Thought that this would be fun and informative: Based upon all that you have learned and tried to date, what would be your “end game” (no need for further change) kit? This would be a setup that you can realistically aspire to, as distinct from an “I won the lotto and money is no object” kit. PS Some of us do not know the name, model or acronym of some pieces of kit, or what it's use or purpose is. So it would be great if you could be specific (eg Niche Zero 64mm burr grinder, rather than NZ). Grinder(s), espresso machine(s), basket(s), tamper(S), other key accessories? And yes, you can have 2 grinders and a pump and a lever machine. :) What (of that) end game set up do you have now? What are you planning to acquire next?

Evo, Duo, V60 and Clever Dripper > @"JHCCoffee"#p52869 What are you planning to acquire next? On the contrary! Always wondered if I should have kept it simple - just filter. I do think some time I should sell the Evo. 😁

@"LMSC"#p52876 - Believe me... I've done that once in the past... Not because I wanted to, but I was getting a lot of grief from the one who doesn't drink coffee in the household... I regretted ever since! LOL

@"MediumRoastSteam"#p52878 My family happily drinks the coffee from the Evo and the filter. I don’t see them using the machine (Evo) as they do not as of now. I won’t be surprised if the Evo would mostly be a machine for the week end and when guests / friends are at home. Apart from these, I do not want to, as you say, regret after selling it off. It will cost me at least £3.5K to get a like-for-like replacement. 😊 Thx, though!

Having had various machines/grinders over the yrs what I have now seriously gets the job done for exactly what I like/expect and no doubt will last the rest of my usable lifetime. -Rancilio Silvia Pro (will replace water lines as I do that with pretty much any machine after 3 yrs or so use and will swap out the stock brew pump for an Ulka heavy duty 2/1 duty cycle so I can push extractions upwards of 90 seconds... -Cimbali Jr. electric beast with 'traditional' 64 mm burrs it simply does a great job and has been in use for 17 yrs now without a flinch... use it when I need to crank out espresso back to back in a short period of time... -Helor 106 as I consider it to be as good as a grinder can/needs to be and use it the majority of the time... will replace the ceramic shaft bearings with sealed hybrid ceramics just to minimize cleaning as often... -Basket is an old school Rancilio 40-100-103 as it's the best overall basket of any I've used on any machine. Of course they don't make them anymore and nearly impossible to find that exact basket. Hope it will last as long as I do... -Tamper/station is a Joe Frex palm/level tamp with adjustable depth and weighs 2.5 lbs... setup with matching tamp station, both are simply superb... -Ohaus STX Scout very high quality digital scale -Cafelat Classic knockbox (round) and seriously built to last -Hand built roasting setup that never lets me down and prevents me from ever having to buy ANY commercial roasted garbage floating around for ridiculous prices... This setup has long paid for itself and aside from typical cleaning/preventive maintenance should be the last bit of 'kit' I'll ever need to buy. For several yrs now my main focus is green selection and dialing each batch in to match my setup to give me the taste/texture I seek. Chasing equipment and all the FOMO items constantly discussed is a waste of time/money from my perspective, but to each their own. Some tend to think something better can be had year after year, but IMBHO once you get to a decent point with equipment you're not really gonna find better, just different. Some will clearly chase that magic dragon indefinitely and most end up chasing their tail in the process and never totally satisfied with the end result. Maybe they should work more on their skill/technique than simply spending for little to nothing gained.

Money no issues I'd love a keeps can der western leva. Only a dual lever but a show piece. Grinder wise I'm very happy with what I have but would also love a kafatec flat, they do seem to be very well built, I'm not into the bling that is the Titus chrome stuff.

I look at owners of exotic cars, and far from it making me want one, I just presume he is a \*\*\*\*\*\* with a little willie

@"dfk41"#p52895 Glad we have the word filter!

If by end game, is meant kit that one can be happy for keeps with within ones reasonable budget estimates, then i already have my end game kit except I would like to have a good 98mm grinder for light roasts like the monolith flat Max with prebreaker or a Titus nautilus or as a cheaper option maybe the new option o 102mm grinder. I cannot stomach currently the astronomical cost of auch a grinder though and so am hoping for a df98 to eventually come along at a far lower price point. For the office machine, I wouldnt mind a replacement for the e61 but again the cost of a replacement machine and grinder combo are too much for the moment. Sometimes especially for cars, people will say if I had no limit as to funds my dream car would be a mclaren etc but really, even uf we were to be gifted such a car, it wouldn't fit our actual day to day needs or we won't be able to afford to run and maintain it anyway. So any end game discussions has to still take into account our actual economic level as well as real life needs and preferences, and the same applies for coffee gear as well.

@"dfk41"#p52895 I look at exotic and collectable cars and think "I am thankful that there are some folks with enough money and taste for these beautiful things to be built". To be sure, there are a lot of people driving them who don't impress but the beauty of the engineering and styling should not be associated with them.

@"Amberale"#p52926 Ha! Luckily, there are always two sides to a coin!

What's Your End Game Kit

delta76

Cuprajake i see. I was looking for nouva simonelli. Essential same machine but the eureka is probably older?

dfk41

delta76 They are all basically the same thing. There is a version 3 out now which is expensive and has speed control. The choices are Clima Pro which I think is mainly VA but may be wrong, or One which is the original. The link Jake posted is the original version whether Eureka, Simonelli or Victoria Arduino. Obviously the older the machine the cheaper they will be. The Clima Pro or 2 is probably 750 to 1000. A lot of machines are dumped by Matthew Algie or M & S. M & S coffee shops rent 3 at a time. 2 for use and one for spares. I have had several of these spare ones with 100 shots on the counter. A lot of the ones on Ebay are from folks who buy job lots of things and have no idea what they have. The one Jake posted, I asked him to confirm the shot count and he had no idea what I was talking about. For me, the original is the best one. I had a brand new Clima Pro that I could not wait to get rid of but different ships, different captains

DavecUK

dfk41 All the same thing. Eureka made the original, then Simonelli and VA re-badge them and sell them

Well to be precise Nuova Simonelli own Eureka and VA. Have done for a very long time.

Rob666

delta76 As dfk41 says, all fundamentally the same. I’d go for a Eureka just because it’s the original but i wouldn’t say no to any of them. A Clima would be nice but not really necessary for home use.

Doram

JonWoo187 I will gladly say that once a decent level of equipment is setup it’s far more about the skill involved using it as well as the coffee and water. Those chasing the equipment upgrade pipe dream year after year should realize the most important variable is changing by the hour, focus more on the coffee itself and the rest will fall into place.

Another way of saying this is that some look at spending as a shortcut (or alternative) to gaining skill. It usually doesn’t work.

Rob666

It’s the same problems as hi-fi. It’s hard to get decent results with the entry level kit. It also takes time to learn the difference between so-so and good. Above a certain threshold there are two paths. That threshold is decent repeatable coffee/sound easily achieved with some learned skills. Once you go beyond that, in hi-fi terms a lot of people stop really listening to the music and only really listen to the equipment. In coffee, much the same applies. Unless you are genuinely a super taster, and there are precious few of those, it’s down to aesthetics. I.e there are a few people chasing the ultimate taste but in most cases it’s more about the gear.

Verion

Rob666 this is I can agree with.

My uncle fixes electronics for a living. Usually hi-fi equipment.

He ended up at a Russian’s house. 100% an oligarch. The issue was a £400,000 turntable that wasn’t working properly. My uncle looked at it and fixed the issue. The customer was very happy.

My uncle then asked the question about whether the guy thought the music he was hearing in his (incredibly expensive) set up was worth what he paid for it. The response was simply ‘For the price I paid… it better be!’

My uncle still believes to this day that the guy wasted huge swaths of money on the setup and a significantly cheaper but well balanced one would have sounded the same.

chlorox

BrendaninBrooklyn
I don’t have any experience or knowledge of what chefs in top restaurants but a few articles show that what kind of knives leading chefs use really depends on the chef concerned. On one hand there are those happy to use 25 gbp ones while others prefer 300 gbp top of the line factory knives while yet others even use knives made by hand forgers like the Middleton brand.

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/knife-used-in-michelin-starred-chefs-kitchens
Py8vp8gdrink/dining/gallery/best-chef-knives-recommended-by-chefs-2900494/nancy-silverton-friedr-bread-knife/

So in a way chefs seem to reflect how home based amateur baristas are like - many prefer budget but quality gear that deliver a certain minimum ywt high standard while others prefer more esoteric and high end gear made to more exacting tolerances. Both believe their gear help them achieve their results.

To me, the lesson of that is - use whatever gear u want to use and if u find great results wirh it, then keep using it with joy.

Rob666

Verion a significantly cheaper but well balanced one would have sounded the same.

Or better!

JonWoo187

Verion No doubt the mind is a powerful thing and the placebo effect is seriously misplaced at times. Some in life clearly have more $ than common/practical sense. If a turntable such as that was in front of me I could laugh and smash it with a baseball bat and not think twice. Having lost all hearing permanently 5 yrs ago HiFi means absolutely nothing, bwahaha… Would be priceless to see others cry over doing that sort of thing though!

Loonster

My endgame kit will be a Vostok 1 with a DF83V2 grinder…. it will also be my first. Buy once, cry once. Or at least to attempt to.

If HIFI ever taught me anything, I will need to log off after it arrives. No more YouTube videos about coffee. Never to look at or ~~listen~~ taste the results of another machine…

Yeah it’s a fool’s errand. I’m already looking at roasters.

edit: “Endgame kit” is already changing. Decided to cancel my DF order and get a Duo. Well that lasted about 4 hours, but technically its still a “Buy Once, Cry Once” because I should get a full refund…. yeah, we will go with that.

Verion

If I look at my end game, i think it’s a 64 flat burr to replace my Niche as I drink more light and medium roasts to go with my Minima.

I really like my Niche, but there’s something very interesting about the Lagom that I can’t put my finger on. Perhaps it’s the plethora of burrs that you can’t get with a conical burr grinder on a single dose slanted hunk of metal… maybe it’s just upgraditis…

Cuprajake

That’s a wierd feeling to have lol

That aside

If you have the money then why not,

If I had an unlimited income I would have a bigger house, nicer car, cinema room, and wouldn’t have a bianca on my counter.

Don’t forget part of the experience is using and the looks of the machine too.

JonWoo187

Cuprajake Wouldn’t consider it weird as we all have varying experience, expectations, etc. I just find it hilarious at times at what some will spend on various things. Would say my point is you can spend all you want, but some things in life can’t be bought, like my hearing being recovered. No amount of money can offset that FWIW. Not to mention that spending more doesn’t guarantee better, just more along the lines of being perceived as better.

On the coffee side of things, what I can consistently produce at home with roasting and espresso far exceeds anything I’ve bought from any place in the past. Never been in a single shop that was worth a repeat visit and don’t miss buying roasted coffee at all and for years I did buy from the higher respected commercial artisan roasters in the U.S…. Didn’t have to spend a buttload in the process either with my setup. No doubt some feel the need to spend more thinking they will have better, but just not the case for most parts of life. Of course to each their own, but I have figured out ways to maximize any item I own as life is too short to constantly 2nd guess every decision you make.

chlorox

JonWoo187
Yes, we need to just enjoy what we have been blessed with and be grateful and thankful for what we have…

Dusk

I kind of wonder if I had all the money in the world I might have a Vostok but also a Sage Bambino next to it. The Bambino to get a good enough coffee out asap and then the Vostok to take my time a bit!

delta76

Now i have chance to buy a mythos 1 with ssp hu burr (used obviously, 50kg though the ssp, TiN burr still available ) with almost same price with a new DF83 v2. No warranty on both. Any word of advice?

dfk41

delta76 Everyone should own a Mythos at some point. Single dosing versus hopper fed. You can mod them but am not a fan of that. Mythos is more or less indestructible and I would have one tomorrow!

pjw

dfk41

Agree. Mythos and Niche Zero. And then pick your profile. On demand vs single dosing, flat vs conical. Later price is the only limit:things like Titus Nautilus, EK43 or boutique grinders that soon will be selling flats with burrs over 100 mm.

I would also add Hedone Honne, if someone wants to check the DRM burr set.

MattH

I think I am lucky in that I love the look of the micra - its my first machine - and I dont see any need to move on from it.

I dont know enough yet about what I truely like in terms of coffee - so now its just exploring and trying out - but safe in the knowledge I have a consistent easy to use machine behind my attempts.

I am enjoying the allgrind grinder - though maybe I would like to try a dedicated single doser maybe in the future. I am keeping an eye on the new mazzer - the hand grinder was a lovely object which though expensive I dont regret buying last year 👍

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