I thought I’d make a quick thread of the fun I’ve had over the years with coffee. It’s not been massively interesting, but Nether the less…

It started in 2010 when I purchased a stock 2006 Classic and MDF grinder on ebay. The machines served me well for well over 12 years through 2 house moves and it even came with me for a 2 year over seas assignment to Ascension Island! Over the times the usual maintenance was undertaken but also upgrades to baskets, steam wand, thermostats, screen, OPV and brass dispersion plate (which in reality wasn’t an upgrade until I drilled further holes and tapered the holes to stop water jetting).

I was happy for most of the 10 years until I stumbled upon the UK coffee forums 🤣, where I learnt about temperature stability, temp surfing, weighing, etc etc. Needless to say I had an itch that needed scratching. I had thoughts of upgrading to machines like the Sage Oracle but through research I moved in a different direction.

I think I mastered the gaggia and wondered about PID vs upgrade. Would the classic be my “forever machine”. I didn’t think so and so didn’t go down that route.

In the 10 years, I got half decent with late art:

And so the first upgrade was to move on from the MDF to the NZ. A great upgrade and haven’t looked back since. However, I was getting with the inconsistencies resulting from poor temp control. Fast forward another year and I was fortunate enough to have received a bonus from work which opened up the possibility of upgrades. I was drawn to the ACS leva and was ever so close to saying yes to the machine that @Cuprajake purchased a month or so back. So that door had closed and I was slightly short in funds to purchase new from Paolo.

Needless to say, Jake had his Bianca to move on from his upgrade and that presented me with a slightly different opportunity which I couldn’t pass on! So now here I am:

It has been a small learning curve with the e61 group and have done my first maintenance and lube session which I know will become second nature over time.

My focus now is Puck prep (which is average with the use of a pointed bamboo skewer to WDT in the niche cup and again the the basket, tap on the counter before tamping) but am getting some decent results.

I have been playing the flow profiling and apologies for the length of the video prior to anything happening, the first few examples have been low flow to 2 bar before ramping up to either 6 or 9 bar before a tail down. The two below are my current decaf

I have since loosened the grind ever so slightly which has opened out more flavours (from watching an old barista hussle video on dialing in)

Note, the cups are 4oz and 6oz cups, the angle of the vids make them look like absolute bowls!

Anyways that’s enough for now… I’m sure there is more to come!