Pretty standard across all the big commercial coffee machine brands. It's a cost effective solution that does what it needs to do.
Ribbon csbles are a godsend when you inevitably have to replace something.
I've yet to encounter a button panel not connected to the main control board via ribbon cables. Same for digital displays like shot counters.
Look inside a top of the range La Marzocco or a Slayer and all the digital stuff will be ribbon cables.
Typically there will be a sleave around the cable where it passes the hot things; boiler or grouphead.
You will also find lots of cable ties.
Main control boards are always protected by some kind of box and tucked away from the heat. Either on the sides of the machine in the side panels or under the drip tray.
The better made machines are starting to replace mechanical relays with huge 100A solid state relays for things like the elements.
The waterpump and element are usually the only things with high power draw. A machine with a nominal 3300w will typically have a 2700w element. The water pump draws a bit, 300w iirc.
The rest is low power: a couple of 20w 3way solenoids for the groupheads, another 20w 2 way solenoid to fill the boiler, a controller board analogous to an arduino, some pwm flow meters, maybe some leds on the more modern machines.
It's industrial stuff ultimately so they won't waste any money making the inside fancy. It just needs to work properly. Lots of attention to outside fancy however.
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Mediocre but high priced coffee with wonderful names and excellent marketing formula. Roasted in the Netherlands BTW.
Last week it was the first time that I paid 4.30 Euro in an average diner for a cappuccino in Germany so they maybe try to catch up with Starbucks 🙂
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There is currently a global shortage of coffee beans.
Green beans are way up. In January we were paying something like $12 per kg of green beans on average (it varies a bit based on the origin). We had $7.5 per kg added across the board between January and 1st of April. Take off 20% of the weight lost in roasting and cost up something like 50%
This is New Zealand of course, our coffee market is unique, but I imagine the conditions are the same elsewhere as the same supply pressure exists.
Typical price for a medium cappuccino (12oz or 350ml) is $5.50 now but it will probably go to $6 under current conditions.
Of course nobody actually drinks those here, we drink lattes or flat whites thank you very much. Not that most kiwis know the difference.
Green beans are way up. In January we were paying something like $12 per kg of green beans on average (it varies a bit based on the origin). We had $7.5 per kg added across the board between January and 1st of April. Take off 20% of the weight lost in roasting and cost up something like 50%
This is New Zealand of course, our coffee market is unique, but I imagine the conditions are the same elsewhere as the same supply pressure exists.
Typical price for a medium cappuccino (12oz or 350ml) is $5.50 now but it will probably go to $6 under current conditions.
Of course nobody actually drinks those here, we drink lattes or flat whites thank you very much. Not that most kiwis know the difference.
Yep, one of my favourite coffees went from $40 to $45 then $47 per kilo (roasted beans from the roaster) over a few months. Crazy.
Yes there is a global shortage of beans, but Starbucks as an example, just 2% of the price is the beans. Coffee houses make fantastic margins relative to materials. Labor is high though. Personally I have a midlevel super-automatic from Saeco. Love it. I actually replaced it last year as my previous one of over 8 years died. They are somewhat expensive relative to a plain coffee maker, around 800 for the one that does steamed milk automatically as well. I figure the first one more than paid for itself. 2+/day @4 dollars x 365 x 8 is over 23 grand in coffee shop equivalent. Beans are like 15 for 2lbs which lasts a month+ at my burn rate. I see where that 2% number comes from. This latest machine also has a Iced Coffee button, which I find makes a fine iced coffee as the weather warms up.
Since I learnt pressurized made coffee to be detrimental for health I returned to the 40 Euro classic many moons ago. Always tasty and also affordable ground coffee. Except light cleaning no maintenance contrary to the Gaggia, Solis, Saeco compressor machines I had that also were loud. These always had defects after a few years. Got a brand new automatic Saeco a few years ago as a gift that was beyond repair in 3 months! When I brought it to Recycling the guy there said the next one should be a Jura 🙂
Apparently the paper filter also filters out bad components.
Apparently the paper filter also filters out bad components.
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The newer Saeco has a new rubber seal around the beans that makes for significantly quieter grind step. As I said, my last one lasted 8 years. I'm not worried. New one is almost identical in the core of the machine. You just have to remember to clean the brew thing which just pulls out, weekly and about every couple months lubricate the same piece. And of course descale when the machine tells you to. Much less time than driving to a coffee shop every day to get a coffee, since I work from home.
We get copper / brass mixed high temperature wire here, mica covering conductor, covering that is fiberglass braid.
Quite common, and you can always cover the different wires with different colored silicon sleeves for identification.
Use crimping only, solder may get weak over time.
And use a next higher wire size, for example use 4 square mm, if the existing one is 2.5 square mm, less self-heating loss, saves a bit of energy.
Quite common, and you can always cover the different wires with different colored silicon sleeves for identification.
Use crimping only, solder may get weak over time.
And use a next higher wire size, for example use 4 square mm, if the existing one is 2.5 square mm, less self-heating loss, saves a bit of energy.
https://www.googleadservices.com/pa...s_Z576MAxXBklYBHcU_A0QQ9aACKAB6BAgLEBE&adurl=
https://www.amazon.in/Continental-M...9&hvtargid=pla-835857814540&gad_source=1&th=1
https://cothas.com/collections/reta...E5Kn_XrZGpBMoOZeBhhQ_HylTQ5Qz8YBBiFkvQ-yGHyKF
These seem much cheaper in India.
We also get pouches of 'decoction' coffee, just add milk, water and sugar to taste, about $1.25 last I got them. Enough for two to four 250 ml cups.
I ended up drinking it neat, addictive...
No ties to above sellers, we also get roasted coffee powder by the kilo in some shops, cheaper than above. You can ask for Arabica, Robusta, added chicory, in whatever proportion you like... The common ones are 70-30 or 85-15 (lower figure is chicory%).
The shops sometimes roast the beans in house, so the taste and aroma are distinctive.
In Africa, a blend of 50% each coffee and Pea-berry is the brew of choice, according to a friend of mine who grew up in Uganda.
https://www.amazon.in/Continental-M...9&hvtargid=pla-835857814540&gad_source=1&th=1
https://cothas.com/collections/reta...E5Kn_XrZGpBMoOZeBhhQ_HylTQ5Qz8YBBiFkvQ-yGHyKF
These seem much cheaper in India.
We also get pouches of 'decoction' coffee, just add milk, water and sugar to taste, about $1.25 last I got them. Enough for two to four 250 ml cups.
I ended up drinking it neat, addictive...
No ties to above sellers, we also get roasted coffee powder by the kilo in some shops, cheaper than above. You can ask for Arabica, Robusta, added chicory, in whatever proportion you like... The common ones are 70-30 or 85-15 (lower figure is chicory%).
The shops sometimes roast the beans in house, so the taste and aroma are distinctive.
In Africa, a blend of 50% each coffee and Pea-berry is the brew of choice, according to a friend of mine who grew up in Uganda.
Perhaps true for a marketing/property empire such as them.
A bit different for your small husband and wife shop around the corner.
20g of coffee for a double shot @ say $38 per kg for some high quality beans = 76c for the shot.
Add your milk: 50c for 200ml of good quality NZ milk that behaves properly when steamed.
Add you cup and lid there is something like 30c for a biodegradable one.
$1.50 or so just for the raw goods.
27% or so just on raw ingredients. Add in wages, electricity and rent and there isn't as much money in there as it looks. This is a new Zealand example but I bet the economics of a high quality latte are much the same anywhere.
Exorbitant rents, power prices etc.
You can of course buy $19 per kg beans but you can never get a great shot out if them. 6/10 at best. Cheap milk is available but it misbehaves when steamed and tastes weird.
Is that USD or NZD? I get 1 kg of Nicaragua roasted beans of pretty good quality for only 13USD. I expect it to go up, as I don't think the poor harvest of the year has been passed thru yet.
NZD which is roughly 2:1.
I've been told that NZ uses higher grade beans than average. There is only 1 company that does the vast majority of bean imports to NZ. I've been told they only bring in beans from certain suppliers with which they have longstanding relationships.
We had a new importer try and get in on the action a few years ago but the quality just wasn't the same for the same origin.
Actually, I had some pretty good coffee in Barcelona, Andorra and Madrid at their Starbucks.
I normally get a "double shot in the dark".. that is two shots of expresso with a like amount of drip slowly eased in, so as to preserve the crema.... they did a damn good job, which surprised me. I've never had it so good in the US... well, there is on Starbucks in Poulsbo, WA, that actually knows how to do it... the one by Walmart.
About 25 years ago I sold our Gaggia Classic for more than we paid for.... then we got a Made In Spain !!! Expobar Office Lever -heat exchanger, E61. I got it used so it was relatively cheap and I maintained it for 20 years or so.... nothing like having a expresso machine BLOW up steam.... BOOM! I maintained that one too.
Eventually I could no longer get parts so I splurged on a sale and got the German made Profitec 500 with flow control. Another E61 heat exchanger with PID. It is very well made.
The thing with expresso machines is that the interior is a harsh environment. Our Gaggia had plastic tubes running next to very hot surfaces, so I replaced all of those things with braided steel cables. The Expobar was much nicer inside, it was a non sense built machine, nothing fancy, just good engineering for its time... but the Profitec is excellent... the brass fittings, carefully laid out wires, solid plumbing lines, PID, etc...
Yet.... you will not make good expresso unless you get a proper grinder. I was made a believer last Fall when we splurged and got a grinder with a built in weight scale. Once you get the grinder dialed in, 19.6 grams for a double shot in a E61 group head for 25 seconds.... it comes out as ALL crema..
Yes, Jean Paul... it is a German machine. The grinder is italian ( it grinds great but one of the letters in front fell off.... Italian....)... it feels like I got a 2002tii next to an Alfetta. You know which one requires more maintenance, huh?
Oh, I got a water softener that fits into a jug. So I used reverse osmosis water that goes into the jug with the water softener. That, with daily back flushing and monthly clean up with Cafiza, keep the need for descaling to a minimum. I haven't had to descale the Profitec yet (running four years now). Knock on wood.
To the OP, no soldering at all of wires inside the machine. Everything is crimped with them connectors. Keep the wires away from the boiler and if you got water running in a plastic tube consider replacing it with metal or make sure they are far as far away from electrical and heat sources. Our Gaggia Classic developed a leak... yep.... thank God it triggered the GFI before I touched it. Get all new brass fittings. A chance to buy more tools. Metric.
Disclaimer.... Take my "advice" as a commentary, not as "advice". If you fry yourself, don't sue me. 😳
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Please explain the mechanism by which it generates detrimental-for-health by-products. Some of us get curious over a statement like that.
I took a hole-saw the the bottom of my Starbucks portafilter. It's just brass, took a while on the drill press but got through. The pressurizing mechanism is now gone; it's "naked" (like a phono stylus...) and the product drips directly off the bottom of the basket.
Dont have a good grinder and I have to pay attention - difficult some mornings - to the rotation of the bean hopper, which sets the grind.
I snapped off the little stop so I can go past Cuisinart's pre-programmed minimum; I usually take right up to to teeth grinding then back off a bit. Dont know what they made those grinder dies out of, but I cant seem to kill it, even after a few years of running it this way - before cvid. I can grind it so fine that the Starbucks machine cant push anything through if I pack it too tight, or if I'm willing to wait 10 minutes...
I believe the pressirization mechanism in the Starbucks (Saeco) machine allow for a more widely variable grind. With it gone, the grind must be pretty fine or it just flys right through in 30 seconds...
Always been a bit of a hack, which is why I hang out here. I frequent the coffee machine more often than the Stereo or Guitar; one would think I'd put some "real" money into it. What I have seems to work fine by me - and I have backup equipment instances stored.
It has to do with cafestol that is mostly stopped with paper filtered coffee. Cafestol is supposedly LDL cholesterol enhancing. Worst method is the old fashioned way with an aluminium/zamac brewer as these also loose metal particles because of the temperature/pressure which is seemingly connected to Alzheimer. That is why coffee machines in western Europe had to be made out of brass parts somewhere around 2006. Still the aluminium/zamac types are being sold and used. So health wise there are 2 items deserving attention.
The Italians who invented pressurized/unfiltered coffee making don't drink much coffee (only in the morning). We do and then the methods are seemingly not OK. They are still being examined and contradictory results are a fact as usual when money is involved. If you don't drink more than 2 or 3 cups a day it is not an issue but better safe than sorry. There is also nothing wrong taste wise with paper filtered coffee either, people use the method for ages but did the coffee grinding themselves in the past. The completely designed coffee culture (recently mixed with vegan doctrine) of the past 15 years is only marketing and business often larded with pseudo scientific blah blah. There are Italian sounding coffee types people in Italy never heard of 🙂 The basic product costs nil to nothing, is always combined with cheap labour and margins are therefore extreme, add a "I buy stuff so that I am happy" western culture to it and boom, money starts streaming.
Regardless if all is only partly true (I don't care as I abandoned the methods), I still am very glad not to have the hassle of compressor machines or fully automatic machines anymore. Having repaired a few young ones I mostly see so so electronics, a lot of maintenance and planned obsolescence (and nearly always the same plastic brewing module breaking down). I replace my KF47 every 3 to 4 years for again 40 Euro and enjoy the product it makes. Cheap and tasteful without taking much place. The silent ritual every morning is relaxing and the gurgling sound of a filter machine nostalgic with the nice smell of fresh coffee filling the kitchen.
It are just choices.
The Italians who invented pressurized/unfiltered coffee making don't drink much coffee (only in the morning). We do and then the methods are seemingly not OK. They are still being examined and contradictory results are a fact as usual when money is involved. If you don't drink more than 2 or 3 cups a day it is not an issue but better safe than sorry. There is also nothing wrong taste wise with paper filtered coffee either, people use the method for ages but did the coffee grinding themselves in the past. The completely designed coffee culture (recently mixed with vegan doctrine) of the past 15 years is only marketing and business often larded with pseudo scientific blah blah. There are Italian sounding coffee types people in Italy never heard of 🙂 The basic product costs nil to nothing, is always combined with cheap labour and margins are therefore extreme, add a "I buy stuff so that I am happy" western culture to it and boom, money starts streaming.
Regardless if all is only partly true (I don't care as I abandoned the methods), I still am very glad not to have the hassle of compressor machines or fully automatic machines anymore. Having repaired a few young ones I mostly see so so electronics, a lot of maintenance and planned obsolescence (and nearly always the same plastic brewing module breaking down). I replace my KF47 every 3 to 4 years for again 40 Euro and enjoy the product it makes. Cheap and tasteful without taking much place. The silent ritual every morning is relaxing and the gurgling sound of a filter machine nostalgic with the nice smell of fresh coffee filling the kitchen.
It are just choices.
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Wait!
The trick with the Moka pot is to stop the heat when the upper chamber is just half full.
That way the residual heat will bring up the steam from below without "burning" the coffee in the top.... it's OK if there's residual water in the bottom.... If you overheat the pot, then you "cook" the coffee and you lose the crema and you terribly tasting coffee.
We travel with an aluminum moka pot. In Barcelona we figured we'd buy it there so we didn't take ours. We got an awesome machine for 11 euros. Left it there as a gift to the Air BnB... Also, use the proper coffee.... if you don't have a grinder, I recommend Illy's mocha pot preground coffee.
Also.... with moka coffee, I will add a little bit of hot water into it... not quite an Americano... but enough to dilute it.... not Americano, not Europeano... something like an Azoresano. My wife likes a little of half and half and sugar in hers.... not me.
I've tried all kinds of fancy coffees... but for espresso and drip ( different grinders too ) the old standards work the best for us...
The trick with the Moka pot is to stop the heat when the upper chamber is just half full.
That way the residual heat will bring up the steam from below without "burning" the coffee in the top.... it's OK if there's residual water in the bottom.... If you overheat the pot, then you "cook" the coffee and you lose the crema and you terribly tasting coffee.
We travel with an aluminum moka pot. In Barcelona we figured we'd buy it there so we didn't take ours. We got an awesome machine for 11 euros. Left it there as a gift to the Air BnB... Also, use the proper coffee.... if you don't have a grinder, I recommend Illy's mocha pot preground coffee.
Also.... with moka coffee, I will add a little bit of hot water into it... not quite an Americano... but enough to dilute it.... not Americano, not Europeano... something like an Azoresano. My wife likes a little of half and half and sugar in hers.... not me.
I've tried all kinds of fancy coffees... but for espresso and drip ( different grinders too ) the old standards work the best for us...
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This is not true. A bottomless portafilter is not affecting the pressure during extraction in any meaningful way. A standard portafilter is merely acting as a funnel to collect the extracted coffee and direct it to the spout. It may affect the taste of the beverage due to its temperature and by altering the texture of the crema on contact, but it does not generate a higher pressure due to being mostly closed. The bottom of the basket does not make contact with the bottom of the portafilter.
My sister has one of them "Starbucks" branded espresso machines. The portafilter has a special gizmo to generate crema... it's not a "normal" E61 device.
When I read the post, my assumption is that he took out that gizmo so now the machine brews like a "normal" espresso group head. Which makes sense.
With the crema making gizmo, the grind of the coffee is not so important. Without it, the grind is crucial.
That's what he wrote, huh?
As far as E61 portafilters... I have the bottomless, of course, plus two doubles and a single and a blind. If you make a point of pulling shots when the entire thing has heated up to temp, the quality and taste of the coffee makes no difference between the bottomless and the others.
When I read the post, my assumption is that he took out that gizmo so now the machine brews like a "normal" espresso group head. Which makes sense.
With the crema making gizmo, the grind of the coffee is not so important. Without it, the grind is crucial.
That's what he wrote, huh?
As far as E61 portafilters... I have the bottomless, of course, plus two doubles and a single and a blind. If you make a point of pulling shots when the entire thing has heated up to temp, the quality and taste of the coffee makes no difference between the bottomless and the others.