Crew Review: Behmor Brazen Brew
There is time for meekness and there is time for boldness; a time for sweetness and a time for sassiness (admittedly, we have difficulty telling these times apart). And then there are times when one should be simply brazen.
If you’re Joe Behm, the creator of the incredibly popular Behmor home roaster, you’ve been working hard on brazenness for the past couple of years. With a goal of creating the most accurate drip coffee maker available, he has developed this new brewer that features temperature control, pre-infusion, brew time and even altitude adjustments. You can use it with the included thermal carafe, or manually to easily craft a pour over at a flat line brew temperature. Plus, its simple interface was so much so, Gail didn’t even take a look at the manual before brewing her first pot!
Watch Gail take us through the features of the new Brazen brewer, then test it out by brewing up a batch o’ java.
New Product Round-Up!
Yeee-haw. We wanted to take a moment to let you know about a slew of new goodies we’ve added over the last few weeks.
Quick Mill QM67 Dual Boiler
A double boiler for under $2k? Quick Mill’s latest model features the E61 brew head, separate boilers for simultaneous steaming and brewing, an integrated PID for controlling the brew boiler temp and a simple case design. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to a prosumer-class machine but your budget hasn’t allowed it, the QM67 is definitely worthy of your consideration.
Bonavita Variable Temperature Gooseneck Kettle
We did a crew review of this featuring the engineer, Brian, a few months back, but the kettles themselves finally hit the market at the end of August! Select a specific temp and the kettle will heat until it reaches it, then hold it at that temp as well. With the curved gooseneck, it’s an excellent option for precision pour over preparation (say that three times fast!).
Refurbished Jura Superautomatics
If you’re a fan of Jura’s superautos — or want to be — you can pick up a factory refurbished model at an awesome discount! We’ve added three new models to our refurb line-up: The space-conscious ENA 5, the ultra sleek J6 and the straight-forward C9 One-Touch.
Saeco Tune-Up Kits
Love your Saeco semi-automatic? Keep it tuned up and in excellent working order with one of our three new parts kits. These include everything you need for a regular cleansing of your Aroma, Sirena or Via Venezia, plus instructions on how to get the job done.
Crew Review: Jura Impressa F50
An oldie but a goodie!
Jura has reintroduced their popular Impressa F50 superautomatic espresso machine, which features a simplified interface and easy-to-use functionality.
Watch Gail discuss its features and demonstrate how it works.
New! SCG Parts Kits
Since we launched our new website with a selection of external-only parts, we’ve been hard at work building out kits that include parts and instructions for common espresso machine repairs. First to be released are the Tune Up kits for the Ascaso Dream and Rancilio Silvia. We also brought back the ever popular Rancilio Silvia Steam Wand Upgrade Kit for V1 and V2 machines.
The new Tune Up kits include all the parts you’ll need to refresh gaskets, seals, brew head screens and descale your machine — a process we recommend following every six months or so. We’re also including step-by-step instructions to guide you through the process.
The Steam Wand retrofit is a bit more complicated, as you do need to get inside your Silvia in order to upgrade the machine’s steam manifold and install a new steam knob. While we don’t provide specific written instructions for this, we did produce a demonstration video a few years ago that will walk you through the process.
Before picking up any of these kits, definitely read through the instructions (Ascaso Dream | Rancilio Silvia) or watch the video to confirm that you understand what you’re getting yourself into! Personally, we’ve always been able to get things apart … it’s the putting them back together again that’s the challenge.
Crew Review: Saeco Royal Professional One-Touch
In a world filled with reboot mania, can we really handle yet another? If that reboot is centered on the Royal Professional, then we can answer, quite heartily, YES!
Saeco has taken their popular superautomatic, dressed it up a little bit and implemented one-touch cappuccino functionality.
Watch Gail break it down for us — features, functionality and whipping up a one-touch cappuccino.
Crew Review: DeLonghi Coffee Care Kit
Show your DeLonghi superautomatic espresso machine how deeply you care for it by … well, caring for it! Their recently introduced Coffee Care Kit gives you all the goodies you need, specially formulated for your DeLonghi machine.
Watch Gail take us through what’s included in the kit.
Crew Review: Capresso Tea C100 Kettle
In the world of tea kettles, Capresso really gives it all they’ve got. With a variety of options available, you’d be hard pressed not to find one that meets your needs.
Watch Gail walk us through the features and demonstrate the functionality of the Tea C100.
Crew Review: Technivorm K741
Look, we know you’ve been coveting the oft-touted smooth cup of coffee from the Technivorm drip coffee makers, but your cupboards just don’t allow that kind of height, right? Well now you’re in luck with the K741, featuring the awesome cup quality of its larger compatriots, streamlined functionality and a bit shorter overall. Short is beautiful, baby!
Watch Gail show it off in this demonstration video. Then we brew up a batch of Velton’s Twilight Blend — of course.
Crew Review: Nespresso Gran Maestria
The counterpart to the recently reviewed Nespresso Maestria, the Gran Maestria features a new variation of their Aeroccino milk frother (the Aero 4, which offers you the ability to control different types of milk froth and temperatures) and a demitasse cup steamer. Also, it’s built like a B52 bomber!
Watch Gail introduce us to the machine, from box to cup. She talks about its features, how capsule espresso works and then demonstrates making a cappuccino.
Crew Review: Nespresso Maestria
For ease, convenience and cleanliness, there’s really no beating a capsule espresso machine. Sure, you’re not going to achieve the God Shot, but if you’re looking for a great cup of coffee that you can easily make at home — one cup at a time — Nespresso‘s series of machines are definitely worth your consideration.
One of their newer machines, the Maestria, combines their typical espresso extraction technology with one great new feature: A steam wand! We really dig this because, historically speaking, milk frothing on a Nespresso machine was handled either by a stand alone frother (different variations of the Aeroccino) or via a cappuccinatore type system — neither of which gave you much control over the milk foam quality nor temperature.
Watch Gail take us from box to cup — showing us how to set up the Maestria and then making a latte using its steam wand.