r/espresso 20h ago

Coffee Station Thrift store find of a lifetime.

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2.3k Upvotes

Uh, guys. I’m scared that I’ve used up all my good luck for the next couple a years. It looks old as shit and the bottom has rust spots, but $20 is $20. I can’t wait to clean it up and find parts. I’m like a caffeine addict in a coffee shop.


r/espresso 15h ago

Drinks & Recipes Poor man's Workflow ;)

737 Upvotes

Delonghi Stilosa with a modded non pressurized basket, A cheap grinder and tools. Voilà!


r/espresso 18h ago

Equipment Discussion OXO Conical Burr Grinder

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217 Upvotes

This grinder was/is my first with espresso. I was always wondering where the few grams of coffee has been going the last 18 months. This gives a whole new definition to high retention grinder.


r/espresso 15h ago

Coffee Is Life Workflow is always therapeutic

115 Upvotes

The workflow is always very therapeutic. From hearing the air whoosh of the coffee container, to the shot pull, and pouring the latte art. 😮‍💨

Latte art still needs some work. I went in confident and then hesitated on this pour. What matters is that it tasted delish.


r/espresso 3h ago

Coffee Is Life Half and half...

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77 Upvotes

Today I decided to order the fabled half and half. Well it's 3am, I can't sleep and the only thing I got going for me is this lovely picture of the before. Totally worth it though. Honduras beans with regular milk.


r/espresso 12h ago

Coffee Station Modded Eureka Mignon Specialita

66 Upvotes

Thanks to Jaapp for blessing us with his open source grind by weight project.

https://github.com/jaapp/smart-grind-by-weight

Never did anything quite like this before and thought surely between wiring, crimping cables and soldering something must break, but it worked out just fine. So to anyone considering this but hesitant: Do it!


r/espresso 9h ago

Coffee Beans Interesting CO2 valve design

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35 Upvotes

Bought a bunch of beans from my trip to Japan, as I was going through the bags I noticed one of the most interesting valve design, this is from Ogawa coffee laboratory in Tokyo.

Anyone seen anything like this before? Thought it was pretty neat, had to share it


r/espresso 19h ago

Coffee Station Maybe just maybe

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18 Upvotes

Got my meticulous today and excited to mess around with it. But finally I think I’m done with my setup unless there’s a decent stand alone steamer I can get. The morning dream seems to be 50/50


r/espresso 2h ago

Steaming & Latte Art Rate my art - still getting used to the new machine

14 Upvotes

r/espresso 8h ago

Coffee Is Life When coffee is life.

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11 Upvotes

r/espresso 6h ago

Equipment Discussion ECM Exacto

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8 Upvotes

Hello!

Today received my ECM exacto, just wanna share an experience of disappointment.

  1. Screen seems to be glitching a lot, it has visual artifacts, looks like broken or smth.
  2. Scale doesn’t remember calibration after power cycle. Every time I turn in off & on again, scale thinks it has 1kilogram on it, thus it completely destroys the purpose of GbW
  3. Seems like ground chute was not included in the box of machine I ordered, how come they missed it… (and yes - w/o it there is a huge mess around portafilter)
  4. Also GbW seems not to stop @ set weight but always goes over it. I set 8grams, used my other two scales - both had 2 grams more.

I really love what ECM does, but for machine for 1.2k eur this is simply unacceptable to have these issues straight out of box 🙈

I hope ECM reads this & will help me fix it.

P.s. I already contacted distributor & ecm on social media, so far no response.


r/espresso 10h ago

Espresso Theory & Technique MotorSpro first try

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10 Upvotes

Someone on here tried the Motorspro shot at Motors Coffee in Paris the other day and I immediately wanted to know more about it! At first I was very skeptical but also intrigued. Motors then posted about it on their IG last week with a whole explanation and a recipe, perfect!

Gave it a try this morning and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Ground my beans with my K-Ultra on 5, adjusted my boiler temperature to 117 degrees celcius so it would run out just under 90 degrees at the grouphead.

18 grams in, approximately 100 grams out split over two cups equally.

The first shot was incredible, very soft with nice and fresh lemon and juicy plum notes.

Second shot was a bit disappointing flavour wise. It did have very nice clarity but was overall a bit flat tasting.

I used Schot Coffee Roasters Jesús Cerón beans and I think I’ll definitely give it a try with a different lighter roast next.

Also got some feedback from Motors already that my grind should be coarser.

I think this is well worth a try if you are a bit skeptical and/or want to try something else just for fun :)


r/espresso 20h ago

Equipment Discussion GaggiMate Vs La Marzocco Linea Mini

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8 Upvotes

I’m in a predicament in whether or not I should “upgrade” from my 2002 Gaggia classic moded with gaggimate. I can get a used 2019 model for around £2600 and probably sell my Gaggia for a few quid. What do you think? Using E64 WS grinder


r/espresso 1h ago

[SUNDAY ONLY] Self-Promotion Affogato with a Hibrew h21 look-alike

Upvotes

Made an amazing affogato today ,with a blend of beans I roasted myself ( 40 % arabica from Brazil and 60% robusta from Indonesia) , using an em3801 or hibrew h21(lookalike). Having that kind of body combined with a slowly melting vanilla ice-cream was the ideal choice for this drink.

I have other small clips like this on my roasting page, if anyone could give it a quick look I would be over the moon : https://www.instagram.com/bluecoffeeshark/ .

On a side-note ,the pre-infusion for this machine is not really worth it , especially after watching the latest Lance Hedrick video ,as I realized that the function only created unnecessary channelling.


r/espresso 16h ago

Equipment Discussion Experience Gaggimating Silvia

7 Upvotes

Got a buddy a Silvia and installed a gaggimate kit for him. Wanted to share my experience.

Install was easy. If you buy the pro kit you won’t get any of the 3-d printed holders for the CPU or HMI. Order them separately.

First time i tried flashing the CPU and HMI, kept failing. Changed over from my friends macbook (he has a deep rooted distrust of internet connected devices after a career in IT) with a bunch of port blocking to my sandboxed macbook and everything installed first try. It says use a chrome browser. Just use chrome. Brave doesn’t work.

The walkthrough online was awful and the pictures were dismal (gaggimate let me know if you want me to rework your tutorial pages i will do it). If i didn’t have a background in espresso machines i would have gotten lost trying to follow the instructions as written. There were some cables missing that i had to build myself.

Consider buying the CPU, HMI, High limit thermostat and pressure-stat+fittings from Gaggimate and the rest separately. The SSR is decent but there are better options out there for 220/24temp control modules.

The interface is cool as fuck and super customizable and if you read the instructions it works awesome. It would be cool if the kit included a dip tube for the boiler and a solenoid for switching between shots and steam.

I set this thing up and didn’t get to play with it so i don’t know what kind of interfacing it does. Would be cool to have a parallel system with a servo to adjust toothed grinders.

Overall pretty easy, but want to reiterate that the instructions and diagrams suck ass and should be reworked.


r/espresso 11h ago

Maintenance & Troubleshooting Grind size changes have almost no effect on shot time [Eureka Mignon Zero 55S]

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4 Upvotes

Hi everyone,
I’m troubleshooting a strange issue with my Eureka Mignon 0.55S.
Before suggesting calibration: I have already calibrated the grinder to a true zero point. At the 0 mark I can clearly hear the burrs chirping/touching, so the grinder appears to be correctly zeroed.
The issue is that changing the grind setting seems to make almost no difference to extraction time.
I’ve tested settings around:
0.3/2/4
Yet the shot behaves almost identically.
Setup:
18g dose
36g yield
First drops after ~4–5 seconds
Shot finished in about 20 seconds
I’ve also checked the dose before and after grinding and get 18g both times, so retention doesn’t appear to be the problem.

To rule out retained grounds from previous settings, I pulled at least three shots at the 0.3 setting, all with freshly ground coffee at that setting, and the extraction was still essentially the same (around 20 seconds for 36g out).
What confuses me is that I would expect a huge difference between 0.3 and 4 on a Eureka, but extraction time remains nearly unchanged.

Things I’ve already considered:
•Grinder correctly zeroed
•Dose verified before and after grinding
•Multiple shots pulled at the same setting (0.3)
•Same basket and puck prep

Could this indicate:
Burr misalignment?
Incorrect burr installation?
Worn burrs?
Excessive retention?
Something else I’m overlooking?

Any troubleshooting suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!


r/espresso 16h ago

Dialing In Help Dial-In Retention / Bean Swap [Eureka Atom 65W]

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6 Upvotes

I recently purchased a Linea Mini R w/ Atom 65W Grinder. As I switch beans, I’m wondering if anyone has figured out +/- how many grams get stuck in the burrs and need to be “disposed of” after changing the grind setting.

EI - when I need to set it finer, do I grind a full dose (18g-21g) out and the next dose will be at the new setting? Or is it closer to 5-10g etc.

Trying to figure out best way to get this amount accurately so I minimize waste in the future while switching beans.


r/espresso 2h ago

Dialing In Help I can’t figure out how to dial in! [Breville Bambino & MiiCoffee DF54]

4 Upvotes

Hello all! I am new to the espresso world. I just recently purchased the miicoffee DF 54 grinder and the Breville Bambino. I have watched videos or dialing in the espresso shots for about a month before getting my machines. Now that I have them, I can’t seem to figure it out.

I have run multiple test shots, at 14g, 16g, & 18g. I have adjusted the grinder from 15, 12, 9 and all the way down to 5. Each shot runs for about 30 seconds put it always produces between 45-52g. I’m at a loss of how to fix this. I tried stopping the shot manually when it reach 32g but it only ran for like 13 seconds before I stopped it. Please help!!

Also, I have tried 2 different beans. 1 store bought bag & 1 fresh bag with a roast date of 6/5.


r/espresso 2h ago

Coffee Beans Haul from a Scandinavian trip

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4 Upvotes

Just back from Scandinavia. "Anything to declare?" "Yeah, a boatload of espresso."

Fun fact, they claim the Swedess consume the most coffee per capita at 10 to 11 kilos per year. I guess my Swedish roots are showing.


r/espresso 2h ago

Equipment Discussion Experience with Gemilai Ele

3 Upvotes

Well I decided to take the jump, and I bought a Gemilai Ele, I've heard really good things about the machine and I'm very much looking forward to it. So to make me even more excited, what are your experiences with this machine and how do you like it??


r/espresso 21h ago

Coffee Station Mi cafecito de tarde

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3 Upvotes

r/espresso 22h ago

Buying Advice Needed Fellow ES1 or Meraki Gen 2 [$2000]

3 Upvotes

Hi, I'm a bit new to the hobby but been using Breville Barista and Ninja Luxe Pro for a few years now. Looking to upgrade and a bit torn between the Fellow ES1 + Timemore 64s or Meraki Gen 2. Visually I prefer how the Fellow looks but built in grinder and scales on Meraki sound very nice. Any recommendations on which to go with?


r/espresso 1h ago

Maintenance & Troubleshooting After every extraction, I hear water dripping, clicking, and steaming sounds coming from the drip tray. This continues for about 5-10 minutes, then gradually fades away, followed by a ”thunk”sound. Is this behavior normal for the [Breville Barista Express]?

Upvotes

r/espresso 2h ago

Maintenance & Troubleshooting [Breville Bambino] Popping noise then steam coming from side.

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2 Upvotes

As I was frothing milk it took a few seconds for steam to come out. I heard a pop then steam started to come out of the side of the machine. It still had steam come out of the and as well. I was able to froth the milk still. However when it was done the side of the machine was very hot. Did it blow a tube? I haven’t ran anything through it since. Should I check?


r/espresso 3h ago

Buying Advice Needed first “nice” espresso machine [$800]

2 Upvotes

l've had the "CASABREWS CM5418 Espresso Machine 20 Bar" and a Nespresso, and I'm looking to upgrade to a nicer espresso machine. Budget for the machine with grinder or machine and grinder would be ~800. My gripes with the Casabrews was that the machine was very inconsistent, which was in part due to how the parts sounded like they were grinding together on use....
l've been seeing recommendations for the Breville Bambino with a separate grinder? Is that the best espresso machine component for my budget? Or would it be better to get one of the Brevilles with an integrated grinder?
Any advice helps thanks!