Seattle Coffee Gear: Blog

Brew Tip: Some Like it Hot

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Temperature, temperature, temperature. For truly great espresso, there is a fine balance between too hot and not hot enough -- and maintaining the temperature from portafilter to lips is very important. Oh yes, yes it is.

The first step is to let your machine warm up all the way; often, folks think that as soon as the light goes out (generally around 1 - 2 minutes after turning it on), the machine is ready to rock. Not so! In fact, all that means is that the machine has reached ideal boiler temperature, but all of the other parts of the machine have not, so if you pull espresso right at that time, the water is going to cool significantly as it travels through colder apparatus to reach your cup. Depending on your machine, we recommend waiting anywhere from 10 - 30 minutes to allow your machine to reach an even heat.

Next step is to pull some water through the system to warm up the brew head, the portafilter and -- if it's a heat exchange -- the copper tubing that pulls water from the reservoir to the brew group. Let it run through and fully warm up all the metal components.

Finally, make sure you're pulling into a preheated cup; you can easily preheat by using the cup as the container to catch the water you just pulled through the brew group, or you can keep your cups on top of your espresso machine and let them toast as your machine warms up.

Do you have any tips on how you maintain ideal temperature for your espresso extractions? Drop us a comment here if there's something we didn't cover that you think is essential.

Comparing Espresso Machines

With so many different kinds of espresso machines on the market, researching which is the best for you can sometimes feel like popping open a big ol' can of worms. Superautomatic or semi-automatic? Single boiler, heat exchange or double boiler? Is the E61 brew group really that great?

Our goal here at Seattle Coffee Gear is to provide as complete of a picture as we can about as many machines as possible. We read through user reviews to develop general pros and cons, have our techs test out the machines, experiment with different grinders to see how they perform with different machines and, ultimately, drink way more coffee than we should. All of this informs our YouTube videos, the writing we do here, our product descriptions and -- one of the best resources we have -- our Side by Side Compare tool.

If you're just learning about espresso machines and aren't sure what will meet your needs and budget, this tool is a great place to start. We've organized the different machine classes by price range and compared their performance against each other, so you can see technical facts like how hot they brew or which type of pump they have and more subjective assessments such as the ease of use or quality of shot.

We're constantly updating and adding machines to these pages, so definitely check them out if you're in the market for a machine.

Green Machine

We're all more conscientious these days about our environmental footprint -- what we do every day and how that impacts the world around us -- and our pocketbook. What started as a random inquiry every now and again eventually developed into a dull roar...people wanted to trade in their machines on new ones, and they wanted to find a way to keep their fully intact machine out of a landfill.

So we developed our Trade-in and Recycling Program to fill this need: Basically, we'll take a look at your current espresso machine or grinder and determine if has any resale value. If it does, we'll give you a store credit, then we'll clean up your old machine and find a new home for it. If the machine isn't worth refurbishing, however, we will break it down into all of its components, reuse any parts that are still good and then recycle most of the rest.

If you're interested in the program, just contact us and let us know the make, model, age and condition of your machine. We'll get back to you with a rough estimate and tell you how to deliver your machine to us. From there, we'll give it a final assessment and let you know the exact amount of your credit -- then you can choose a new, upgraded model!

Tune It Up, Little Darling

We're all looking for ways to stretch our loot a little further these days. Keeping your home espresso machine in excellent condition means you can enjoy high quality espresso for years to come at a significantly reduced cost than what you'd pay at a local cafe.

To that end, our techs offer a Tune Up service for both superautomatic and semi-automatic espresso machines. This is a popular service that we wanted to share with more people around the country (yes, you can ship your machine to us for this service) and so we asked Gail to describe how this service works, what we do, etc.

For those of you not into watching videos or if you'd like to contact us about having your machine tuned up, we have full detail on the service and a contact form here.

The Grind - March 2009

Our monthly newsletter, The Grind, shipped out today! Covering a special St. Patrick's Day recipe (Paddy's Mint Latte), a synopsis of the heat exchange vs. double boiler debate, a compendium of the YouTube videos that we have posted in the last month and tips on removable brew group maintenance, March's edition is chock full o' fun facts.

It also features a special March Grind Special -- 10% off orders over $99, good through 3/31/09. Check it out!

Heat Exchange vs. Double Boiler

We admit it, we're guilty. We thought that size did matter with regard to boilers on a semi-automatic espresso machine -- namely, that two boilers was better than one. The hierarchy in our mind was:

1. Single Boiler: From the Saeco Aroma to the Rancilio Silvia, the single boiler is a great little semi-automatic espresso machine that requires special attention to boiler temperature so that you're brewing well below the steaming temp and not burning your espresso. With a single boiler, you're not able to brew and steam at the same time -- we recommend steaming first, then brewing.


2. Heat Exchange: Instead of pulling your brewing and steaming water from the same vat, per se, heat exchangers like the Rocket Giotto Premium Plus or Quick Mill Andreja Premium transports fresh water from the reservoir through the boiler via a copper tube that is specifically designed in length and girth to heat the passing water to the optimum brewing temperature, not the steaming temperature. We are talking about a nearly 40F degree difference, so this improved temperature regulation significantly upgrades the espresso shot quality. This functionality also allows for simultaneous brew and steam.


3. Double Boiler: Only a few models on the market, such as the La Spaziale Mini Vivaldi or Izzo Alex Duetto, feature absolutely separate boilers for steaming and brewing, which allows you to maintain disparate temperatures and brewing and steaming at the same time. You can generally program your preferred brew boiler temperature on these machines and, in the home espresso machine space, they generally feature a quicker recovery time than their heat exchange counterparts.

So, based on those assessments, you'd understand why we were confused by the more is better idea -- that maintaining temperature is significantly easier when you've got two separate boilers doing their own thing.

However, in our recent research and education around the new line of commercial Faema machines we're now carrying, we learned that our hierarchical view was incorrect -- in fact, Italians haven't been using double boiler technology for decades, believing that the heat exchange technology provides for significantly improved espresso due to one major reason: It's alive!

Boiler water is considered 'dead' water because it's sitting in a little metal unit cooking away. Over time, this results in a significantly increased alkaline content in the water (ah yes, that lovely scale we keep talking about so much) and a mineral imbalance in extraction. Basically, the flavor's different.

Since heat exchange machines are continuously cycling fresh water through their siphoning system, they have an improved mineral balance and cannot become stale like the water in the double boilers might. So the flavor is significantly better and, therefore, preferred by connoisseurs the world over.

If you're in the market for a 'prosumer' machine, this is definitely important information for you to mull over. Not only is the footprint smaller on a heat exchange machine vs. a double boiler, but it just might pull a better shot.

New! Ascaso Brew Head Upgrade Kit

Love your Ascaso Basic, Dream, Arc or UNO Special Edition espresso machine but wish that it produced a better shot? Well, we did, too -- so we talked with Ascaso and asked them about creating an upgrade kit! While the original screen and water delivery works well for E.S.E. pods, its concentrated-stream functionality just doesn't properly moisten ground coffee to the level required for a great extraction, so the upgrade kit includes an improved screen that showers water more evenly across the coffee.

 The resulting espresso is rich, creamy and has a thicker crema -- as good as any shot you'd pull from a Rancilio Silvia. This easy-to-install upgrade is essential, we think, but especially so if you dig using ground coffee in your Ascaso.

Brew Tip: Temperature Surfing on the Rancilio Silvia

While single boiler machines are extremely cost effective, they do suffer from wide temperature fluctuations which can result in poorly extracted espresso. As such, the technique for 'temperature surfing' was developed by home espresso enthusiasts and you can watch as Gail goes through the process on a Rancilio Silvia. This technique can be applied to any single boiler machine -- such as the Saeco Aroma, Ascaso Basic or Dream and any of the Gaggia semi-automatic espresso machines.

Cleancaf or Dezcal?

Lime, calcium and other trace minerals exist in nearly every water supply, leaving behind white scaly deposits when the water has evaporated. Removing this scale on a regular basis is an essential component of any coffee maker or espresso machine maintenance regimen -- even if you have 'soft' water, there will be trace amounts left over time that can build-up and hinder your machine's performance.

Some folks suggest using filtered or distilled water from the get-go, so that you don't risk pitting your boiler through repetitive use of the acid required to remove scale. That's certainly one tack to take, but we've found that we prefer the taste of espresso made with water that has some mineral content to it. Because of that, we descale our machines about every three months to ensure that no deposits build up and ultimately burn out the boiler.

If you prefer minerals in your java as we do, there are a couple of products on the market that will help you keep your espresso machine or coffee maker in tip-top shape: Cleancaf or Dezcal. Which is better? Again, it depends on your preferences.

Billed as a cleaner and descaler, Cleancaf combines descaling acid with a detergent that will also break down the oils left behind by coffee beans. It also features a blue dye that helps with thorough rinsing.

Dezcal, on the other hand, is a straight-up descaler -- and an incredibly powerful one at that. While it doesn't have a detergent component, it's a much stronger product and removes more scale; also, it doesn't have a blue dye, which we think is a good thing.

Of the two, we recommend Dezcal over Cleancaf, but we carry both of them so you can determine which product is right for you.

Ask the Experts: What's the Difference Between Pressurized and Non-Pressurized Filter Baskets?

We sell several semi-automatic espresso machines (such as the Saeco Aroma or Magic, any of the Ascasos or DeLonghis and the Solis SL70 or SL90) that feature a pressurized portafilter basket. This is a major functional difference from other machines, like the Rancilio Silvia, Gaggia Baby Classic or Rocket Giotto semi-automatic espresso machines, which have non-pressurized baskets similar to commercial-grade machines. In the photo to the right, you can see the physical difference between a non-pressurized basket (on the left) and a pressurized basket (on the right).

OK, so they look different -- but what do they do that's different? Well, we think it's all about forgiveness.