Not much at all, a negligible amount, nothing to quibble amount.  Easier to convey with a picture, so lets use one, no two;

We use coffee ground to espresso fineness on a Mini Mazzer as we find changing the grind a pain and the Swissgold coffee filters seem to like a fine grind

And this is what is left in our cup when we get to the bottom.  I know, I can hear you say that it is easy to cheat by swirling the coffee as you go to keep the grains in suspension and prevent them from settling to the bottom of the cup.  We deliberately tried to move the cup as little as possible, leaving it to stand for more than 5 minutes after the water had completely run through the Swissgold coffee filter, then carefully decanting the coffee away, leaving only what you see in the image below.

The point we are trying to make is using espresso grind coffee in a Swissgold filter won't leave you with sludge.

If you are buying pre-ground coffee and perhaps even ground for filter use (much more coarse than this espresso grind shown), yet experiencing unacceptable levels of sludge in the bottom of your cup then the coffee you are using has been crushed at some point after being ground, causing 'fines', or coffee that is almost dust like, much finer than even an espresso grind.

Thinking about it, paradoxically, you may even find that buying espresso ground coffee gives you less fines than a coarse or medium grind especially sold for for plunger/cafetiere/filter coffee use.  Yes, I would actually recommend you try a bag of espresso ground coffee if you are finding unacceptable levels of sludge in the bottom of your cup.  How can this be?  Well coarser grinds of coffee are more likely to crush into powder/fines when dropped/kicked/compressed/generally abused along the path to your coffee cup.  Finer espresso grinds are likely to be small enough to move away from the point of impact, rather than being trapped and breaking up into powder/dust/fines.

To address this issue I would suggest you try to buy coffee sold in a rigid container to protect it from being crushed.  Unfortunately this also rules out vacuum packed 'bricks' of coffee.

Better still, make it a goal to acquire a coffee grinder at some point in 2011 and experience a revelation in your enjoyment and appreciation of just how good coffee can be.

We've now spent quite a fews days looking into this issue, and the deeper we look the less convinced we are with the quality of the machines on the market.  We've looked at the DeLonghi ICM60 (GBP49.99) in detail, and while customers are happy with it performance while it is working, there are too many customer reviews on Amazon and elsewhere where the product's element has failed in less than 12 months.  We can't afford to start recommending products with that kind of reliability profile to our customers; we are trying to simplify the path to making gourmet coffee at home, not fill your place with more consumer grade junk.

We also looked at the Tricity TCM10 at Tesco, on offer for a wholesome GBP19.97 at the time of writing.  Again, we have our doubts about longevity, we think it looks cheap, and haven't even got to the critical issue of correct brew temperature.  Its late now, but we're going to have to give this some more thought and come up with a better solution I think.  All we've seen to date are cheap products that are unlikely to provide you with years of reliable service, which is the objective of this exercise.  Our inability to provide you with a machine or list of machines that we can categorically state will accommodate the KF4 Swissgold coffee filter is also annoying.  This issue is ongoing as filter coffee machine models are constantly being rebadged and 'upgraded' to try and stimulate demand, even though it is essentially the same machine year after year.  This would necessitate updating a catalogue of machines that the KF4 Swissgold filter fits, which obviously becomes a bit of a drag after a while.

More soon.

 The selection isn't anything to write home about, and all the models in store are also sold on the John Lewis website, so unless you have the kind of problem I'm trying to solve (does the KF4 Swissgold filter fit in the machine???) then there is precious little point in going unless you derive a perverse satisfaction from clearing out the ruck of January sale shoppers in order to get to the product you want to look at.  I certainly don't.

Anyway, the John Lewis DCC1150JLU Coffee Maker for GBP59 (top image) accomodated the KF4, but it wasnt a perfect fit.  It was good enough to be operational (i.e. you could close the lid on the machine properly and nothing stood proud, and the coffee would have run through correctly, but it wasnt a millimetre perfect fit.  I didnt like the stainless steel flask, nor the styling of the machine in general.  These machines consist of very little.  We have already proven that a GBP14.99 machine, Sainsburys branded, had the temperature spot on.  All we need essentially is that machine, but with a slightly larger recess to accomodate the the KF4 Swissgold.  You can see the manufacturers desperately trying to add electronic gizmos (that cost almost nothing to add as a manufacturer) in order to drive the price up.

Both these machines are examples of that, although perhaps the second machine more than the first.  This machine is sold in John Lewis as the Prestige 50669 Deco Coffee Maker for GBP44.95, although this is difficult to see from the poor mobile phone image I have provided you with.  The KF4 Swissgold filter fits perfectly in this machine.  I would have bought it but for what I think is the chintzy styling, with its fake chrome (plastic), cheap feeling plastic handle on the pitcher, and flimsy feeling lid.  But, the KF4 Swissgold does fit absolutely perfectly, as though the manufacturer fashioned the KF4 themselves.  So, if you like the styling, buy this machine and you can rest assured that the KF4 will fit when you com to put it in.

What I discovered is that the Prestige Deco machine is rated as a 15 cup, 1.5 litre machine with an 1100W element.  This might be a clue I think.  I think we need to be looking for 15 cup machines, even though the KF4 Swissgold filter is sold as a 12 filter, I think the marketing men may have made the cups a little smaller while we weren't looking.  You might still find me chance an arm on an online purchase as going to the shops is such a ball-ache, and doubly so in January with the sales in full swing.

PS: The KF4 Swissgold coffee filter does not fit into the Kenwood kMix CM021 Filter Coffee Maker, nor the Cuisinart DGB900BCU Grind and Brew, nor the John Lewis DCC902JLU Filter Coffee Maker (which I suspect is the same Russell Hobbs machine that I bought, just rebadged)

 Perfected and ready for sale.  Curiously it works very well as a filter coffee and as an espresso.  A rich backdrop of brown sugar is the best way to describe the predominant taste.  If you like our Sidamo (which is very smooth), this Zege is similar, but more complex, more interesting, but still smooth.  Another task for tonight (to get this listed as a product).  A scruffy, grainy image off a mobile phone, with a Bacchi in the background about to be serviced.  On a separate note, the Bacchi are turning out to be the kalashnikov of the espresso world; very easy to service wherever you are.  A 2.5mm allen key gets you in to replace the piston seals; easy.  Fun even.

How quaint, a product for sale in the modern world that you can actually fix.  Makes a pleasant change from the throw away plastic dross from China, offered in a slightly different colour and shape each year to keep the planned obsolescence thing rolling along.  Not the Bacchi.  I intend to set aside more time to learn these things inside out from a repairs and maintenance perspective.  Will also get the full compliment of spares parts in stock.

For me, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure when it comes to limescale.  Yes, I know you can descale your machine, but why head down that path if you don't need to?  Removing limescale tends not to improve the life of the seals in your machine, it is time consuming, and generally a pain in the butt.

Note that what I'm about to write doesn't specifically address the highly technical debate about the optimal composition of water for espresso, or indeed coffee in general.  This has been addressed by Jim Schulman online already, fully supported with a detailed discussion of the chemistry at work.  His recommendation for those of us wishing to just make some great coffee and get on with our lives (as opposed to embark on a doctorate in Chemistry, or just pontificate in general) was to use Volvic water.  Readily available in numerous countries, relatively economical, won't scale your machine, and an acceptable taste for coffee (although not optimal in my opinion).  So, Volvic provides a practical solution, which we thoroughly endorse.

Volvic brings the added benefit of standardisation, reducing a variable from the coffee equation.  This allows you as a customer to know that we have optimised the roast using Volvic water and to use the very same water in your machine, eliminating a significant variable from the equation.  This makes it easier for you to taste the coffee the same way as we did.  Given that a cup of coffee is probably something like 98% water we think this is quite important.

Back to Brita.  Last time we looked at Brita's offerings probably back in 2007, in domestic filtration at least, they were curiously silent on the suitability of their filters for the reduction of removal of limescale.  This may have been an oversight on Brita's part, but rightly or wrongly the cynic in us tends to assume that if it isn't mentioned it isn't suitable.  From looking at Brita's website this morning it is clear that their products are now specifically intended to reduce limescale to acceptable levels, and indeed they are looking to meet the needs of the speciality coffee consumer.

It's a long story, but what bought us 'back to Brita' was a call from a man in London who had purchased a Maximatic in Switzerland in 2010 and managed to limescale the daylights out of it in a few months.  We made a house call and discovered that a machine that had supposedly received very little use had sufficient limescale deposits to result in the stainless steel ball valve in the base of the reservoir tank no longer sealing, causing the machine to leak.

The man was very cross at us, bizarrely as he wasn't a customer, saying he had a Jura machine before the Maximatic and that that Jura had a built in filtration system, which addressed the limescale issue among other things.  He told us we shouldn't be selling a machine in the UK unless it had a built in filtration system to address the limescale issue and was generally lacking in Christmas spirit.  

A tricky one as we had no previously dealings with the man, and if you have dealt with us you will know how we bang on ad nauseum about the importance of protecting your coffee equipment from limescale with the use of Volvic.  We were also quite keen to introduce the man to Londinium espresso as he was using Monmouth coffee and never knew of our existence until he needed his Maximatic issues addressed in the UK.

While London water is high in limescale we didnt think it was high enough to be consistent with the extent of scaling that had occurred in the limited number of times is was claimed the machine had been used.  We have our suspicions that some of the contents of the bottles of Evian water in the house were making their way into the machine, which would account for the extent of limescale in such a short period of time.

The point we are trying to illustrate is dont assume that bottled waters are suitable for espresso machines.  Most aren't.  The 'purity' halo that surrounds bottled water is a marketing triumph, but does not equate to suitability for espresso machines, and indeed any household appliances that are heating water (kettles, irons, etc).  It is further complicated by the fact the hard water makes for good espresso, you just dont want this hardness to come from high levels of calcium carbonate otherwise you will experience limescale in your machine.

In the above case we recommended that Volvic be used, but this guy didn't feel it was acceptable that a machine had to use bottled water (despite the fact we are pretty sure he was using Evian, but wouldn't admit it).  We rang another customer of ours who has a Cremina (and notoriously particular about his coffee) and he said he was using a Brita filter jug and had not seen any limescale in his Cremina after more than 12 months of using it all day every day (he works from home).

The Maximatic runs at higher boiler temperatures than the Cremina, and so it will be more vulnerable to limescale, but we thought a Brita filter would probably be suitable.  We rang the Olympia factory in Switzerland to get their thoughts on the matter.  They said yes, they were using the Brita aqua aroma crema model of water filter with much success.  This was not a Brita product that I was aware of, I think it is relatively new to market or perhaps I just haven't been keeping up, so they sent me one.  This arrived a couple of days ago.  It is a product specifically developed to meet the needs of owners with domestic espresso machines that have a reservoir.  It fits into the base of the reservoir in the Maximatic, being designed to work on a suction basis.  It does not of course filter the water that goes into the boiler of the machine.

For the boiler you would need to continue using Volvic or filter your water using a Brita water jug.  This makes more sense than it sounds, particularly for those of you who don't steam a lot of milk.  At the moment we find ourselves hauling rather a lot of Volvic water home from the supermarket.  The novelty wears off fairly quickly if you are doing this on foot, as you are likely to be doing if you live in central London, or indeed the centre of any large city.  Critically, I think you may find the Brita filtration gives you a better tasting espresso than Volvic water, but this is merely an untested hypothesis at this stage.

We will get this out and learn how to fit it to our Maximatic demonstration machine when we have a moment, and we might even perform some Volvic versus Brita filtered London tap water to compare results.  I suspect on a taste basis the Brita will probably beat the Volvic (my wife purchased a kettle with a built in Brita filter this week and when this water is used with a Swissgold filter the results are astounding).  That kind of gourmet coffee experience, but delivered with ease and simplicity, completely encapsulates what Londinium Espresso is all about.  Electric kettle with a built in Brita filter; add water and set to boil, grind coffee into KF300 Swissgold filter, sit KF300 Swissgold filter on coffee cup, water comes to boil, add to KF300, wait a minute or two; gourmet coffee.  Simple!  Lift off KF300 Swissgold filter, wash under hot tap, dry, place back in cupboard, sit down and enjoy coffee.  Perfect coffee for people with busy lives.  No poncing about.

The only thing to remember if you chose to go down the filtered water path is that the filter becomes progressively ineffective as it retains more and more contaminants.  It is easy to forget to change the water filter as often as it needs to be.  Brita address this on their water jugs with the addition of a 4 bar LED system that drops by one bar a week (i.e. time driven).  This is a bit crude in that it is not driven by the volume of water processed by the filter, but that kind of metering is presumably more expensive to add to a consumer product.  I suspect Brita manage to convince people to change the filter much more often with a time driven system too, as it works independent of how much you actually use the product, which is ideal for Brita.

Please understand this is not a plug for Brita.  I am sure there are other products on the market the perform the same task to an equal of better standard, and most probably cheaper.  Brita is simply a well known international brand that you are likely to be able to relate to and compare with other brands available where you live.  We are not associated with, or affiliated to, or receive any kind of compensation, reward, benefit, or credit from Brita in anyway whatsoever.

I didn't find the Aqua aroma crema the easiest product to locate on the Brita website, so if you are interested here is the link.  Note this page also contains the more informative pdf documents on the left had side.  These contain the detailed product information that you are looking for.

http://www.brita.net/uk/professional_details.html?L=1&p_id=272&ps=crema

Yes, I'm looking a bit reckless (read stupid), but it has highlighted a problem; the KF4 doesn't fit all nominal '12 cup' coffee makers

Im still no closer to a quick and easy method for making a litre of gourmet coffee for a thermos flask when the need arises

Happy to admit that storing coffee in a flask doesnt improve the taste, but a gourmet coffee in a thermos remains streets ahead of a coffee from a high street cafe

Get yourself a thermos flask for about GBP15 to take shooting, fishing, rambling, sailing, or indeed any outdoor activity in the winter.  It comes in handy if you are spending the day on the road too, as motorway service cafes have some way to go on the gourmet coffee front

Given that in both cases the KF4 filter 'almost' fits, it is impossible to 'tell at a glance' whether it will fit without actually opening the box and attempting to insert the KF4 Swissgold

If you have a coffee maker that you are using with a KF4 Swissgold that correctly fits, please drop us a line and we will start a register in this blog to record which coffee makers to buy.

Initially I was so hacked off I considered dropping the KF4 as this kind of hassle is completely at odds with the philosophy we run on.  The trouble is it is such a good product that i think its worth trying to compile a register so you can gain some assurance that the KF4 Swissgold will fit your machine, or if you are going out to buy one, that you get the right model.

I will make a trip to the shops tomorrow with a KF4 Swissgold in my hand and start opening boxes until I find a machine that it fits, or more likely, get thrown out of the shop.

Messages sent to the UK distributor and the manufacturer.  Lets see what comes back next week.

More soon...

As previously advised the Sainsbury's filter coffee machine was expected to be moved along fairly quickly as the KF4 Swissgold filter does not quite fit.  The swing door also annoyed me.  So tonight I have ordered from Amazon, for just a few pennies more, the Russell Hobbs 15215 black coffee maker at GBP19.99 plus postage.  I forked out GBP8 on postage as I would like to receive it quickly.  Fingers crossed that the KF4 Swissgold filter fits this machine.  It is a bit reckless I know, but I haven't the time to go down to the shops with a KF4 Swissgold filter furtively in my hand and start opening boxes and internal packaging to see if it fits.  For this reason I have chosen one of the major players in this type of coffee maker.  If the KF4 Swissgold filter doesn't fit this machine it will be time to give the manufacturer a call in Switzerland and ask them to make a few design modifications.  I really don't think it will come to that.  Watch this space.

We haven't abandoned espresso coffee this week, I just think it is important to emphasise that there are different paths to improving the taste of the coffee you are drinking at home.  It might take a number of steps to get to the pinnacle, but even if we can get you off instant coffee and onto buying pre-ground coffee at the supermarket and pairing that with a KF4 Swissgold filter and a basic machine like the Russell Hobbs I have just purchased, I will view this as a win against mass market crud that is passed off as coffee.  It is this approach that has led to people adding so many high calorie extras to their coffee, just to make it palatable.

We're here to bring you back to the pleasures of real coffee.  We're not here to get you drinking 10 cups a day.  If we get you drinking just 1 cup a day of fine, fresh coffee, made correctly, we'll be happy.

If you've got questions about how to make the move to real coffee, please ask.

I'll admit that I was astounded by the array of coffee 'devices' on offer at the consumer level.  If you need a hand to guide you through the dross we're happy to help.  Just bear in mind that pretty colours and styles and electronic timers an all the rest don't make the coffee taste any better.  All you need to achieve is the mixing of water at the correct temperature (around 92C) with the right amount of coffee, ground to the right size, and conducted over materials that will not taint the coffee.  I was pleasantly surprised, but I must admit the water temperature in the very basic Sainsbury's machine was very good.  It appears that machines for home use that allow you to adjust the brew temperature are not readily available.  If someone knows otherwise I would be very pleased to hear from you as a machine that allowed you to accurately adjust the brew temp would be a lot of fun for the coffee enthusiast.  The simple addition of the KF4 Swissgold filter to the Sainsbury's machine completely transformed the taste of the coffee.  The awful taste of nylon was completely eliminated in a moment.

CAUTION: These images may be disturbing to those with obsessive-compulsive tendencies.  That is to say, we've made a real mess!  We used exactly the same batch of Honduran coffee, on exactly the same grind setting, and exactly the same amount (45g).  We noted the caution on the Swissgold box to only use a medium grind if making more than 6 cups, but in the interests of conducting a meaningful test against the 'permanent' nylon filter that the machine was supplied with we had to take a chance that would get away with an espresso grind.  In short; we didn't, as these images show.  The first image shows just how badly we have flooded the filter, with fine coffee grinds nicely distributed through the inside of the machine, very clever.  What an idiot!  The second and third images show a continuation of the carnage as we move from the top to the bottom of the machine.

So what's the good news?  Well I've not spent much time in the past researching these kind of coffee makers, but has spent a considerable amount of time doing so in the last 24 hours.  One of my concerns was whether the brew temp would be correct, and if not, whether it could be altered.  Well, on this machine at least, using Londinium Honduran SHG coffee around 10 days old the temp was absolutely fine.  I did not measure this objectively, but the tongue is king in coffee; it wasnt sour (too cold), nor burnt (too hot).  It was sweet and nutty and far better than what I anticipated from a GBP14.99 machine.

The KF4 Swissgold filter has made an incredible difference, if only it fitted correctly in the machine, and if only I exercise a little more common sense next time.  The Swissgold filter also produced a far stronger cup of coffee than the nylon filter supplied by the factory, the result of much smaller openings in the laser cut Swissgold filter compared with the relatively large mesh of the nylon filter.  If you wanted to be sniffy you might say that it was the result of the water we lost, effectively increasing the concentration of the brew.  This will have contributed, but the increase in strength was more pronounced than the relatively small of water that did not end up in carafe.  Indeed it is likely that some of the water flowing over the top of the filter and down through the body of the machine, before working its way back into the top of the carafe will have had a dilutive effect as it will hardly have been exposed to any coffee on its scenic route to the opening in the top of the carafe.

Another thing I noticed with the factory supplied nylon 'permanent' filter is the amount of coffee it let through into the carafe (when you're daft enough to grind it that fine what do you expect I can hear you retort).  I wish I had the presence of mind to stop emptying the carafe last night of the remainder of the coffee made with the nylon filter and take a photo as there was quite a lot sloshing around in the bottom of the carafe after it had been resting for a while.  Anyway, I remember to take an photo of the fine coffee grounds that were present in the bottom of the carafe when I used the Swissgold filter tonight.  I feel this is a respectable result considering we were using coffee ground to espresso fineness.  The nylon filter let through an order of magnitude more, at least 3 times as much.  This results in coffee that tastes like mud as a result of the high number of coffee grinds sloshing around in your brew.  I thought to sniff the nylon filter tonight, and yes, the coffee tastes exactly like the smell of the nylon filter.  If you are in the shop considering purchasing a filter coffee machine of this type give the nylon filter a discrete sniff before you make your purchase and expect to be reminded of that fairly unpleasant smell when you drink your coffee from the machine using the nylon filter.

Despite the modest capital outlay for this machine, the only thing I could really criticise about the machine was (i) the KF4 Swissgold filter doesn't quite fit inside (& I suspect this might be intentional on the part of the manufacturer), and (ii) the swinging gate style tray that accommodates the coffee filter is not to my liking.  It is difficult to close if you open it without removing the carafe from below.  Additionally the machine weighs next to nothing unless the reservoir is filled with water so there is very little mass to anchor the machine as you try to overcome the retaining latch when you open and close the gate.  This does not inspire confidence when you are trying to perform with one hand.

The conclusion of the matter is (i) try to determine if the machine you are considering purchasing will accommodate the KF4 Swissgold filter (I had assumed it would fit any nominal '12 cup' filter machine, as you have seen I have proven this isn't the case) (ii) follow the instructions on the KF4 Swissgold filter! (iii) you don't need to spend a lot of money to make good filter coffee in relatively large volumes (iv) this machine is very basic lacking any digital clock/timer to pre-set the machine to run automatically; the absence of these catchy consumer features doesnt make the coffee taste any better (V) the golden rule for all these filter machines: do not leave the carafe on the built in element; it turns the coffee into a nasty substance tasting like tar, significant enough to be easily detectable in as little as half an hour of sitting on the element.

 You are looking at our 'to do' list.  10 coffees, none of which we have tried before, are how we have chosen to kick off 2011.  We've also got some other new coffee in the queue that we have yet to agree the roast profile on.  

One that is ready for release is a Honduran coffee that makes a very pleasant filter or vacuum coffee, and a nicely balanced espresso, although it could be criticised for being a little one dimensional as an espresso.  It has a lot more vibrancy than the Honduran SHG that it replaces, partly due to the fact that it is a new crop.  It is not as mellow as the Honduran SHG that we have recently run out of, which may disappoint some (us), but please others who thought what we had before was too bland.  The new Honduran is better if you like to sneak a little milk into your espresso.

 It struck me today that something we probably haven't bothered to emphasise enough is just how compact the Olympia Cremina really is.  To illustrate a point this image shows our currently rather unkept Cremina sitting on a sheet of A4 sized paper.

Take our word for it; the A4 paper protrudes beyond the footprint of the Cremina on all four sides (excluding the end of the lever arm and the portafilter handle which protrude outside this boundary).  In a word it's tiny, yet makes espresso to a standard only found on a commercial machine and lasts for decades.