After furiously researching espresso machines for a while, I ended up with the Gaggia Espresso. Fairly basic, stable and high quality - I'm very happy. Yeah, it's not as pretty as I would have liked. And as you can plainly see, it's not red. But sometimes function should go before fashion, I suppose.
Now I just need to perfect my technique. And possibly, upgrade my grinder. We got a small grinder as a wedding present, and while it makes excellent coffee for my regular drip brewer, it's not very good at espresso grinding. Anyone has a good - but reasonably priced - grinder to recommend?
And if anyone has a Gaggia Perfect Crema Device - that little rubber disc thingie - I need one! It seems really hard to find here, for some reason. And since I don't have a perfect grinder, I have a feeling that device would be quite helpful. Cheating, maybe, but who cares?
On a side note - Anthony Bourdain is in town!!
8 comments:
We have a Krups grinder. This one. Now there are some new models around so now I'm not sure, but about a year ago when we bought this one this was by far the best you could get for your money, since this one is a real grinder and not just knifes. And for us it matched our Krups espresso/coffee machine :-)
Lucky you. I am seriously jealous.
Hi Anne,
that's funny, I've researched a lot as well about espresso machines in the last months, and have not yet decided which one will end up living in my kitchen, but, good news: so I can provide some helpful links. There is one in english: http://www.home-barista.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=324&highlight=grinder and, in case you can read german, a very lively forum here, with a special section called "Mühlen": http://www.kaffee-board.de/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi
They've even startet a "kaffeewiki": http://www.kaffeewiki.de
Short summary: The german forum recommends as well -- besides those three talked about in the english forum -- a grinder called "demoka" (www.demoka.com, then: "molinos"), which has no ground coffee storage tank and hence is a bit smaller.
and generally: congratulations and always lots of tasty espressi, capucchini, ... :-)
Cool! Is Tony doing a Sweden episode? If you spot him, do make sure to fawn all over him for me (and if appropriate, throw in a good shot of alcohol!)
Oh, take your camera with you when you're out. Getting a shot of Tony would be awesome. No (overt) stalking, though, Anne.
for coffegrinder I think you should byuy this one -> http://www.adesso.se/konsument/mm.html
It's gaggia and it matchs your machine. The price is about 1000 SEK and you can buy it at ex. Verner & Verner in sweden.
And for the crema stuff. I don't really think the super-crema-thingy is cheating, its more like stupid. :) The coffe won't taste better with it and that is what matters.
Thanks for all your recommendations! Daniel, that's the one we're leaning towards. Some reviews say it's not quite good enough - but frankly, I'm sure it'll be good enough for me. And it does match. :)
I did find a perfect crema disc - wow, it sure works. Silly, yeah, but.. oh well. At least I have one. If I ever want to have "perfect crema". :)
Yes, apparently Tony is doing a whole episode on Sweden! (The show isn't even on here, so someone else will have to tell me if it was good!) He was also cooking at a restaurant Wednesday night.. which I found out about too late. *sigh*
I have been using a Gaggia Expresso for about 10 years. I love it. I tried to replace the perfect crema disk, but the design has changes and the new ones do not fit my filter handle.
You can get good crema by grinding the coffee finer and tamping it harder. It makes it brew more slowly; but that can also make for bitter (and sometimes) burned coffee.
I do have a recommendation for a good coffee grinder. The Gaggia MDF is a low priced, but very good coffee grinder and a doser, as well.
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