They do! We really like the 10 cup stainless steel carafe and the removable water tank, which fills very easily. I would buy it again if I had to do it over.
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That’s the thing. With my rate of drinking coffee I’d finish that pack in a week, so 18 dollars a week, and 18/21 per cup. That’s almost a dollar!
I buy a kilograms of fresh beans for around 25 euro, and that comes down to around 10-12 cent per cup of espresso. And then I can choose between the dozens and dozens of espresso beans available, versus the few choices you have with Nespresso.
I bought my espresso set up a decade ago for around 1200 euro in total (new appliances). If I were to sell them today I’d probably still get half of that.
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How long does a kg last you?
I have an Illy X1 Anniversary Iperespresso machine that does a good, maybe not great, job for me. I also purchased two RECAPS steel re-usable capsules that I fill with my own brands of ground coffee.
I switch back and forth between store ground coffees and Illy Iperespresso capsules, so I spend around $18 every 10-12 days for 21 Illy capsules when I use them or around $7 every two weeks on coffee beans I grind at the grocery store. (I usually only buy a third of a pound at a time because I don’t drink it fast enough to keep it from going stale.) So I am not spending a lot on coffee at this point.
I have tried different brands of coffee (currently working through different beans/roasts from a DC brand called Swing’s), changed up the grinds and tamped the coffee lightly or firmly but I can not get the RECAPS to work consistently. One of the problems is that the beans I buy are usually only so-so and the RECAPS capsules are kind of dodgy. They work well half the time but they frequently leak water around the capsule top and into the coffee cup, diluting the espresso badly. It is good most of the time, just not great.
My ex-GF has an older Illy machine and her espressos are usually outstanding, but it isn’t an Iperespresso. Her family is Italian and she grew up with an espresso machine in constant use. If I can get my espressos to be as consistently as good as hers I will be ecstatic. Until then I will probably use the Iperespresso capsules at least half the time.
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Usually 3-4 weeks.
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For some reason the design is quite familiar and I like it. Iconic.
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Can anyone give some tips on pour over? What are you using, grind, ratios, techniques?
Medium grind. Isn’t a pour over pretty much the same as drip but you control the water flow ?
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Thanks. I’m seeing medium grind as well…like a course sand. As for the technique…it looks to depend on the type of pour over device being used. I’m just in the research stage so only know what I’ve read and watched online. The basics all about the same…grind the proper ratio, wet the paper, add coffee, bloom, pour.
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I use a Chemex, and my grind is just a little coarser than medium. (On my 1-40 Baratza Encore, it’s 22.) My brew ratio is 1:16, but you can do anything from 1:15 to 1:18.
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Reading and digestion your message!! Thanks so much!
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I use a Sette to grind beans and a Cafelat Robot to pull shots. When I need to steam milk, I have the cheapest Breville (Bambino) just for that task and run distilled water, so I never need to descale it. It’s a relatively low cost, no maintenance setup for quite excellent coffee.
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I made my first pour over last night. I clearly need to make the grind more course.
Are you going by brewing time or the actual taste? As long as it tastes fine, I would recommend not to chase drawdown time. Also, if you are really trying to dial in, be aware bed depth can determine grind size. As you put more grounds in your cone, you can grind slightly coarser to maintain the same resistance.
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Wow, thanks. Yeah you’re right I based it solely on brew time. I anticipated 20 oz in ~3 minutes (40g of coffee) but it took double that. 🫤
I’m pretty confused to tell the truth. The coffee is described as floral and citrusy and didn’t think the flavor was too bad. However I think I tasted some sourness which usually points to under extraction. 😵💫 So I wonder if that flavor isn’t by design. My gut says no but I don’t really know what I’m doing. When grinding this coffee for espresso it definitely is sweet.
So any advice is welcome. What’s the expected sweet spot for time with 20 oz (@40g of coffee)?
Is this with a Chemex?
No, Stagg XF.
ETA: I just used a significantly more course grind and hit the time of 3 min for 20 oz @40g. Again the flavor isn’t bad at all, but I changed coffees so it invalidates the previous carafe.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the note of sourness observed is just a natural part of the flavor profile of that particular coffee. We were once gifted a pound of craft coffee that stated it had hints of sour plum, among other nuances. Not the best for coffee drinkers who use cream in coffee - I thought my half and half had gone off, and got up to check! Then I re-read the description of the coffee.
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Is that 20oz by weight or volume? Either way that ratio seems way too concentrated to me. Try 35g coffee for a roughly 1:17 ratio. But every now and then I’ll end up with a coffee that brews best at 1:14, so there are no hard and fast rules.
Since you tried a different coffee, changing the grind to coarse might not mean anything. Different coffee beans and roasts, combined with the output quality of your grinder at different grind settings, produce more or less “fines”. These fines clog your filter and can significantly slow down your brew time. Personally I would keep going finer with the grind size, until you feel it’s getting noticeably worse, than back up a bit. It’s really boring brewing the same coffee beans 30 days in a row, changing just one variable each day. However, it’s a one time investment and then you can rely on your gained intuition the rest of your life.
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Sorry, I meant 20 fluid ounces. Thank you so much for the tips and advice.
After four months the espresso is finally consistent and tasty. But my latte art still consists pretty munch of clouds and sometimes fog. 
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