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.