Siliconslave's how to make espresso thread

Having any kind of beans (I would recommend the cheaper beans that tend to get sold quicker in supermarkets and hence are often slightly (though still not much) fresher) will be an improvement over pre-ground.

That said, decently roasted beans (more so than super fresh) will taste substantially better again.

I guess at the end of the day I'm saying that you don't need to go the whole hog to get benefits but personally I think the increase in price (which is still super cheap compared to going to Starbucks or something) is worth it.
 
EdwardTeach said:
How critical is it to have freshly roasted beans? Bearing in mind I am not looking to make the "percect" coffee, just looking for an improvement over buying ground coffee. I had a look at the beans on hasbeen and they are 50% or more per weight than the ground coffee in the supermarket. I am sure they are worth it and something I would be interested in occasionally, but given that i drink a fair amount of coffee, I don't want to have to increase my average cost/cup by that much. Waitrose sell a lot of different coffee beans for approximately the same price/weight as the find coffee. These beans will obviously not freshly roasted, but would they still give a significant upgrade over buying ground coffee?
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for me its critical.

you can roast and tweak to your taste.

i've got mine the way i like it
 
I do see a big improvement in going from ground->supermarket whole beans, perhaps slightly less so but still apparent going up to online online freshly roasted beans.

For sure if you are getting a grinder it's worth trying posh beans at least.

Squaremile Red Brick has always been a good shout to get an idea.
 
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EdwardTeach said:
I have had a bit of a look around and I can see that there are electric blenders considerably cheaper than the mc2, for example the Dualit 75015 is £80 and the are some de longhi ones on amazon for as little as £25 on Amazon. Anything wrong with these? Are the hand grinders better than the cheaper electrics?
I am not interested in spending a ton of money. I am trying to gauge how much I need to spend to start seeing a benefit over buying ground coffee.
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It's impossible to get a good consistent grind from blade grinder, just because of how they work. They chop the bean rather than crush it.

2nd hand MC2's tend to go for £50-80, but for less than that you can get the Rhino hand grinder from coffeehit which seems highly regarded. I'm yet to actually try one though.

EdwardTeach said:
How critical is it to have freshly roasted beans? Bearing in mind I am not looking to make the "percect" coffee, just looking for an improvement over buying ground coffee. I had a look at the beans on hasbeen and they are 50% or more per weight than the ground coffee in the supermarket. I am sure they are worth it and something I would be interested in occasionally, but given that i drink a fair amount of coffee, I don't want to have to increase my average cost/cup by that much. Waitrose sell a lot of different coffee beans for approximately the same price/weight as the find coffee. These beans will obviously not freshly roasted, but would they still give a significant upgrade over buying ground coffee?
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Supermarket coffee has been hanging around for months. Considering that fresh coffee is ok for about 4 weeks at the most, several times that isn't a good idea.

As for ground coffee, that's good for about 10 minutes before it's going stale. Best to use it immediately on grinding.

The biggest steps I made when making learning about coffee were from fresh beans, a better grinder, and weighing everything.
 
Oops...I missed the blade grinder comment.

In general I agree with you flibster but I do think a decent grinder and less good beans is still a huge improvement over pre-ground.....and in many ways over fresh beans that have been pre-ground.
 
EdwardTeach said:
How critical is it to have freshly roasted beans? Bearing in mind I am not looking to make the "percect" coffee, just looking for an improvement over buying ground coffee. I had a look at the beans on hasbeen and they are 50% or more per weight than the ground coffee in the supermarket. I am sure they are worth it and something I would be interested in occasionally, but given that i drink a fair amount of coffee, I don't want to have to increase my average cost/cup by that much. Waitrose sell a lot of different coffee beans for approximately the same price/weight as the find coffee. These beans will obviously not freshly roasted, but would they still give a significant upgrade over buying ground coffee?
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imo things start to get snobbishly anal when people go on about 'you must have fresh roasted' 'you must roast them yourself' How far down the line do you go do you grow your own crops? It's just what works for you and your budget you can get decent coffee out of a 3 week old ground bag of Illy from a moka pot. It wont set the world alight but it will a damn site better than some coffee's out of a shop or instant.
 
Edinho said:
imo things start to get snobbishly anal when people go on about 'you must have fresh roasted' 'you must roast them yourself' How far down the line do you go do you grow your own crops? It's just what works for you and your budget you can get decent coffee out of a 3 week old ground bag of Illy from a moka pot. It wont set the world alight but it will a damn site better than some coffee's out of a shop or instant.
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works out cheaper roasting or grinding in the long term though.
 
Edinho said:
imo things start to get snobbishly anal when people go on about 'you must have fresh roasted' 'you must roast them yourself' How far down the line do you go do you grow your own crops? It's just what works for you and your budget you can get decent coffee out of a 3 week old ground bag of Illy from a moka pot. It wont set the world alight but it will a damn site better than some coffee's out of a shop or instant.
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I agree about the ease of which things descend into snobbishness/analness but I disagree on the quality of Illy. I've always regarded that as overpriced and not particularly nice personally. I'd almost suggest a *gasp* blade grinder and blah quality beans over it...
 
FrenchTart said:
I agree about the ease of which things descend into snobbishness/analness but I disagree on the quality of Illy. I've always regarded that as overpriced and not particularly nice personally. I'd almost suggest a *gasp* blade grinder and blah quality beans over it...
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But Illy comes in nice packaging and is more expensive than supermarket beans. That must mean it is good ;).

At the end of the day, it comes down to what you decide is decent enough for you to drink. Some people will enjoy coffee made with Illy or supermarket beans, but there is no doubt that decent quality freshly roasted beans will produce a better coffee compared to supermarket whole or ground beans, when using the same equipment (and to an extent, lesser quality equipment too).
 
Edinho said:
Alright then preground lidl coffee (which is actually pretty good). This is just exactly what I mean about coffee snobishness it's worse than wine drinkers.
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I don't think saying that Illy is overpriced rubbish sold to people that value packaging above the quality of the product is snobbish - we're trying to save people from wasting money on a gimmick.

You're confusing several issues here and ignoring the original question that we were responding to.

As I already said, it's a sliding scale and the simplest thing you can do which will improve your coffee is to grind the beans yourself. They don't have to be expensive freshly-roasted beans (though this too will improve the coffee) and you don't need to go crazy weighing everything (though this too will improve the coffee).

Just because *you* can't taste the difference between pre-ground stale coffee and better coffee doesn't mean the people that *can* are snobbish and/or making things up for the sake of it.

By your logic you may as well get some Nescafe and be done with it. Those coffee snobs that don't like instant are clearly just trying to impress their fellow toffs down at the social club.
 
Edinho said:
imo things start to get snobbishly anal when people go on about 'you must have fresh roasted' 'you must roast them yourself' How far down the line do you go do you grow your own crops? It's just what works for you and your budget you can get decent coffee out of a 3 week old ground bag of Illy from a moka pot. It wont set the world alight but it will a damn site better than some coffee's out of a shop or instant.
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I think snobbishly anal is a bit strong, just because people have a differing view to yours.

When you consider that most coffee drinkers in the UK just drink instant, they might consider you spending a fiver on a bag of Illy and running it through a moka as being snobbishly anal.

I think when it boils (puntastic) down to it, getting newly roasted whole beans isn't particularly difficult or expensive anymore. You could get a bag of hasbean espresso blend for cheaper than most supermarkets sell Illy. So why wouldn't you?
 
I'm no Barista but IMO going from pre-ground to fresh ground was a big improvement but not night and day if you are sensible. Before i owned my Silvia I would by coffee from supermarkets that I would grind in the store and use within 1 or 2 weeks, stored in an air tight container in the freezer minimizing oxidization. The smell of the freshly ground coffee is incredible and that tends to fade dramatically but the actual coffee produced in my Moka pot faded less so. The fact that the smell faded is a strong indicator that the good aromatics have oxidized and the reduced difference in taste due to limitations of the Moka pot.

Now with my Silvia and Rocky I always grind fresh. I've been experiment with fresh roasted beans from a couple of different local roasters vs supermarket bagged from dispensers, that often include the beans from.same roasters vs prepackaged vacuum bags. I am not at all convinced there is a big difference between the first 2. As someone mentioned earlier if you buy a really expense coffee, stuff that is $25 a lb then it is likely stale. In my experience several of the cheaper ones are refiled regularly. I know one of the local roasters delivers to the supermarket once a week so I don't know how much fresher the stuff in his store would be. I know he roasts every day but he roasts different beans. For 6 months I lived in a apparent with a window 30ft from his coffee shop and I would wake each morning to the smell of fresh roasting coffee..

the super market pre package stuff is maybe a little worse but there is big variance between brands.

For me the biggest difference was going from per-ground in a Moka pot to fresh ground with an espresso machine. I get more variance between pulling shots of coffee than I really notice between day old roast and month old roast and I can still make great coffee with a supermarket pre-packaged deal.


I don't think cofee beans oxidize at nearly the same rate as ground coffee. The surface area is orders of magnitude different, and coffee beans have a bit of a shell, and often times oil around the shell. Sure I don't want to use 5 year beans but I don't see any issue in having a bag last a month or so.
 
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