% micro foam is so damn good with just about any bad espresso I pull.

[andrew+]

I've been using the Gene Cafe roaster for 7 years now. Highly recommend these machines. We drink about a pound of coffee a week, and the only maintenance I've done is a thorough cleaning of the roast chamber, and that was only once.

One of the nice things about the Gene is that it's designed to be used inside without a vent hood. You simply attach a $5 standard flexible air duct to the roaster's exhaust port and route it out a window.

[schwa86]

Re roasters - I went fresh roast to behmore to a quest M3s — for where I’m at, I prefer to have something electric. It’s sort of a rabbit hole hobby, but for me the results have been great. Lots of different beans to try — if you’ve not checked out the sweet Maria’s site, worth a look. Also good forum is home barista, lots of info on roasting/roasters.

[benb]

I've had my flair neo for a few weeks now and am starting to get the hang of it.

I did order the standard bottomless portafilter along with the temperature strip that lets you see how hot you've got the brew chamber. We'll see if my grinder can actually handle using the normal portafilter once it arrives.

It makes some pretty damn good coffee once I got the hang of getting it hot enough. You have to basically always use boiling water.. the whole process of pulling the shot drops the water temperature down into the correct temp range for brewing. I put the kettle on for 212F/100C and I pre-heat the chamber twice and that seems to do the trick in getting the chamber up to about 190F, then you throw new 212F water in there to make the shot and it seems to drop right into the correct temperature range. Not terribly hard or time consuming now that I got it down.

It is an interesting device though.. not sure I like it better for making a latte or cappucino style drink than the Moka pot. The flair really makes those tiny Italian style servings. It pulls about 40g max and that's it. So better to just drink the shot straight or make an Americano.. otherwise it's easy to end up with something that isn't hot enough or has too much milk. Some of that might have to do with me not having the correct cups though. I did order some SS insulated espresso shot glasses. Those work well. I've mostly been drinking shots from it straight up, but the Americano made with it also taste really fantastic.

I have never really enjoyed having straight shots of espresso.. last time I did so was in Europe in 2019. Now that I'm making them at home I'm going to have to start asking for them at Cafes around me once it's safe to get my bearings on how I'm doing at home. In general my feeling is what I'm making at home is less bitter & more bright tasting.

[jkbrwn]

Sounds good Ben! Big advocate of manual espresso over here. The big draw to the Robot for me as the lack of pre-heat. When I had my ROK, the pre-heat really bugged me at first, but like you say, it becomes second nature pretty fast.

To drink straight espresso, unless you like the flavour of burnt carcinogens, in my opinion, you have to buy really decent coffee. None of these 'roasted in Italy' big bags that you get in the supermarket, or Lavazza or Illy or anything else like that, that isn't roasted fresh.

The most success I have found has been with light or medium roasted espresso that has bright, juicy flavours. Again, in my opinion, as soon as you get to 'dark' roasted espresso, it's just bitter or burnt tasting, no matter how you make it. You have to add a load of sugar to make it palatable.

Also bear in mind that for the aromas and flavours in espresso to really come through, it needs to be drunk pretty quickly after brewing, unless it's insulated so you've done well with ordering insulated cups.

I think the beauty of devices like the Flair, ROK and Robot is that when you get the hang of it and really get to know how to use the maker, you can have really high quality espresso for a fraction of the price of an automatic set up.

[Kirk007]

Our Vibiemme finally stopped after 15 years and feeling lazy went with an auto-machine. The La Speziale makes really nice espresso. Just added the Baratza 270wi grinder as the vario electronics are getting glitchy after a decade. Should be nice having a built in scale for dosing.


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[oldguy00]

For those with a home espresso setup, and you work from home...........how many drinks are you making a day?
We tried a new setup recently, and man, I found myself making like 5 drinks a day, caps, americanos, etc.
I think I burned through a good $30 in coffee beans and $10-15 in milk in one week, easily. This can turn into a very expensive ongoing habit! Not to mention caffeine overdose! lol

[jkbrwn]

Would anyone like an Oxo burr grinder for the price of shipping and a donation to Pasadena Humane Society?

If you're in the LA area and it doesn't need to be shipped, even better.

I've switched exclusively to my JX Pro for filter and espresso.

PM me if so. Condition is good.

[crankles]

Originally Posted by oldguy00

For those with a home espresso setup, and you work from home...........how many drinks are you making a day?
We tried a new setup recently, and man, I found myself making like 5 drinks a day, caps, americanos, etc.
I think I burned through a good $30 in coffee beans and $10-15 in milk in one week, easily. This can turn into a very expensive ongoing habit! Not to mention caffeine overdose! lol

I'm drinking 3 doubles per day, my wife, 2 ; 2 caps and 3 americanos.
so that's 5 x18g/per day... 1 lb of coffee every 5 days. So yeah. I'm right there with you...

[benb]

My worst day was 5 double shots I made I think. I made 3 today.

More like 15g each.

I do think making Espresso makes me go through a little more.

If I make pour overs I do 18-20g. If I make 1 at like 7AM and have one more by Noon I'm kind of jittery and flying too close to the sun.

What's weird about the Espresso drinks for whatever reason, if I do 3x15g double shots I will be nowhere near that jacked on caffeine. Whatever is going on with how it's extracted I'm not getting as much caffeine or it's just affecting me differently.

It is hard for me to get too worked up about Price of Coffee I'm making at home.

I order from georgehowellcoffee.com, they're 2 towns over so I get my order in like 48 hours. I usually get 3-4 bags of coffee in the 12oz range to get my order to $50 so I get free shipping. That lasts me a good while.

If I go to Starbucks (visible from my front door) or Ride Studio Cafe (3 miles away) I will probably spend $5 just going in once.

With everything else going on there's a lot of money being saved.

[bil]

Originally Posted by oldguy00

For those with a home espresso setup, and you work from home...........how many drinks are you making a day?
We tried a new setup recently, and man, I found myself making like 5 drinks a day, caps, americanos, etc.
I think I burned through a good $30 in coffee beans and $10-15 in milk in one week, easily. This can turn into a very expensive ongoing habit! Not to mention caffeine overdose! lol

I am in a similar situation. Working from home (mostly) and my old Saeco (auto) is never off... I have 3-4 coffee cups a day. It is hard to resist!

[jh_on_the_cape]

Originally Posted by oldguy00

For those with a home espresso setup, and you work from home...........how many drinks are you making a day?

We tried a new setup recently, and man, I found myself making like 5 drinks a day, caps, americanos, etc.

I think I burned through a good $30 in coffee beans and $10-15 in milk in one week, easily. This can turn into a very expensive ongoing habit! Not to mention caffeine overdose! lol

That's why I switched to 50/50 decaf/regular. I do enjoy walking downstairs and making myself an espresso or cappuccino a few times a day. I say 2-3. Before work at home I had one in the morning that's it.

Full regular and I get jittery after a few.

[oldguy00]

Thanks all, yeah for the time being we opted to not keep the setup we were trying, partly for other reasons.
But, yes working from home with a really cool espresso machine sitting 15 feet away.....its just so tempting to get up and make drink after drink, lol.
Our local roaster charges about $13-$14 Canadian per pound which I find very fair, but we went through three pounds in one week, and the milk. It was a bit shocking.

[Matt92037]

X2 lattes each for my wife and i and sometimes one in the afternoon. I also use the machine to dispense hot water for tea.

28+ drinks a week bat a coffeevshop would be $$$

Originally Posted by oldguy00

For those with a home espresso setup, and you work from home...........how many drinks are you making a day?
We tried a new setup recently, and man, I found myself making like 5 drinks a day, caps, americanos, etc.
I think I burned through a good $30 in coffee beans and $10-15 in milk in one week, easily. This can turn into a very expensive ongoing habit! Not to mention caffeine overdose! lol

[jpritchet74]

Originally Posted by crankles

I'm drinking 3 doubles per day, my wife, 2 ; 2 caps and 3 americanos.
so that's 5 x18g/per day... 1 lb of coffee every 5 days. So yeah. I'm right there with you...

Same here. My office is less than 2 miles from home and I make my lattes there, but not the wife and 2 of the kids (high schoolers, and school is "on-line" now) want lattes daily, so with the 2 that I have it's 5 lattes a day for my house....

I am trying to find out how to justify this into a new machine. Maybe move my Profitec Pro 500 to the house so my wife can make the drinks there, and get a double boiler machine for the office....