Jura Impressa Z5 Settings

[ssoberon]

I have just recently purchased the Z5 and must say that I personally love the machine.. I really enjoy the speed in which it is able to produce a cofee and how clean everything is. I prepared 18 coffees in a row on Sunday and everyone seemed to enjoy their cup! So it makes me even happier!

Just wondering though.. Has anyone else bought this machine and if so, what settings are you using for your latte coffees?

I had a little bit of a teething problem in which the built in recipe was not really correct and after 1 hour on the phone to tech support we came to agree on that the method in which a Super automatic machine makes coffee can never be compared to a manual machine recipe. In other words, you shouldnt be using a 30ml shot of espresso and topped up with milk for a latte on the Z5. It has to be more like 80ml.

Then the coffee is actually hot and has much more flavour.

Anyone else had any other experiences with the recipes?


Thanks!

[gilkatho]

Re: Jura Impressa Z5 Settings

The Z5 Generation II has been getting plenty of positive feedback from the market.  The milk temperature of superautos is often a comment as many Australians do prefer hotter drinks than is the norm in Europe.

In our experience we would be thinking:

1.  If using ceramic crockery, preheat the cups.
2.  Experiment with the positioning of the autofrother adjustment.  The closer you have that knob to the horizontal position, the milk will be hotter.  Suggest looking a few more degrees of turn below the actual indicated latte position on he valve body.

For other readers of this post, the frother style that the OP is using can be viewed as Z5 frother parts

For the record you can find Z5 manuals and tips on our website here.

[iaindb]

Re: Jura Impressa Z5 Settings

Weve been using the Z5 for at least 6 months now at work.  We make anything up to 20 cups a day on it (sometimes more) every work day.  When I started I knew nothing about coffee, but my own interest was caught back then and Ive purchased and started modifying my own espresso machine and grinder.

The one thing Id have to say about the Jura is this:  it makes a consistently good coffee.  Given you dont have people playing with the settings all the time (which we do).  Note: thats good, not excellent, and I purchase about 3kg beans /mo from Pioneer Roaster (sponser) so theyre always fresh.

I have changed the 3 coffee settings from ristretto, espresso, and coffee to fixed mL amounts, because no matter how much I try and educate them, some people at work still like to pour a mug of hot water through one puck!!  

I use the espresso pour for my own coffee, then add milk from the frother.  The milk is frothed fairly well - the best Ive seen from an "instant" frother.  It can be a tad cold as others have noticed, so I sometimes put a tiny pour of hot water from the urn into the cup before making, which heats it up to the right temp (and I preheat my cup).

My criticisms of the Jura after 6 months or so are:

• The milk frother is starting to make soap bubbles.  I think the seals on the tube are getting old.  It was fine when new.
• It often requires cleaning with specific Jura tablets, regular water filter changing, and the milk system has a special fluid cleaner which they recommend you use every day (if youve used the milk system that day, which we always do!).   Although at home you wouldnt go through nearly as much, the cost of these parts can add up in the office.
• The little catch on the bean container lid is so tiny and flimsy that it broke early on.  A new lid is expensive, and without the catch on the lid the machine constantly reports an error.  We fixed it by putting a small plastic piece in the sensor to fool it!
• There is no way to lock the settings, so you never know whos changed the amount of milk from 5 seconds to 25 seconds.  Permanently changing settings is too easy - just hold down any drink button and then you have to manually stop the flow, at which point it remembers that setting until someone else changes it.
• Some of the text is slightly misleading - the translation to English isnt the greatest.  For example, "fill beans" means youre out of beans, but "grounds empty" means the grounds container is full, and you have to empty it!  Same with "tray empty" (drip tray is full).
• The fake chrome easily wears off most of the parts (cup tray, milk frother, etc).  Unfortunately its just cheap plastic with silver coloured plating.  I would expect real metal for $3.5k.

My personal pursuits are a little less consistent, although becoming more so.  Ive bought a better filter basket, and a new tamper is on the way.  I can easily make coffee as good as the Jura from my Breville and conical burr grinder, at a fraction of the cost.  However, theres more effort involved in getting the water temp, grind, tamp and dose correct.

Hope this helps someone looking at the Jura.  Remember my experiences with it is in the office environment, where it goes through lots of coffee!

ssoberon Im interested in what you mean by this:

after 1 hour on the phone to tech support we came to agree on that the method in which a Super automatic machine makes coffee can never be compared to a manual machine recipe.  In other words, you shouldnt be using a 30ml shot of espresso and topped up with milk for a latte on the Z5.  It has to be more like 80ml.

I found with such large pours, the coffee is as I would expect - watery and burnt!  I keep mine down to 45mL at most.

Thanks all! Hope this helps!