Bother, I've got egg on my face this time, well and truly.  I bought a KF4 Swissgold 12-cup permanent filter home tonight to drop into the Sainsbury's filter coffee machine and guess what; it didn't fit.  So I pulled out the insert that the factory filter sat in (top image, with factory filter; note again, this filter was white and has discoloured to the extent shown after just one brew cycle), and while i could just get the door to close if I held it all just so as I closed the filter door on the machine I would not recommend this machine as being suitable for the KF4 Swissgold replacement filter (lower image).

Anyway, I've loaded the filter machine with water for the morning, so all it requires is 45g of coffee ground on the same setting as the test we ran earlier today (Tuesday 28 Dec).  I think the life expectancy of this machine in our household has just been reduced somewhat as the ill fitting KF4 Swissgold filter in this machine is going to bug me more and more each time I use it.  You get what you pay for I guess.  The fit is so close, but not quite, that I'd even suggest the manufacture may have deliberately sized the recess to make it difficult for after-market filters like the Swissgold to be fitted.

Oh well, if nothing else it has taught me to be more sympathetic if customers purchase a KF4 Swissgold filter from us and have a similar experience.  As long as you return the filter undamaged in its box we will promptly refund you in full

 This image shows the 'permanent' filter the machine was supplied with after a single use.  I have held a white tea towel over my hand to show more clearly how tainted this nylon mesh filter is after a single use and thorough washing.  The point is the nylon is quite absorbent and therefore imparts a taint to the coffee, and this can be detected in the cup.  So this is a 'permanent' filter, but made of nylon which means tainting will occur, and equally important, you will have to wash it quite carefully if you want it to be 'permanent' as they are quite easily damaged once they have been used a few times and lose their elasticity.  Prior to running the first coffee cycle we flushed the machine twice with Volvic bottled water.

This is a 12 cup machine, so for this first coffee cycle we filled it up to the 12 cup mark and added 45g of espresso ground coffee.  You have to be careful doing this as loading the machine with too much coffee ground too finely will restrict the flow too much and is likely to cause the machine to overflow, although they are designed so the overflow is captured internally within the space that holds the coffee basket, but it is still something to be avoided as you want the water passing through the coffee, not bypassing it which is what happens if it floods over the top of the basket.

It will be interesting to see if the same volume of water and mass of coffee with the Swiss gold filter produce a similar result.  We found the coffee from this filter to be relatively weak, yet we would not have chanced adding any more coffee as it would most likely have flooded the filter.

Now it's time to go roasting and bring back a KF4 Swissgold filter to try later today.  Actually the nylon tainting has become more noticeable in the aftertaste.  As I sit here writing this it has gone from being in the background to being dominant and quite unpleasant.  If you have ever had this misfortune of having to drink from nylon water tanks when camping, or perhaps on a boat, you will know exactly the taste I am experiencing.

To be fair, this is a new machine and we may have some plastic taste even after we drop in the Swissgold filter.  Hopefully not, but it is certainly a possibility.  More soon.

Yes, I have an increasing need in this cooler weather to take a thermos of coffee with me on the road some days.  Three cycles of the KF300 Swissgold perched precariously upon the top of the thermos seemed a bit daft.  So when I found myself helping to replenish supplies post Christmas, pre New Year's eve, I spied this filter coffee machine in Sainsburys and thought it would be a worthy purchase to see what its coffee making capabilities were.  It was the last one and the box was a bit knocked around, but the product inside appeared undamaged, so I took it.

I am fortunate in that we have decent coffee grinders already, but if you don't check out a couple of posts earlier to see the Russell Hobbs coffee maker with integrated grinder on special for circa GBP75, down from GBP100.  Anyway, please find attached some initial images.

Tomorrow when I go out to the factory to roast and pack the coffee orders I will bring home a KF4 Swissgold filter to drop into this plain vanilla machine and transform its coffee making abilities in a moment.  The only other thing to check will be the brew temperature; it would not surprise me if this was outside of the desired range, around 92C, but lets see what sort of coffee a GBP15 machined upgraded with a sub-GBP20 Swissgold filter can deliver.

There is one thing we've learnt to value this far along life's journey, and that is simplicity.  We hope you can see our commitment to simplicity in the coffee equipment that we sell and the advice we provide.

Penn Reels of America used to have as their slogan, 'keep it simple, make it work'.  We have proved time and again the worth of this philosophy, particularly where our customers are at a distance and any failure can be expensive to remedy.  We seek and sell products that perform that have simplicity at the core of their design philosophy.  We do not select products on the basis of the highest margin.  

We are looking for products that will perform for at least 10 years with general care, not pedantic fussing by coffee heads with nothing else to think about.  The coffee equipment we sell needs to be able to cope with the rigours of the busy lives of our customers, and be easy to master.  They need to be built from quality materials.  They will seldom be the cheapest product of their kind, but they will always represent value for money.  How so?  Because they will provide the best coffee of their respective brew method for years, with no more than everyday care and respect.

 Perhaps I've not been paying attention, but I've not seen this product before.  It struck me as the ideal product for a family, or indeed anyone who has to meet the needs of a small group of coffee drinkers (as opposed to an individual).  We are inundated with requests about grinders, and why do they cost so much and all of that.  Well, as we are fortunate to have a ready supply of grinders I didn't buy this product today in the name of research (but I did buy its cheaper brother; more on that soon).  The point is this machine is about the same price as a stand alone entry level grinder.  Will it grind for espresso?  No, of course it won't, but then it isnt being sold for that application.  From a cursory glance I suspect this is an excellent platform from which to provide multiple coffee drinkers freshly ground gourmet coffee.

In retrospect I wish I had checked to see if you can control the brew temperature, I rather suspect you might be able to; a quick search of the web now might answer my own question.  Anyway, what I am getting around to here is I rather suspect a lot of you don't quite know what to do with the KF4 Swissgold filter.  Well, the KF300 single cup is fairly self explanatory I think; it sits upon your favourite coffee cup.  You add finely ground coffee, then you sit the insert on top, then you add water up to the max fill mark.  Wait until all the water runs through, flush the filter with hot water, dry, return filter to cupboard.  Enjoy great coffee.  Done!  Easy.

But how to use the KF4, the 12 cup filter?  Well, the important message to get across is that it fits into almost all the drip filter machines on sale in the UK.  OK, so what is wrong with the filter the manufacture fits I hear you ask?  Fair question.  Well, if you inspect a filter in a new machine at your local shop, or indeed this style of coffee maker is so ubiquitous, more likely you already have one at homw, you will find that it is almost certainly made of the cheapest, nastiest, fine nylon mesh imaginable.  Indeed they need to be treated with some care if they are not to be torn, ripped, or holed.  A very limited number of machines do come with a 'metal' filter, these are invariably gold anodised aluminium or raw stainless steel.  Neither have the inert features of the 10micron 22ct gold plated Swissgold filters.  There is only one genuine Swissgold filter and the difference is clear in the taste of your coffee.

Anyway, the point is for a very small outlay (less than GBP20) you can drop a KF4 Swissgold into a filter machine you may have had rather dreary coffee out of for years and absolutely transform its performance, even without upgrading to freshly ground coffee, although this will obviously take you a step further again up the quality ladder.

I would urge you to consider a modest investment in a KF4 Swissgold filter.  You will be astounded at the difference it makes.  A key difference is the Swissgold simply performs much better as a filter; your coffee has a clean taste rather rather a gritty sludgy mouthfeel like you might experience if you were unfortunate enough to have to drink from a muddy creek.  It is an instant fit into your existing filter coffee make with no modification requirted.

A final word with any of these machines: under no circumstances leave the coffee sitting on the 'keep warm' element function that invariably accompanies these machines.  Coffee must be made and consumed as a fresh product.  You will turn even the most exclusive of freshly ground micro lot coffee into the most horrid treacly tar if you leave it sitting on the keep warm function for as little as half an hour.  Other than that, keep the machine clean, and it is perfectly capable of making you some very fine coffee with a minimum of fuss and minimal capital outlay.  Ideal for families and small workplaces that do not wish to make a significant investment in coffee equipment, but do enjoy fine coffee.

We've said it before, but we'll say it again:

With the Bacchi we recommend you start off by going and buying yourself a tin of roast & ground Illy espresso blend coffee from your local grocer or supermarket.  If nothing else you can have a chuckle on the way around the aisles at the best before date that stretches off some 12 months beyond the canning date (let alone the roast date!).

Yes, you read that correctly.  Start with an unopened can of Illy coffee as it 'dies' pretty quick after opening

Illy is very forgiving of poor technique in the Bacchi for some reason.  This will build your confidence in the Bacchi's ability to knock out a good espresso without the risk of you getting lost in the woods of getting your gourmet coffee grind & tamp 'just right'.

Start with a moderate, middle of the road 7g per shot (14g double) dosing and all that.  Beginners & extreme measures are seldom a good mix in our experience, not just in the realm of coffee.  A moderate approach greatly improves the likelihood of you getting very good espresso within the first couple of shots.  Its very easy to lose the plot when you change all the variables at once.  We understand the Bacchi was actually developed in fairly close liaison with Illy, although scant mention is being made of it in the marketing material.

We're not hesitant in advocating Illy if it helps you achieve a good result with the Bacchi 'out of the box'.  One of our missions is to bring great coffee within your reach at home, not to add more bull to the tide of misinformation that seems to go hand in hand with coffee.

One of the primary reasons we decided to stock the Bacchi is it is unique in that you can make an 'acceptable' cup of espresso using a tin of pre-ground Illy.  That is to say, you can make an espresso of very high quality at home without a grinder.  Our definition of 'acceptable' in this context is that it will be at least as good as the Illy espresso you would receive in a cafe that uses Illy coffee, and often far superior.

I am not able to explain why Illy is so fault-tolerant in the Bacchi, and have neither the time nor inclination to find out, the important point is that it is.

Yes, freshly ground gourmet coffee will ultimately give you a much better result in the Bacchi, but it is much less forgiving than the pre-ground Illy in our experience.  On balance starting with gourmet coffee in the Bacchi is likely to make your learning curve steeper, longer, and more volatile.

Finally, follow the instructions in the manual and discard the first couple of espresso as an amount of cutting fluid residue and metal swarf from the manufacturing process will flush out.  It does not present a threat to your health, but it wont improve the taste of the espresso.  Run a couple of cycles with just water and no coffee then you can see when the debris has been completely flushed out of the internals (using an espresso cup with a brilliant white interior will allow even the smallest specks to be seen).  We will have performed one test cycle at our factory if you buy your Bacchi from Londinium, but we will still recommend another couple of cycles before you consume the output.

The snow didn't make the job of looking after customers in the run up to Christmas any easier, but it turned the sometimes drab streets of London into a more magical place for a few days.  We stopped for a moment to record the event with this shot:

From memory the author was talking about porridge, but we're talking about coffee.

If you want to find out if your coffee roaster really knows how to roast, here's an easy way to cut through the hyperbole; let your black filter or vacuum coffee go stone cold and then try it.  

What better time of year to get something stone cold than right now? (assuming you are in the northern hemisphere)  About 20 minutes will be long enough to get your coffee stone cold.

If your roaster is on their game it will taste unusual at first, but once you get past the shock of the 'cold' part of the equation the coffee should be quite drinkable and you should find yourself acquiring a bit of a taste for it by the time you get to the bottom of the cup.

Any burn tones will be instantly detected.  Drinking your coffee stone cold acts as a magnifying glass for your taste buds, making it much easier to detect any deficiencies in either the green coffee (e.g. mouldy beans) or the roasting process that followed.

While this experiment can also be run on espresso coffee it is a manoeuvre for advanced palates as to the beginner stone cold espresso is going to taste vile, even if its good.

Indeed if you find an espresso roaster in Napoli in a quiet moment (we did) they will admit that one of the reasons there is so much emphasis in southern Italian espresso culture about keeping the cups piping hot is that once their very dark roasts start to cool the sooty notes quickly become overbearing, to the point of becoming unpleasant.  Don't believe us?  Try it in the comfort of your own home some time with a chimney sweep espresso roast of your choice.

In summary, we find drinking our test roasts cold a very helpful tool in deciding whether we are getting close to our target roast profile.

We received the email below from a customer today. While the Bacchi contains a vacuum breaker valve in the base this does not mean you will be able to separate the main component that contains the cylinder and piston from the base by exerting opposing forces acting in the same plane (i.e balanced forces). There is still a residual vacuum and this is easily broken by following the simple steps described below:

Ben

I've been giving this some more thought as we've never had this kind of
complaint, and its never occurred to me as an issue, so Im quite surprised.

I trust when you are trying to separate the 2 parts that you are not trying
to pull them apart in a 'straight line' or 'horizontally opposed' if you
like.  If you are I understand why you think it is extremely difficult, as
it will be.

To separate;

1.  have the base of the Bacchi sitting on the bench
2.  hold the top of the frame with your left hand, pushing down toward the
bench with moderate but not excessive force to stop the base moving around
3.  with your right hand grasp the top of the component that houses the
cylinder & piston (i.e you have already removed the other components that
sit on top of the cylinder & piston housing) and pull it in a horizontal
direction, i.e. parallel with the top of the bench that the Bacchi is
sitting on.  Pulling in this direction will break the vacuum fairly easily
4.  if you are trying to pull 'upwards' in step 3, yes it will be an almost
impossible task as you will struggle to break the vacuum.

This would account for your frustration.

Let me know how you get on

Reiss.


On 26 December 2010 19:20, Benny <bennish@> wrote:

>  Hello Reiss
>
> Today I received the Bacchi . Due to weather conditions in LHR and CDG
> airports the delivery by Fedex was delayed.
> I managed to produce a very good espresso on third trial with good heavy
> brown red crema. I addmit that the taste is still not in par with what I get
> from my Giotto still I`m satified and sure I`ll improve.
>
> However ,I have one phenomena for which I`d like your advise. After I cool
> the machin under tap water trying to disangage the main boiler from the base
> it is difficult and the two unit are stuck due to vacum produced at the
> lower water bed.  to the best of my knowledg there should be a valve
> releasing this vacum. Am I right ? Else .What should I do ?
>
> Thanks for your advise.
>
> Benjamin

Buy the best coffee making equipment and look after it.  It will make far better coffee and last for years and years, the cost per cup falling below that of the cheap equipment you would have thrown out and replaced, probably more than once.  Also, be sure to make a little bit of effort to keep your coffee equipment clean.  The easiest way to do this is a quick rinse under the hot tap immediately after you have made your coffee (before you sit down to drink it) as it does not allow the coffee oils to cool and solidify forming a varnish on your equipment, which is much more difficult to remove.  Our Swissgold KF300 filter is subject to this cleaning routine, and after 6 years of making coffee several times a day, it is still free from tainting coffee oil residue.