Thread: Which method makes the best coffee?

Definitely. I'm on holiday this week so my time is flexible until Friday, when I head to Lismore for a weekend Christmas party. Any takers for coffee at Simply Beanz mid-week?

Youse guys is hilarious!..

My daily swill.

I’ve just moved to grinding beans for every plunger coffee. Someone recommended I buy beans from Killer Coffee. Buying coffee from a coffee shop is a bit disappointing now.

I bought a Porlex hand grinder, on an AULRO recommendation.

PORLEX COFFEE GRINDER - Drifta Camping & 4WD

Grinding your own beans makes a massive difference. ...They don't have to be expensive beans to be decent either.

Many coffee snobs will disagree with me, but if you can't afford $50 kilo or roast them yourself, the best bargain beans I've found are, believe it or not, Coles brand!

Coles Coffee Beans.jpg
Most importantly these Coles beans are Fairtrade. They are also 100% Arabica and Roasted in Australia.

They are a pretty good dark roast, rich, full and reliable IME. They are not nuanced, interesting or super high quality and freshness depends a little on the batch - but you can tell if you squeeze the pack and give the breather on the bag a sniff before you buy.

Sniff test: If they smell sweet and fresh buy them ...when they've been on the shelves too long they start to smell sour. Even if you check a few bags you will begin to tell the difference between them.

As I say, they're not as good as you'll get from a local professional roaster, but they are affordable.

No matter which beans you use, Ideally you do need a burr grinder, rather than one of those spice grinders which actually don't grind, but chop the beans. All brews will be much better if the coffee is properly ground. You can't make good espresso or get a good crema on a machine unless you get the grind just right either.

Reviving this thread.
I'm the kind of coffee drinker who is only in it for the caffeine. When I want a cup, I NEED a cup within a few minutes, or else I get stabby.
I picked up my parent's old Saeco Xelsis unit, they had replaced it due to an unbearable water leak, it was replaced by a semi automatic breville unit which grinds, doses, and tamps in one operation, and then you move it to the brew head.

Anyway, as for the xelsis, for the uninitiated, it looks something like this:


Water in the top left, beans in the top right, power up the back, and plug a milk caraffe in the front if that's your style.
With a bit of the old Bleep bleep bloop button pressing routine, coffee comes forth, within a minute, from dead cold.

So due to the water leak, it was in need of some repair. it was leaking under operation, suggesting it was the high pressure side of things that was going wrong. I set to repairing the old girl (old as in 2012 vintage). These things retailed around 2500 back in the day, so lucky for me there is still a bit of parts support out there.
I started by removing the outer covers and doing a few brews while watching the back-end of the machine where the boiler and valves etc live. I also wiped out the internals of the machine to see where exactly the water was coming from. The repairs undertaken were as follows:

1. Replaced the brew unit seals and lubed it all with food grade grease
2. Cleaned the 'shower screen' filter which separates the grounds from the coffee outlet in the brew group (wax and grease remove, FTW)
3. Replaced the water inlet block in the brew group which engages with the boiler side of the system (slides up before brewing, as brew group needs to be removed for cleaning periodically). This was after a failed attempt to replace the O rings in the part.
4. Replaced the corresponding part on the machine side - which is a pintle valve that allows the hot water to enter the brew group via the aforementioned part. Replacement O rings were also not successful - they were some odd size Viton seal that the parts guy didn't have.
5. Replaced the boiler valve which actuates water from the boiler to the brew group- this was a bit finnicky to get out, but was achievable. This sends hot water to the brew group, and has a pintle valve to actuate the line pressure dump cycle once brewing stops.
6. Removed a dodgy oetiker clamp on the boiler outlet, and replaced with a new worm clamp, stopping the leak at this point which was filling the internal drip tray of the machine (which happened only under the higher pressure setting on the front spout restrictor- saeco calls this the 'saeco brewing system')
7. Siliconed back together a plastic bung in the front drip tray which was causing another leak
8. Gave it a general clean inside and out, and a descale clean, and a new brita water filter

All in all, threw a couple of hundred backs parts at it, and it should be good for more years to come.
Coffee quality is good- the long blacks come with a crema, and the machine has a heap of adjustability in the programming to cater for a range of drink recipes. But my favourite part is the timer where I can have the machine turn on just before I wake up, so there are no triple homicides while I wait for the coffee to brew.

Bon appetit?