Its friday, and the summer weather has dropped by again for a day or two, so its a very welcome 30C or thereabouts which saw us end the working week in a swimming pool. blue skies and bright sunshine are a rare event in london, so you have to take them when they appear or before you know it you are wearing woollens again
Not only that but today our pre-production prototype was completed and so next week testing begins in earnest and we settle the cosmetic details like the profile of the wooden handles
Then at some point in the not too distant future we sign it all off and production commences
It is likely that the base model will be released for sale prior to the glass sided model, but lets see how things shake out
This leaves us in the calm before the storm that will inevitably break next week, so I have bought a De Longhi bean to cup/fully automatic espresso machine home for the weekend
I feel we have not yet given the De Longhi machines much air time since they arrived, but this is something we will address going forward
Sure, they don’t give an espresso with a super thick syrupy mouthfeel feel, but they come right to the edge of that zone if you make some basic adjustments to your De Longhi bean to cup machine when you get it out of the box. First up, set the machine to ‘extra strong’ and adjust the water temperature to the ‘hot’ setting
Then all that remains is to gradually set the grinder finer until you get close to an extraction time of 25 seconds
Two tips as you do this, (i) when setting the grinder to a finer setting only do this when the grinder is in motion otherwise the grounds between the burrs may jam the burrs together, (ii) after making an adjustment to the grinder allow probably 4 drinks to be prepared before the full effect of the adjustment can be seen on the extraction time – a common mistake is to make an adjustment, time the next espresso which appears to be running just as fast as before you made the adjustment, so you adjust it some more, check again, its running a little slower but still not slow enough so you set the grinder finer still, then a couple of shots later the full effect of your finer grind arrives and it is so fine that the machine is unable to pump water through the puck and you get an error and you have to back the grinder off to a coarser setting and start again
So, make an adjustment then run at least 4 shots to ensure you can see the full impact of the change you have made before adjusting the grinder further
If you make the simple adjustments outlined above and are willing to pay a little more for gourmet coffee roasted for espresso, the De Longhi bean to cup/fully automatic espresso machine will make you better espresso than you get in 8/10 cafes
The barista crew will always poo-poo bean to cup espresso machines as they feel threatened by them. This is unnecessary as a good barista with a good commercial espresso machine will beat a fully automatic espresso machine, but it misses the point, its about having the right tool for the job. A vast and increasing number of people want to enjoy espresso at home, or serve espresso to their clients
In the work environment you are there to work, not ponce around making coffee – it is a pleasant supplement to the business process, but it shouldn’t intrude in any way. In the home environment a large number of people who want to enjoy good espresso do not want to get involved in the process, for a variety of reasons, but especially if you have a crowd of people to entertain and just need to roll the espressos out in a hurry. In both of these situations a DeLonghi bean to cup espresso machine is the perfect solution; I personally guarantee it