MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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I know the default answer is “DeLonghi Magnifica”, but I’m not really willing to drop several hundred quid on something that’ll only get used once or twice a day. And will take up a disproportionate area of worktop space. And I’m not THAT fussed about fancy coffee that I can be doing with all the grinding from beans and so on. So it’s going to have to be a machine that uses ready-ground (and occasionally pods.) Does anyone have any experiences, good or bad, of the DeLonghi Dedica? If that’s a non-starter, is there anything else worth considering around the same price-point under £200?
Bialetti stove top £20
Pour over cone and a kettle.
Aeropress. Nice and small and only requires a little arm strength (not much at that)
i asked myself the same question after my delonghi mach9ine died, ( was looking at a sage barista) and after getting a £20 bean grinder, £15 stove top pot and £10 milk frother jug, decided I didnt need a machine after all and actually enjoy the process of coffee making this way (takes all of 5 minutes) and haven't sacrificed flavour or worktop space!
I wouldn't spend that much on a machine for pods or pre-ground. I would, instead, buy a smaller pod Nespresso and a stovetop or aeropress for when you want to use grouunds. Could easily get both for less than £100 and save worktop space in the process
Edit:
£54 - Nespresso machine +100 pods
£18 - Bialetti Stovetop
Job jobbed.
Depends what kind of coffee you're after, but for ease of use and reliability, any half-decent filter machine will be grand. It does mean no espresso-style drinks though.
To my taste, all the 'home' espresso methods are a bit meh. It really is dependent on your taste though so please don't let anyone tell you what is right or wrong.
Thanks so far. Perhaps the bit I forgot to mention was it'd mostly be milky coffees - latte and/or cappuccino, and occasionally hot choc. And 'simplicity' otherwise can'tbearsed-itis would set in. Hence the milk spout contraption is a bit of a given, which probably rather discounts the stove-top approach.
I have a Delonghi Cafe Corsa ESAM2800
It broke 1 month out of warranty, *******!
Ive gone back to a Bialetti Stove top, and an Aeropress.
OP - just get a second-hand (older, with brass internals) Gaggia Classic and be done with it. If you just want milky coffees you could easily get away with just buying ground coffee too (just be sure to get the stuff for espresso machines) so you wouldn't take up too much space with a grinder as well.
EDIT: Here's one that's had the wand upgrade too (which makes much nicer, creamier milk once you have got the hang of it).
Don't forget to buy ethically sourced local artisanal organic ground coffee.
Don’t forget to buy ethically sourced local artisanal organic ground coffee.
Or just get the very decent stuff from Aldi.
My wife loves her Delonghi Icona. It’s small and makes espressos or longer black coffees. It has a milk frother for occasional cappuccinos.
£200 at Currys at the moment.
You can actually make a really good espresso/milk drink with a Dedica, but you have to swap out the pressurised basket and get a decent grinder capable of going fine enough. I went with an MBK Feld47 hand grinder as all the decent electric grinders are quite pricy.
You can make a pretty passable coffee with pre ground and the pressurised basket but it's not reeeeally espresso.
Standard STW answer would be Gaggia Classic (with mods) which would be good but s/h prices have gone a bit nuts since lockdown.
OK, thanks all - especially Mr grum for the confirmation that they do, fundamentally, work fine. I don't claim to be any sort of aficionado, and wouldn't probably be able to tell the difference between Columbian, Peruvian or Kenyan. But I promise to learn, and will try & support the independents once we've worked out what we like. Might not be artisanal, mind, cos I'm not sure I know what that means.
The Sage machines are well reviewed, and they do some small ones that don't take up much of a footprint (Bambino?) - some of them have an auto-steaming function too. Their grinders too - well regarded and small footprint.
it’d mostly be milky coffees – latte and/or cappuccino, and occasionally hot choc. And ‘simplicity’ otherwise can’tbearsed-itis would set in.
A dolce gusto pod machine will do that with ease, the coffee is a bit crap by comparison with Nespresso but for Milky drinks it's a very simple easy solution and, if you just want a nice drink as distinct from a good one, it ticks your boxes I think, as well as being way under budget.
If you want great coffee you need a good setup not pods but whilst a proper machine is nice you need to faff to get the best from them and they rapidly get expensive it's perfectly possible to make crap coffee with a 2k setup and awesome beans if you're slap dash in your approach.
For 1 or 2 cups a day I would just go with a pure Nespresso machine, the ones with milk frothers can be pricey though so might be better getting a separate device for that
Delonghi magnifica owner here. Nearly 8 yrs old And has done about 8K coffees. It cost not much over £200 on amazon and has been consistent and bangs out milky coffees without fuss. We buy beans in 1k bags (they’re fine) and the coffees great. Saves a fortune on costa visits and I dread all the waste from 8K nespresso pots!
Reconditioned Gaggia classic is over 10 years old, delonghi cheap electric burr grinder was about 30 quid, needed a wee mod to get the burrs closer for a tighter grind, and Aldi italian beans.
The likes of that JJPrestige bloke would have a minceflouncemeltdown at the very thought, but it works for me!
If you really don't want faff, I'd recommend Nespresso. I've just got a Vertuo for the office. Yes, you're restricted to genuine pods, but they always have offers on - just got 50 original pods and an Essenza Mini machine for the caravan (you can but 3rd party for the original) for £59.
The Vertuo reads the pods for the correct amount of water. I have milk in some of my coffees, but not fussed about a frother. This is a Bianco Forte (meant to have milk). Took less than a minute to make, the pod is sat in the collection tray in back of the machine ready to be recycled and that's it. I've got some nice caramel cookie and vanilla custard pods as well as various strength normal coffees, long and short
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This is a Bianco Forte (meant to have milk).
It's that "black" then?
A dolce gusto pod machine will do that with ease
Just realised I keep getting this wrong, I mean a Tassimo (and have repeatedly referred to one as the other over a few threads). I think they're likely similar for Milky things, in terms of some things being self contained single pods with milk and others needing a separate milk pod but not sure. The Tassimo certainly does some things like hot chocolate from a single pod.
It’s that “black” then?
Each capsule makes 230ml of coffee and recommends you add 50ml of cold milk then the coffee, thus creating a Reverso Intenso. Unlike the other Vertuo capsules, they don’t state an intensity as these were made to blend with milk. You get quite a lot of natural crema on top with the bold coffee.
That's not got milk in it yet? You need a bigger glass, you'll barely fit half a tin of Fussel's in that one.
You can get biodegradable Nespresso-compatible pods with decent specialty coffee inside these days. The waste of the official/disposable ones is kind of sickening IMHO.
You get quite a lot of natural crema on top with the bold coffee.
I'm not sure if that's natural or crema tbh!
Aeropress. Aldi ground coffee.
That’s not got milk in it yet? You need a bigger glass, you’ll barely fit half a tin of Fussel’s in that one.
It's got as much milk as I want in it. No idea what fussels is
Which is the Delonghi Magnifica in question? There seems to be a quite a few different models?
Since lockdown/furghlough I've been using my Gaggia Classic 2 to 3 times a day. It has a bottomless portafilter and sometimes I get the grind and tamp spot on, but mostly it spurts around all over the place. The single basket takes 3/4 of the quantity of coffee that the double takes, and easily moves round to 5 o clock when tightening. The double basket is a struggle to get to 6 o clock. I've lost enthusiasm for it, I'm getting lazy, and it makes a mess everywhere. Pod machines are starting to look attractive.
edit: it has the pressure mod to take it down from 15 to (what is it?) 10? and it has the steam wand mod.
My original reference at the top of this thread to 'Magnifica' was a bit generic, I suspect I half remembered another thread where such a beast was mentioned, and just trotted it out without realising there are a number of variations and models. Someone with one should be able to help on the ins & outs of the different ones.
Am happy to say that the Dedica we went for does everything we need so far, but it's not overly fancy and certainly ain't going to turn me into Barista Lawman.
resurrecting an oldie..
During one of my adhoc cleaning sessions on my Melitta E957, I appear to have broken it, its stuck thinking there is an airlock and is not going into brewing mode, I’ve had it apart and cant find a blockage, so I’m going to assume the electronics have freaked out whilst cleaning it. This is quite frankly a catastrophe.. Given that it’s the best part of 7 years old ill let it off, it gets used a lot but I need to replace URGENTLY as the family doesn’t function particularly well without coffee in the morning (Italian wife)..
So.. Whilst the Melitta was a good machine I’m looking at new options – Tither Delonghi ESAM4200 as you can pick them up for a good price, or the Gaggia Brera, not so good money. Has anyone used either of these and have nay views on them?
1 really good thing about the Melitta, is that it had a 2 shot/cup option which actually meant you’d press it and you’d get two fresh grinds automatically - do either of the Delonghi’s or Gaggia have this option?
Cheers all.
My magnifica has a 1 cup or 2 cup button
Then twin nozzles so you can be a caffeine tweeker or make 2 cups simultaneously
Typical. Like all 'which coffee machine threads' all you get is a summary of all the options which you already knew. In my mind i've distilled it down to three general categories with a very loose scoring system:-
single button press options (Nespresso, bean to cup etc). Very good cup of coffee. Not the 'best ever', but generally very good and more than acceptable. 0% effort, 90% result.
Filter methods (including aeropress and stove top hobbies). more effort. nice coffee, but not as strong tasting as they don't produce an espresso shot (assuming you want an espresso shot based coffee). alot of clean up afterwards. 50% effort 80% result.
Manual and semi manual options - super expensive machines with more knobs and controls than you know what to do with. The instructions are like a PHD thesis. More of a hobby than a cup of decent coffee. Can produce the best results IF and only IF you put in the time and effort needed to optimise all the settings for every cup of coffee you ever make. 100% effort..potentially 100% result if not 0% result...but can you be arsed?
Other than that just buy a coffee or drink instant. Life is too short and coffee is not that important. In the interests of full disclosure i've got a DeLonghi bean to cup, but have messed around with various filter options, manual espresso machines, stove top options and aeropress. By no means an expert, just an average general bod who likes a half decent coffee without too much fuss. DeLonghi bean to cup is the sweet spot for a decent coffee with very little fuss and effort and at a decent price.
As a bit of a PSA Aldi have stove top Espresso makers that work on induction hobs for a tenner!
coffee is not that important
Post reported to the mods!
😉