Decided to start a little thread, documenting my journey and the vertical learning curve i seam to have been on. Like most, i got furloughed when covid kicked off and got bored so decided to get more into coffee. One thing after another with lots of reading on various forums, YouTube tutorials and what not,i bought a gaggia classic. [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/ATQnfMS.jpeg] Along with that i decided to get a 1zpresso for my grinding as i have a wilfa svart for all my pour overs etc. Well after wasting a good 500g of beans on the gaggia, i decided it wasn't for me, and promptly sold it. Decided on the sage duo temp pro which i was initially going to buy in the first place,quick look and £249 later john lewis delivered my shiney new machine [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/TWUem7I.jpeg] Now as much as i loved the 1zpresso, my shoulder didin't so, that got sold in favour of an eureka mignon from [@Black Cat Coffee](https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/members/16888/) Next up the upgraditus got a hold of me as i wanted a fancy looking machine, and i got a bit of a dark horse off ebay A la macatec elba one, e61 grouphead. [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/Pg6PmPa.jpeg] I had long lusted over a dual boiler, mainly the lelit Elizabeth, with its pre infusion, quick heat up times it really is a fantastic machine, but id also noted the acs minima, another machine along the more traditional looks, and the looks along with the bigger boilers swayed it for me. [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/uxgb5uM.jpeg] So in the never ending revolving door of grinders with me, after having a eureak zenith 65, a niche and another mignon i saw a lightly used 2019 mazzer major on ebay, i added a Daniel wong doserless kit at the time, since gone to a funnel, even added ssp redspeed burrs [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/4P2ynGd.jpeg] I was going to used bottled water, either ashbeck or longhill, but then i spoke to a few in the know and did a bit of digging and settled on using ro water, remineralised with potassium bicarbonate, this will never scale the machine and makes for a tastey espresso to. After only having the minima for a short while a lever machine caught my eye, a 2014 londinium l1 - that was it i was in love, i sold the minima to fund the l1 and that was me set, the londinium moved home with me. [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/NF46adN.jpeg] i had a stunning set of handles turned by nick, they really sent the machine to another level, and i was happy in my own little coffee world, id been toying with med/lighter stuff but always found then too bright, to acidic to my taste, then one day the pressure relief valve blew on the l1, scared me to death, and that set about a refurb of the machine, but id lost all confidence, and decided now we had a bit of equity, that i would buy my first propper new machine, i lusted over the top spec londiniums but at £3500 ish they were just too much. the next machine came from bella barista, a crem one profiler, very capable machine, but arrived faulty, so had to go back, i have an amazing wife who said just get the machine you want, so i did, an lr24 stunner it was too, but sadly again came with issues and i returned the machine, :( after a little search i settled upon the lelit bianca- id always fancied a vesuvius profilong machine, but they too were expensive, so the lelit was the machine of choice, (2months later the ves dropped in price!!) [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/xOGfGUS.jpeg] and there a sat, happy as a pig in mud, the lelit a fabulos machine, quiet rotary pump, flow control, great heat stability, tbh it was almost boring as it just did its job, i still longed for another lever machine, once there in your blood they stick, they just look amazing. and what should pop up but an acs leva…a machine id been quite skeptical about, any lever seems to be quite polarising, just seems to be that way. id heard rumors read stuff saying how the machine was a miss match of parts, no good etc. but they still looked amazing, id followed the machine for a while and at the price it came up, prompted by a life even i thought stuff it! we're here once, get it! and that leads me to now. [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/ErMqxfw.jpeg] its been an up and down journey, ive jumped on fads bought stuff that i totally didnt need, learnt less is definately more, when it comes to coffee, ive noticed that each step ive taken up the ladder, ive inproved my coffee, each machine has been better than the last, starting would i imagined id of spent so much for a coffee - hell no, am i glad i did - yes jake

@"Cuprajake"#p12617 That’s quite a quite a journey Jake! It’s amazing how much you persevered. A classic example for some one to learn and understand what it takes to keep the passion for coffee alive. The best part is your wife firmly supporting so that you get what you desire. Enjoy making coffee with Evo. She offers plenty of possibilities to keep you busy. Hope she stays with you for ever!

Unlike Jake, we mostly stayed pour overs - mainly the Indian filter for a good part of our life with occasional £100-£150 machines. When the last machine died on us in late 2020, we kept moving the goal post from Gaggia to Minima to Evo. The 150 quids to £2500 is indeed a massive upgrade. Sure, she is our end game machine.

Jake’s corner was great reading during the pandemic

Fabulous post @"Cuprajake"#144 most interesting. It's terrific to have that pictorial guide to your journey. Thanks for taking the time to share.

@"Cuprajake"#p12617 Great post, shows the journey for many of us. Some go there in one big jump, others take the longer road, which is probably more fun..

id of saved a small fortune going big first, but i dont think id of learnt or appreciated the subtle changes. ive had some fabulous products half not pictured haha

So with a great machine comes great responsibility 🤣 i mean gadgets and we all love new stuff True to form ive ordered a funnel, doesn't fit, ive ordered a ims basket, and a normcore 58.5mm push tamper, with a plan to machine it down to fit the basket, for a mrs safe tamp🤣 Few internal pic [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/8Yb02jB.jpeg] Then an arty one [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/E2J62vo.jpeg]

Great journey to finally end up where you are today. Best way to learn what you do a don’t like regarding machines and your coffee.

Really enjoyed reading about the journey! That’s quite a few machines! Some very nice looking machines too! I love the turned handles on the first lever machine.

nick didnt, they were a very hard thing to make, had to design and make special mandrels due to the way the londinium handles are made,

My Coffee Journey

DavecUK

Cuprajake I’d class them as light or medium light….took a close up look at the beans, they look like 1st crack was ending as they were dumped. Especially the El Salvador, which was out a little earlier than the others.

Cuprajake

Let this slip.

Bought a tds pen to check the boilers. Started with some high numbers, higher than I though so ran neat to for a while and now I’m back down. Brew was 6tds haha.

Had a few different beans too

Heres the latest

LMSC

Cuprajake Brew was 6tds haha.

I think you use RO topped with potassium bicarbonate? Are you also actually measuring the hardness and alkalinity?

For a moment, I thought you were measuring the temp! 😂

Cuprajake

Yeah I do. Previous owner used something else, so I wanted to make sure nothing was too bad inside.

I’ve actually still not bought anything for measuring alkalinity or general hardness yet. Keep forgetting

LMSC

Cuprajake With the TDS of 6, your general hardness should be a single digit. You only want to know the alkalinity for taste.

Cuprajake

LMSC yeah this was more me cleaning the boiler out with 0tds water just to make sure that the boilers weren’t in bad conditions.

Had I got a high reading after having a few boiler fulls of 0 TDs through then I’d of been wary of scale.

Cuprajake

One annoying thing when I ordered the handles. I’ve now got a £50 charge from DHL for vat, so went online to pay, says invoice closed. Just had a reminder threating debt collector if not paid for in 7 days.

That’s pretty shite

LMSC

Cuprajake 50 quid! Oh dear. Sorry to hear it. Thank god, I did not fall for the handles and stand!

PortafilterProcrastinator

Cuprajake They are an absolute shower. They messed up a couple of bits I got in from ACS and it took both of us writing to them constantly to get it sorted.

Cuprajake

Yeah that was just for the handles

Cuprajake

What really brings me back down to earth in this crazy coffee world is how much coffee can vary

I’ve just made two drinks

Same machine, same setting, same dose, same grind on same grinder(niche) same prep etc

Yet the second shot ran faster than the first

How do we explain this?

When you have companies making special pf, and now concentrate that you drip on to the dry puck for taste..it drives me crazy.

DavecUK

Cuprajake in the olden days the most common comment was why does the second shot always run slower than the first. Invariably that was down to not purging the grinder when you make your first shot. Grinders like the niche zero of course eliminate that as a cause, so it can only be tamping or puck prep to cause the shot to run faster. Or the fact that a puck can just fracture or not in a shot.

LMSC

Cuprajake second shot ran faster than the first

Strange but still happens. I see it here as well but not by a huge margin; it is normally by max 3-4s difference between shots.

I would only put down to three variables

temperature : can 0.3 C - 0.5C make a difference in shot time?
how we release the lever?
small differences in puck prep.

I don’t time my shots except when a new bag of beans is opened.

LMSC

DavecUK puck can just fracture

What causes this Dave? I see this often and even like craters on our larger IMS basket, whose capacity is 21g. This only makes the basket a half full after tamping.

Even 23g load fills the basket only 60-65%. We still get fracture / craters. So, I don’t use the triple basket at all.

Jake, Sorry. Hope it is ok to ask these questions here! :-)

Edit:

I was thinking the grind was on the finer side to cause this as the PI bar pressure is 1.5-2.0

DavecUK

LMSC Coffee is a natural product, it can just happen, same as two pieces of timber will not break at exactly the same load….Once puck fractures and path forms, the shot time can show a large difference. Happened in one of my recent videos on the Compact Solo 38 or SPTK-38 grinder.

Cuprajake

LMSC totally fine it’s only slight as you say. I only noticed as the second shot infused quicker.

I put it down to the human factor, my point was more the fact we obsess over every small detail but all it takes is one less swirl of a wet to change the shot dynamics and that’s not even introducing bean age etc. It’s fascinating really

dutchy101

The amount of issues we have had at work with carriers refusing to clear goods when they have already been paid but they are too (fill in with your own preferred expletive) lazy to check this with their own Accounts Payable departments over the last year is incredible. They insist we pay them again and then reclaim the duplicate payment - complete lunacy which only creates more admin for both us and them. Complete idiots.

MediumRoastSteam

dutchy101 - potentially the system is still in shock - even more than two years since the UK properly left the EU, where those things simply did not exist beforehand. Hopefully now as things pick up again after the pandemic businesses and couriers become more efficient and used to in dealing with cross channel trading specially with regards to small and not so expensive items.

Cuprajake

So I ordered one of the scales like @DavecUK uses.

I’ve looked for yrs to no avail, then Dave posted a link to Amazon.

Here’s a few pics next to the yuaga/Joe Forex scale. They’re the same width

MediumRoastSteam

Cuprajake - cool! Jake, what’s the maximum weight/capacity? Can you put an espresso cup or latte cup, tare it and pull a shot?

DavecUK

MediumRoastSteam absolutely yes, I do it all the time.

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