Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

[LindaD]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

A big thank you to Chris for his wonderful advice! And to Luca for providing a fantastic venue! and for making us feel at home.

I have some wonderful coffee that Luca made up for us milk coffee drinkers, and I will report on it when I can use it! (hurry up Thursday!!)  

To the CSs I was with and letting me use their machines (mine is an automatic) and to taste their wares, it was great meeting you and hope to catch up with you again soon!
And a big thank you to David aswell, for posing with me for a piccy and letting us use his room!

- Linda

[needmycoffee]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Hi all!
A big thanks to Chris for the fabulous session on Saturday - finally, some like-minded coffee-heads to learn from (and learn I did!). It was just so great to have some hands-on practice in an environment just built for the purpose. A huge thanks also has to go to Luca - it is always so good to see someone who loves their job and does it with such passion!
All in all, a really good day and well worth the hike to Melbourne! Would be very interested in the March session with the roasters (Ive been inspired!).
Thanks again to all!!

[TC]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Thanks to all who attended for making these two sessions so much fun.

Special thanks to Luca who provided so much support and a well-tuned palate for us all; to Dave for allowing us to use his room and to Veneziano management for having the foresight to build such a great facility.

Next and final session in this batch of BYO espresso machine sessions will be on 17th February (5 spaces presently available)

I am also planning a demo session in March for those who are considering a Hottop or Gene Cafe. This poke and prod session will be limited to 8 participants.

I had a ball and hope to have many more sessions there for CSers .

[Steve_Santoro]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Thanks Chris for such an excellent play session!!

It was very comforting to have your experience and help close at hand while I practiced. From the very start of the session I certainly felt that I was involved in a fantastic learning experience. Thanks also to everyone else in the play group, you all made the session great fun and the time seemed to fly by.

A special thanks to Luca for all of your help and for encouraging me have a go on the La Marzocco. That is one hell of a toy!!!

Thats enough typing for a while, Im off to make another coffee!!

[rowdee]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Chris,

Thanks again for today, it was extremely helpful & I will post again tomorrow once the most important person in my life tastes the results! (Couldnt bring myself to make another coffee this arvo.)

Your expertise, manner and willingness to share were fantastic.

Thanks to Luca as well, it is all about service & you excel!

It was also really good to meet face to face some more CSs.

Went wine tasting on the way home & bought a mixed dozen so my clothes & hands smelt of coffee and my breath of wine, what a combination.

[TC]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Both sessions are now fully booked

We look forward to fun filled CS Saturdays!

Chris

Both sessions have filled and a few have made contact regarding another session. I have in mind Saturday 17th Feb or perhaps sometime in March (to be confirmed)...Drop me a line via PM or email if you think youd like to attend  

Chris

I have confirmed 17th Feb as a date for a further session. It will run if we can get 6 starters....

Chris

[TC]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Krusty- stay tuned ...The big email is coming your way soon!

Chris

[krusty]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

looking forward to saturday all... who else is coming???

Chris, how many beans do we need to bring? i picked up some daterra bourbon on sunday from st ali, and it is coming along nicely! i have 500gm still sealed waiting... is this enough?

I am guessing i need to bring shot glass, milk jug, but do i need cups too?

See you there!

[TC]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Both sessions are now fully booked

We look forward to fun filled CS Saturdays!

Chris

Both sessions have filled and a few have made contact regarding another session. I have in mind Saturday 17th Feb or perhaps sometime in March (to be confirmed)...Drop me a line via PM or email if you think youd like to attend  

Chris

[marcstolk]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Thats it...Im upping the brew temp a good 4 deg on my Sunbeam 6910...

Ive had some nice espressos (when done right) on the Sunbeam but my home roasts are just into 2nd crack.... Some good comparisons from Luca and 2mcm .... look forward to some more testing results .... If I lived in Melbourne I would have joined you all...

[poddy66]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

luca i have a em6910 i found that turning the temp gives a nice full flavourerd taste of the beans i dose the pf basket half tamper then fill pf up then tamper again with a lot of pressure then spin pamper on puck to seal good crema awesome latte i think then thats just my opion!!!!!

beans you choose do make a differance
cheers steven poddy66

[bleugh]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

I can certanly testify as to the usefulness of the course, im a silvia owner! but I do like to play,

if youre into easy coffee, the sunbeam is more reliable and forgiving, resulting in a far better drinkable expresso rate than my machine.

on the whole day I pulled less acceptable shots than the sunbeam, though the one good shot i pulled I did like much better!

with all the advice given on the day, i now know exactly what to look for in getting a good expresso shot, more importantly I know what to taste and, to some extent what all the fuss is about with these 5 figure machines out there :-)

thanks guys, ill keep playing, the third shot I pulled yesterday I could actually drink neat, and Im a latte drinker normally :-)

[JavaB]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Personally, Id stick out all of the craziness of silvia operating at this price point. Id be interested to try out a solis SL90.

Luca and 2mcm

Thanks for the interesting posts re the em.... looks like there are still some issues which gives Ms Silvia the edge in some areas. Will be interested in reading the results after further testing.

Luca,

The SL90 (which I have had) makes a very good espresso- with non pressurised baskets but only after tweaking. Apparently the Europeans like the taste of coffee brewed at a low temp :P. The temperature of the boiler is electronically controlled to better than 1 deg C - which works well but by default is set to 88C. There is a mod on the net to increase it and, after doing the mod the quality improves massively!

The steaming power is awesome.. the moment you turn on the steam the element is turned on and stays on.... lots of dry steam and great microfoam (no weird milk frothing attachment either!). Transition from brewing to steaming and back is quite quick.....

I was very happy with it - except it was toooooooo slow when making multiple coffees - hence the upgrade! ;D

[luca]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Yeah, pretty much what Chris said.

I really, really wanted to like the sunbeam. They seem to have put a lot of effort into R & D, (marketing), replacing the lemons and, most impressively, including a course with their purchase. I also really wanted to hate the silvia to vindicate my decision to sell it ;P

The sunbeam pucks were quite wierd, in that all of them knocked out as quite beautiful looking biscuits regardless of the pour, so it was difficult to get any useful feedback by looking at the pucks.

The sour tinge that I complained about with my very limited experience of the EM6900 was still there. Bumping the temperature up helped a bit, but didnt do all that much. Results were a little better at the highest temperature with a blend that was more suited to low temperatures. I really only got to try half a dozen shots on it, so maybe it performs better with more of a ristretto pour ... but going to a ristretto is a crutch; it makes it easier to produce acceptable shots on any machine. Bottom line; the sunbeam shots were all a little watery and on the sour side. If I owned one, Id bump it up to the highest temperature and use darker roasts with it, but I dont think that its a very capable machine for exploring different coffee flavours.

I didnt have anything to do with sunbeams and milk.

I stopped typing a bit at this point to call up Corey Diamond, who was given an EM6910 for Xmas and has, from memory, been involved in running the sunbeam coffee appreciation courses in Perth. Corey noted that:

*The sunbeams will punish you for using coffee that is too fresh, so its important to let your coffee degas fully. (This means that if you are a new sunbeam owner, you might want to get 1/2kg of fresh stuff, store it sensibly and try it over a few weeks to get a feel for when the optimum time is).

*The stock setting is 88C, so the maximum is 92C. (Wonder how they measured those temperatures?)

*If your coffee is coming through a little off, make sure that your machine is clean. (A nice reminder)

*Check your water quality. (Corey has installed some of the most ridiculous water filtration systems known to mankind, so this is possibly more of an issue for Perthites than Melbournites)

*Corey and I are very critical of espresso machines and should be more generous when comparing $700 machines with $17700 machines ;P

Coreys notes gelled with our experience; the first lot of coffee that we used on the sunbeam was only about a week or so old and probably would have benefitted from a few more days use. The older coffee that we used, which was perhaps more suited to a lower temperature, tasted a little less sour. The FB80 was probably running at more or less 93C at the group and was handling the first coffee quite well, so it makes sense that the sunbeam shots were on the sour side. I wonder if theres some way to boost up the base sunbeam temperature?

It would be interesting to get a silvia, run the pump for a few seconds, stop it and then start again to mimic the sunbeam preinfusion. I did this a few times ages ago with less than desirable results, but it would be worthwhile doing it again.

Personally, Id stick out all of the craziness of silvia operating at this price point. Id be interested to try out a solis SL90.

On the topic of steam, the silvia is a PITA to operate, but when you know what youre doing it steams very well indeed. The silvia shots that I tasted that day were hard won, and there were certainly a few garbage shots there, but the bottom line was that they tasted like the blends they were supposed to taste like.

I hope that weve got some sunbeam owners coming next week. It would be nice to see if we can build on Saturdays experience and report back.

Cheers,

Luca

[TC]

Re: Melbourne Advanced Home Espresso Session

Having had a play with a 6910 on the weekend, I make the following observations:

1. You still have to updose big time. Bench tapping as well as dose and collapse still led to softish pucks. I think Id dose one like a presso if I had one- i.e keep jamming in coffee until no more will fit.
2. We found the stock delivered grouphead temp too low- and bumped it up by 4 deg C...and then got a better shot
3. Steam volume and pressure as shipped still sucks- its not a tenth of that found in the single boiler machines- e.g the Silvia. Texturing a 600ml jug took aaaaaages  :
4. Geez its noisy  

I think if it was my money purchasing a machine for personal use, Id probably still apply the KISS principle and get a Silvia (even though its not possible to texture simultaneously). The Sunbeam will do the job, but I think that in a blind test, a competently operated Silvia would win on shot quality and milk texture. I still believe that the extra spend on a good single boiler machine is justified.

To summarise, Im still a long way from being sold.

2mcm