Sage coffee machine

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Odds said:
Coffee's g00d this morning.
A dash of hazelnut n' cinnamon gives it a twist o' taste.

Wanna know how you can make yours better, not bitter?

"Yeah. Science!"
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I did this with my old grinder but maybe too much water. I'll have to see where I can get one of those sprayers
 
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Bod ... said:
I think a good few of the components are just that bit better than the impress.

I might get that next year to sit on the other side of the kitchen
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Im a bit torn between the Impress and Pro, reviews show both make excellent espresso.

The Impress has a clever way to dose and tamp the puck and produces consistent results with not too much effort.

We need a new kitchen + downstairs shower room + new boiler and I think I might have to do those before justifying a coffee machine, which means a Sage pro is gonna cost me £25k+
 
Notch7 said:
Im a bit torn between the Impress and Pro, reviews show both make excellent espresso.

The Impress has a clever way to dose and tamp the puck and produces consistent results with not too much effort.

We need a new kitchen + downstairs shower room + new boiler and I think I might have to do those before justifying a coffee machine, which means a Sage pro is gonna cost me £25k+
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Your going to need a good coffee to help you get all that lot done.

I rarely buy coffee out now as my coffee I make is far superior than Starbucks or Costa
 
Notch7 said:
Out of interest once dialled in, do you find you could just switch on and use the BE without more fiddling (pon the same bag of beans)
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I've been using a Sage DB for a couple of years now. As I mentioned to just try a different bean on the BE I bought a 2nd grinder - the Sage SGP as getting the grind right on a bean can be painful especially the one I use most of the time.
So BE hopper full of these beans. Getting the dose right is "fun" as the grind time knob is rather course. However I overloaded the basket SLIGHTLY and noticed that this produced a slight impression of the shower screen fixing screw on a used puck. The bean needs a finer than usual grind. That seems to be needed for this to work. I'd keep and eye on the impression and if it showed signs of reducing make a miniscule adjustment to increase the grind time. So small an adjustment it wasn't easy to do but practice etc. This seems to be down to using a very oily bean. This allowed me to produce consistent shots. Just use the machine other than preheating it a bit as I mentioned before pulling the shot. I tasted 3 made on the trot and the first was rather different to the 2nd and the 3rd. When tuning I also used the pressure gauge. It has sectors, The last one just has dashes - over pressure. A very little way into that fine but too much and it went inconsistent.

2nd Sage grinder - always weighed beans in and check weighed to see if the dose was ok. Once settled it was pretty consistent, Some chips of beans settle on top of the burrs. and grinds get compacted in the grind chamber. Once that has happened output held to better than 1/2gm due to the chips that may or may not go in. There are always some there, The grinder just choked up if I used my oily beans. Dark roast monsoon malibar is extremely oily, I didn't try the other method used. Set 2 times on the grinder, check weigh and use the short time to adjust, Lot do this.
Maybe stick with your Mazzer. This is what I did with mine
MazzerAndNiche.jpg
Added a rubber camera lens hood as a puffer and weighed beans in. Added my own twist. I had a bit left over from turning aluminium that fitted and be dropped in on top of the beans. This prevented bean chips shooting all over the place without using a cover. My hands are big enough to create the puff by smartly squashing the lens hood. The weight helps stop the beans from pop corning so more like using as intended with a hopper full of beans providing the weight. So weigh in, fit the weight and run the grinder. Maybe 1 or 2 puffs. Then remove the weight, run a brush over the burrs. Put it back in, run and another puff. What went in comes out. The 2nd stage may add up to 1/2gm. I have a couple of small stick on buffer on the portafilter mount to ensure the heap of grinds in the portafilter is central. That really helps with consistency. Just use a 2 slope leveller and tamp. ;) The leveller helps keep the tamp square. No point in having an electronic version. If they have a grinder that doesn't have a funnel they find something similar and suitable and add it themselves. Some use a dremel on items like this
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Sage and an actual shot timer - apart from the DB not so sure. They all seem to be volumetric. Excess pressure dumps water into the drip tray.

Stepped grinder - the basic idea is trim up the shot with grinds weight, Too little and the puck will be soggy. Too much is a bit trickier. Maybe 1gm or grinds expansion when the get wet may result in 2 coarse a grind. ;) But what matters most is taste. Not some theoretical ideas about shot time and grinds wight to shot weight ratio. I do tend to stick to ~30sec but some do prefer 40. Ratio - I often find 2 to 3 is best generally around the middle.
 
Notch7 said:
Im a bit torn between the Impress and Pro, reviews show both make excellent espresso.

The Impress has a clever way to dose and tamp the puck and produces consistent results with not too much effort.
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At the small portafilter level I think I would be looking at the Bambino Plus and a separate grinder. The Bambino did come with a cheap portafilter and people were buying the BE one which isn't cheap. That seems to have been fixed. There are probably bottomless portafilter available too but none Sage. They give more mug height but Sage are more generous than others anyway. The machine is rather light so may move around when the portafilter is inserted etc. They mention 9 bar brewing. The standard for machines that use a vibration type pump. On the BE as I checked what the gauge actually did I was brewing at 15bar. Result stronger coffee from some weight of grinds and more crema. It should be possible to do the same at 9bar by extending the shot time for the same weight of shot. Stating 9bar suggests that excess pressure isn't dumped to the drip tray as it is on the others, No way of knowing without owning one. :) But found a strip down video
It recirculated over pressure water so none goes to the drip tray. Usual thoughtful Sage approach - there is one on the steam circuit in case it gets blocked. They manufacture domestic products and take far more care with a number of things than some makers do. How well does the flow meter work to control the shot. It could work well on the BE. This one - need to find out really but with this type of arrangement shot time varies to maintain the shot weight. The meters aren't accurate but once a setting is found they tend to be consistent - providing the grids preparation is fairly consistent,

One other feature is mentioned - hot water out of the steam wand. Brilliant way of descaling it. When steam is being produced scale is always produced. This aspect might not find it's way into the manual. As a hot water source though - very dubious. If a kettle is being used it's not a good idea to put very hot water into a shot of coffee. It drives off flavour. Ideally it needs to be at ~85C max.

The autotamp on some. I've heard more on Oracles. Any member of the family can push a button and make a drink down to problems. Those may be need a dismantle and clean. Hard to say. More capable machine owners mention lack of flexibility compared with the usual methods. I have to pass on this one really but do wonder. Nobody comments on machines that are working only ones that have failed. The initial Oracles were not calibrated and that caused people to try all sorts of tinkering messing things up even more. This may be a "feature" when and if the whole grinder tamping set up needs a clean. Pass. Also some tinker with the setting of this part and run into problems. Why did they tinker - pass.

Sage are cute on grinders. All use the same burrs and general internal set up. Just the adjustment mechanism changes. Some machines use the Smart Grinder Pro internals. Digital time display and knob. The time adjustment on the BE is rather coarse. Usable though. Number of steps - tricky. The BE has settings suitable for espresso. The SGP has them for all brewing methods so has a lot more. Maybe the SGP has a bit finer step but to be honest I am not that sure.

There is wide choice of grinder at higher prices. The SGP really does take some beating in it's price range. Niche is a different animal purely intended for weighing beans in and the same coming out. Very easy to adjust. From new they may produce rather fierce coffee but a couple of Kg of beans mostly sorts that out. This is typical of any grinder that uses commercial burrs. There are other options but on balance the Niche is hard to beat. Some people need more than 1 kg of beans to get the hang of using an espresso machine. Maybe more. They need to get the dose of grinds and the grinder settings sorted and expect things to be as simple as they see in coffee shops where some one will have sorted this out. They usually use volumetric machines as well.
 
ajohn said:
I would be looking at the Bambino Plus and a separate grinder.
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That's what I have, great machine. I can't help wondering if some are overthinking a cup of coffee though. There is a youtube one with a guy making the "perfect" coffee in a Bambino Plus. Must have taken him at least 30 minutes to make one.
 
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