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While it is true that a $4000 espresso machine will not get good results with a $20 blade grinder from the hardware store, I think you do see diminishing return

While it is true that a $4000 espresso machine will not get good results with a $20 blade grinder from the hardware store, I think you do see diminishing returns going above $1000 for burr grinders. On the other hand, spending more on the espresso machine can get you way more dials and knobs to tweak. Temperature and pressure profiling and all that. This may not matter if you prefer medium or dark roasted coffee, but light and Nordic roasts really benefit from the extra control over temperature and pressure. With a fancy machine you can do these very long, lower pressure extractions with higher brew ratios to extract a finicky light roast which would otherwise require an impossibly fine grind that chokes a standard 9 bar machine.

bch 3y ago
> With a fancy machine you can do these very long, lower pressure extractions with higher brew ratios to extract a finicky light roast which would otherwise require[…] Or a simple machine, like a (direct-)lever[0], which is an operator controlling a piston pushing water. [0] like a La Pavoni, or Cremina - this video is of a europicolla owner who I think embodies well the joy that can be had matching a machine like this to the right person https://youtu.be/1BGB2i4Bu58 https://youtu.be/1BGB2i4Bu58
- chongli 3y ago
  My next machine is going to be a lever machine for sure! Though I will say that a direct lever machine is the ultimate tradeoff of control over precision/repeatability. Spring levers give you a ton of control with more precision because you're retarding the lever to subtract from the maximum pressure of the spring rather than modulating your muscle power in real time. Unfortunately, what the simple lever machines give you in terms of pressure control, they take away in temperature control. Getting accurate, repeatable temperature shots from a La Pavoni is a bit of a black art, and the group can easily overheat, requiring you to cool it down before making coffee. Even in the case of lever machines, you get more control if you spend more money. Take a high-end lever machine like the ACS Vesuvius Evo Levo [1]. This machine has an 11-bar dual spring group (which you can back off to your heart's content by retarding the lever) and a pump to provide selectable preinfusion between 1.5 and 5 bar. It also has 3 independently controlled (PID) heaters: 1 in the coffee boiler, 1 in the steam/service boiler, and 1 in the group itself. This allows you to do temperature profiling by, for example, setting a higher temperature in the group than in the coffee boiler, which will cause the slightly cooler water from the boiler to bring down the temperature of the group during the extraction. [1] https://www.elcor.it/en/vesuvius-evo-leva-en/ https://www.elcor.it/en/vesuvius-evo-leva-en/
  - bch 3y ago
    > My next machine is going to be a lever machine for sure! Nice - I've been a Cremina operator for the last few years, thoroughly enjoy it. > Spring levers give you a ton of control with more precision [...] At the expense of feedback. And to be fair and clear, most of my experience is with a direct lever, and I like it, but I'd happily have a spring lever too if I had the space. To move things away from strictly hard-tech and measurement though, all this is also so experiential that I'm happy to keep things low-tech and manual, to degrees. My morning coffee routine is fantastically quiet for example: this doesn't (directly) affect the quality of the coffee, but I sure appreciate the experience. And the experience of being in charge of the pressure at the puck - a different way of being involved where I'm interacting with the differences in grind settings, or one bean/roast vs another... Good luck in your lever-machine quest!
    - chongli 3y ago
      I totally appreciate the low tech approach. I think my dream machine is an Elektra MCAL! Do you use a manual grinder as well? I’ve never used one but they seem rather clumsy to me. Maybe one of those old fashioned ones that mount firmly to the table and have a big brass crank and brass hardware with a wood case!
      - bch 3y ago
        > Do you use a manual grinder as well? I have, in my life - I associate them with pour-overs (V60, Chemex) for myself. In my espresso setup, I have an electric variable-speed single-dose conical burr unit. It’s naturally fairly quiet, and I run it at ~30rpm so about all I hear is bean crushing/grinding.
        chongli 3y ago
        That sounds pretty nice! I have a Niche Zero and it's fairly unobtrusive, but still somewhat loud. At least it doesn't have any high frequency noise though.
roflyear 3y ago
> I think you do see diminishing returns going above $1000 for burr grinders. This is absolutely correct: the best "value" is a $200-300 hand grinder. Anything more than that you're adding quality of life (mostly), and sometimes even taking away from quality of coffee while increasing price. Of course, hand grinders are generally pretty annoying to use for all your coffee needs. They are great but it's also great to use something electric.

bch 3y ago

> With a fancy machine you can do these very long, lower pressure extractions with higher brew ratios to extract a finicky light roast which would otherwise require[…] Or a simple machine, like a (direct-)lever[0], which is an operator controlling a piston pushing water. [0] like a La Pavoni, or Cremina - this video is of a europicolla owner who I think embodies well the joy that can be had matching a machine like this to the right person https://youtu.be/1BGB2i4Bu58 https://youtu.be/1BGB2i4Bu58

chongli 3y ago
My next machine is going to be a lever machine for sure! Though I will say that a direct lever machine is the ultimate tradeoff of control over precision/repeatability. Spring levers give you a ton of control with more precision because you're retarding the lever to subtract from the maximum pressure of the spring rather than modulating your muscle power in real time. Unfortunately, what the simple lever machines give you in terms of pressure control, they take away in temperature control. Getting accurate, repeatable temperature shots from a La Pavoni is a bit of a black art, and the group can easily overheat, requiring you to cool it down before making coffee. Even in the case of lever machines, you get more control if you spend more money. Take a high-end lever machine like the ACS Vesuvius Evo Levo [1]. This machine has an 11-bar dual spring group (which you can back off to your heart's content by retarding the lever) and a pump to provide selectable preinfusion between 1.5 and 5 bar. It also has 3 independently controlled (PID) heaters: 1 in the coffee boiler, 1 in the steam/service boiler, and 1 in the group itself. This allows you to do temperature profiling by, for example, setting a higher temperature in the group than in the coffee boiler, which will cause the slightly cooler water from the boiler to bring down the temperature of the group during the extraction. [1] https://www.elcor.it/en/vesuvius-evo-leva-en/ https://www.elcor.it/en/vesuvius-evo-leva-en/
- bch 3y ago
  > My next machine is going to be a lever machine for sure! Nice - I've been a Cremina operator for the last few years, thoroughly enjoy it. > Spring levers give you a ton of control with more precision [...] At the expense of feedback. And to be fair and clear, most of my experience is with a direct lever, and I like it, but I'd happily have a spring lever too if I had the space. To move things away from strictly hard-tech and measurement though, all this is also so experiential that I'm happy to keep things low-tech and manual, to degrees. My morning coffee routine is fantastically quiet for example: this doesn't (directly) affect the quality of the coffee, but I sure appreciate the experience. And the experience of being in charge of the pressure at the puck - a different way of being involved where I'm interacting with the differences in grind settings, or one bean/roast vs another... Good luck in your lever-machine quest!
  - chongli 3y ago
    I totally appreciate the low tech approach. I think my dream machine is an Elektra MCAL! Do you use a manual grinder as well? I’ve never used one but they seem rather clumsy to me. Maybe one of those old fashioned ones that mount firmly to the table and have a big brass crank and brass hardware with a wood case!
    - bch 3y ago
      > Do you use a manual grinder as well? I have, in my life - I associate them with pour-overs (V60, Chemex) for myself. In my espresso setup, I have an electric variable-speed single-dose conical burr unit. It’s naturally fairly quiet, and I run it at ~30rpm so about all I hear is bean crushing/grinding.
      - chongli 3y ago
        That sounds pretty nice! I have a Niche Zero and it's fairly unobtrusive, but still somewhat loud. At least it doesn't have any high frequency noise though.

roflyear 3y ago

> I think you do see diminishing returns going above $1000 for burr grinders. This is absolutely correct: the best "value" is a $200-300 hand grinder. Anything more than that you're adding quality of life (mostly), and sometimes even taking away from quality of coffee while increasing price. Of course, hand grinders are generally pretty annoying to use for all your coffee needs. They are great but it's also great to use something electric.