I'm open to any recommendations of course. The price range you cite will fit my budget just fine too.
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Espresso Enthusiasts
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I'm open to any recommendations of course. The price range you cite will fit my budget just fine too.
Are we talking about the cute Starbucks shop, or the cute Starbucks shop girl?
You tell me. Actually you told us already...but probably both if you like loungy loungy starbucks shops.
@Shrink I'd be in the market as well for a good burr grinder. But I guess I also could find the important 'hints' and kind answers + infos
in your last 250+ posts.
I'm open to any recommendations of course. The price range you cite will fit my budget just fine too.
Are we talking about the cute Starbucks shop, or the cute Starbucks shop girl?
I'm hoping Kissaragi stops by soon. I'm sure he can give you some great suggestions...he really knows equipment.
I'm doing some looking now.
Now that you've mentioned him, I guess Kissaragi made some kind suggestions, backed up with helpful links, when I presented my god awful blade grinder in this thread. I'm on my phone so 'research' ain't so funny right now. But the upgrading possibility is interesting. I'd like to get a stainless steel (or is it chrome?) model, so it would be cool to know what feature is important so I can check for specific models myself. Thx!
Now that you've mentioned him, I guess Kissaragi made some kind suggestions, backed up with helpful links, when I presented my god awful blade grinder in this thread. I'm on my phone so 'research' ain't so funny right now. But the upgrading possibility is interesting. I'd like to get a stainless steel (or is it chrome?) model, so it would be cool to know what feature is important so I can check for specific models myself. Thx!
The features are fairly simple, but judging how easy it is to clean (an hugely important issue, because you really need to clean it regularly) is very hard to figure out sometimes.
Features are: Number of grind adjustments. For me, I'd want at least 25 adjustments...the more the better. The more grind adjustments allow you to make fairly fine adjustments. With fewer adjustments, each "click" on the adjuster is a big jump.
Obviously...burr grinder.
I like a grinder that dispenses directly into the portafilter...that way you only grind what you need at the moment. When there is a bin , you tend to grind more than you need, and it sits around until the next fix. With those that grind directly into the portafilter, there are "dosed" and "doserless". Either is good, I prefer doserless.
Take a look at the Rancilio Rocky Doserless Grinder for an example of a grinder I used before my current one. It's more expensive than the $250 range, but as I look around I'm having problems finding stuff in that range. They're either kind of not so good, inexpensive ones, or they're Mazzer machines at $2500-$4000...a tiny bit over the top.
I'll keep looking...
I remember the Rocky one. I checked it out the first time you've mentioned it and it wasn't that appalling somehow, but since Espresso is about the subtleties of life and how to consume it, I guess that's kind of stupid..
I'll have a look myself too next time I have a decent computer by my side...
I'll have a look myself too next time I have a decent computer by my side...
I'm open to any recommendations of course. The price range you cite will fit my budget just fine too.
I remember the Rocky one. I checked it out the first time you've mentioned it and it wasn't that appalling somehow, but since Espresso is about the subtleties of life and how to consume it, I guess that's kind of stupid..
I'll have a look myself too next time I have a decent computer by my side...
I have a couple of links. One is the Rancilio Rocky...out of price range, but included because it's generally considered an excellent machine in the price range and useful as a yardstick for comparisons. The other one looks good, right price. It has a doser, and I'm biased toward machines the dispense directly into the portafilter, rather than into a catch bin. I like doserless better, but it's really just my quirk. The only one I have experience with is the Rocky, so I'm including the other one just based on price and features.
http://www.amazon.com/Rancilio-Rocky-Doserless-Coffee-Grinder/dp/B000AYWU9K/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_t_2_N593
http://www.amazon.com/Gaggia-8002-G...1_42?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1364421636&sr=1-42
I strongly recommend that you read the user reviews. A LOT to be learned from them.
Well, thank you Shrink! I'm an avis review reader, so I'll check that of course. What do you mean by doseless? I'd be using a Bialetti, the one ss is using,too, in the first time. So it should be able to grind directly into that (sorry, can't express that better right now). I'm not sure if that's always possoble, although it's hard to imagine, and if that's what you call doseless.
I feel i have been beaten on that one, I give way to your greater skill in damaging items made of glass.
Any excuse to look at grinders! I just found this very cool add on for baratza grinders http://www.coffeegeek.com/opinions/coffeeatthemoment/11-27-2012/15:45
Ok, fortunately I think I found the machine (by pure chance) I was thinking of. No clue if any good though, cheaper than I've thought. Unfortunately, I can't find it on the US site...http://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B003WXMRSK?qid=1364423098&sr=8-6
Anyone ever heard of Isomac? Strange name somehow, but fits to MR somehow..
Shrink, I like the Gaggia one, too. Well, first I've got to go to bed now. Then wake up early, get a coffee and go to the dentist. Then I'll try to hustle myself some kind of device with a screen > 4"
Anyone ever heard of Isomac? Strange name somehow, but fits to MR somehow..
Shrink, I like the Gaggia one, too. Well, first I've got to go to bed now. Then wake up early, get a coffee and go to the dentist. Then I'll try to hustle myself some kind of device with a screen > 4"
The Rocky link I gave you is "doserless". The other one is "doser". They both dispense directly into the portafilter. You put the portafilter under the spout (there's a cradle that holds the portafilter in place. With a doserless grinder (like the Rocky) the grinds drop directly into the portafilter (henceforth PF...I'm tired of typing portafilter). You hold the button activating the grinder until the PF is filled, then release and it stops. With a doser, you put the PF in the cradle like the other, but it grinds drop into a blind funnel above the PF. (A blind funnel is a funnel attached to the machine that has a closed bottom...you'll see it when you look at the link I provided) When there is enough in the blind funnel, you stop the machine, and then pull a lever, which dispenses one shot worth of grinds into the PF. For a double (which is the basket one should generally use), you pull the lever twice, and it dispenses the proper amount of grinds in the PF. As is my craziness, with a doser you can't control the dose amount, but lots of relatively normal espresso freaks are very happy with a doser.
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What's your opinion of the Rancilio Rocky, and the Gaggia I linked in one of the posts above?
I had the Rocky before the grinder I have now, and I liked it. i'm very interested in what you think of them.
Ok, fortunately I think I found the machine (by pure chance) I was thinking of. No clue if any good though, cheaper than I've thought. Unfortunately, I can't find it on the US site...http://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B003WXMRSK?qid=1364423098&sr=8-6
Anyone ever heard of Isomac? Strange name somehow, but fits to MR somehow..
Shrink, I like the Gaggia one, too. Well, first I've got to go to bed now. Then wake up early, get a coffee and go to the dentist. Then I'll try to hustle myself some kind of device with a screen > 4"
The Isomac Macinino Prof Inox is a good espresso grinder at that price range. Isomac make some very good espresso machines.
What's your opinion of the Rancilio Rocky, and the Gaggia I linked in one of the posts above?
I had the Rocky before the grinder I have now, and I liked it. i'm very interested in what you think of them.
Both excellent grinders and real work horses. Certainly couldnt go wrong with either for pure espresso use.
Well, thank you for being that patient
I feel kind of stupid now. Still not sure if I got the raison d'être from said blind funnel, though. I'd definitely prefer a grinder without. Guess I have to examine the model carefully enough if the PF of the Bialetti fits under the cradle then. I'd suppose they should do so.Thanks Kissaragi! I'll try to gather some more infos on the Isomac and may come back to you on that one later on. Next problem: how to confuse my girlfriend that buying a new grinder after two weeks is the intelligent thing to do? Cute Starbucks shop girl falls flat...
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Doserless is certainly the way to go if you can. Even cafe grinders are phasing them out such as the rather amazing Mahlkoenig Pro M http://www.mahlkoenig.com/us_products/ProM-Allround-Grinder.html/?setLanguage=en_US
Well, thank you for being that patient
If you look at the picture of the Gaggia, you'll see, under the coffee bean hopper on top, and above where the PF sits, a round thingy with a lever sticking out the right side. That's the doser. The ground coffee drops into that. When you are ready to drop the ground coffee into the PF, you move that lever on the right two pulls, and it dispenses the proper amount of coffee into the PF.
I"m calling it a blind funnel, for the lack of a better phrase. "Blind" just means the bottom is not open (until you open it with the lever). It's a doser...and it is neater than a doserless one which dispenses directly into the PF...which is kind of messy!!
Yep, think I understand. Although I'm pretty sure I prefer my grinder without. I'd personally would think it's neater cleaning the workspace after work is done instead of not having to do that but to see/imagine the funnel kind of messy inside...feels more precise too without imho.
Beans - Adelaide, South Australia
Here in Adelaide, South Australia one of the best places (in my opinion) to buy your beans is at The Coffee Barun, 217-219 Main North Rd, Sefton Park.
The staff are fantastic and passionate about their coffee and food. I get an individual blend made just for me, which I may just divulge on my death bed!
Here in Adelaide, South Australia one of the best places (in my opinion) to buy your beans is at The Coffee Barun, 217-219 Main North Rd, Sefton Park.
The staff are fantastic and passionate about their coffee and food. I get an individual blend made just for me, which I may just divulge on my death bed!
A caveat fort US Amazon users:
I shop A LOT at Amazon, and the prices there are at least as good as, and almost always better than, other places. EXCEPT with espresso stuff...equipment, replacement parts , accessories,etc.
I was looking for a replacement part for my coffee roaster and , after an extensive search, only found 2 places that had it...Amazon and an "espresso stuff" site. Amazon wanted $100 (incl. shipping...not an Amazon Prime item), the espresso site wanted $68 including shipping.
So, I think Amazon is a great place to go to shop and see a large selection of stuff, and most importantly, to see User Reviews...but if you find something you like on Amazon, do a search to see if the same item is available elsewhere.
I shop A LOT at Amazon, and the prices there are at least as good as, and almost always better than, other places. EXCEPT with espresso stuff...equipment, replacement parts , accessories,etc.
I was looking for a replacement part for my coffee roaster and , after an extensive search, only found 2 places that had it...Amazon and an "espresso stuff" site. Amazon wanted $100 (incl. shipping...not an Amazon Prime item), the espresso site wanted $68 including shipping.
So, I think Amazon is a great place to go to shop and see a large selection of stuff, and most importantly, to see User Reviews...but if you find something you like on Amazon, do a search to see if the same item is available elsewhere.
I am actually waiting for the day Amazon is complaining that customers only visit to get an idea and some infos but buy the stuff elsewhere..there is a word for these customers
I just learned yesterday and eventually forgot immediately. Well, I get old, too!
or smoked too much in my youth, can't remember anymore.
I am actually waiting for the day Amazon is complaining that customers only visit to get an idea and some infos but buy the stuff elsewhere..there is a word for these customers
I just learned yesterday and eventually forgot immediately. Well, I get old, too!
I bleed for Amazon. Too bad what they don't like!
As far as the misadventures of youth...I was an undergrad and grad student during the 60's!!
Much is a blur...if you remember the 60's, you probably weren't there!
Ah, the 60s, of glorious myth and vividly techni-coloured memory.
A time of hope and idealism (everyone was so optimistic, then), what seemed to be endless sunshine (surely a trick of the memory), and the promise that things would - or could - only get better.
Actually, I do remember the 60s, and I was there, but as a small kid. Strange to relate, whatever about the rest (much learned subsequently), I do have an almost perfect recall of the music - that is imprinted on some weird part of my memory banks, never to be forgotten. Especially the obscure stuff, in minor keys, the sort of music from groups that had one, or, at most, two great hits (Simon Dupree, I'm thinking of you, or people like you).
Back now to pour myself another coffee.......before I settle into something remotely approaching work.
Edit: The irony, of course, is that the 70s - although it gets a lousy press - was a far better decade in terms of actual progressive legislation passed in places such as old, conservative, catholic Europe, just as LBJ put far more progressive legislation on the statute books than JFK ever did. I suppose the attitudinal shifts and raising awareness that occurred in the 60s, allowed for the conditions to exist which permitted actual legal change to be enacted by the 1970s........
A time of hope and idealism (everyone was so optimistic, then), what seemed to be endless sunshine (surely a trick of the memory), and the promise that things would - or could - only get better.
Actually, I do remember the 60s, and I was there, but as a small kid. Strange to relate, whatever about the rest (much learned subsequently), I do have an almost perfect recall of the music - that is imprinted on some weird part of my memory banks, never to be forgotten. Especially the obscure stuff, in minor keys, the sort of music from groups that had one, or, at most, two great hits (Simon Dupree, I'm thinking of you, or people like you).
Back now to pour myself another coffee.......before I settle into something remotely approaching work.
Edit: The irony, of course, is that the 70s - although it gets a lousy press - was a far better decade in terms of actual progressive legislation passed in places such as old, conservative, catholic Europe, just as LBJ put far more progressive legislation on the statute books than JFK ever did. I suppose the attitudinal shifts and raising awareness that occurred in the 60s, allowed for the conditions to exist which permitted actual legal change to be enacted by the 1970s........
Lets try to stay on topic gentlemen and not veer into PRSI too much.
/friendly reminder.
Hey, you got some ideas about your grinder already? We're in this together!
Do you have an Amazon Prime account? They're about $80 annually and provide you with discounts on many items as well as free 2-day shipping and Amazon video services, and maybe other stuff too.
The Prime account saved me $120 on the De'Longhi espresso machine you recommended to me.
Hey, you got some ideas about your grinder already? We're in this together!
No, not yet. I didn't have any time last night to look over the grinder discussion that went on. I'll have a look sometime today though.