Sage Appliances BES100 Espresso Knock Box, The Knock Box Mini

Product Information

Similarly to the above, this will depend on whether you can get decent replacement shower screens for your particular machine, you can for most, but whether you'll actually find much of an improvement in the shot is unlikely, I'd say. You may find a difference, but whether it's necessarily an improvement, is hard to say. I know these aren't really “hands off” machines, because the user still has to handle the portafilter, but really I'm referring to the user rather than the machine, if that makes sense? In other words, if you're the kind of espresso machine user who would want as much convenience as possible, but you want true espresso, not bean to cup espresso, then the Oracle touch in particular is aimed at you, and the Oracle too to a large degree, just without the colour touch screen and the personalisation that this brings with it. If you're happy with the hands-off approach, you don't “need” brew scales as such, but the fact you're using a coffee machine of this type would indicate that you're wanting great cup quality, and in my humble opinion, you can't really get great cup quality without brew scales.

You abso-chuffing-lutely need brew scales. You need to know what weight of coffee you've dosed into the basket, and how much espresso you've ended up with in your cup, so you know what your ratio is. If you don't know this, you can't possibly dial in, and you'll never be able to get consistent espresso.

Sage The Knock Box Mini

The 9 bar OPV mod changes the pressure limit in the basket from about 13.5 bars to 9 bars. In theory, it's not a big deal. All the over pressure valve does is limits the pressure in the basket to whatever the spring is made to allow, so you can achieve the same aim with the grind size. In reality, having a 9 bar OPV is a big plus, it really makes things easier, and it's very cheap and easy to install.

They need it to wake up (or at least think they do) and don't really care all that much about how it tastes. This category of coffee machine users are what I refer to as “normal” coffee drinkers, and I'm not having a go at this kind of coffee drinker, not at all, in fact, I think this kind of person has a perfectly normal relationship with coffee, it's geeks like me that are weird! 😉 Some would say that if you're going to fit a pid you may as well buy an espresso machine that doesn't need modding to include a PID, and while that does make sense for the Rancilio Silvia given that you're actually quite close to the price of the Profitec Go or ECM Casa V by the time you've pidded it, it's not quite true of the Classic.In an ideal world, I think most people would find both of these machines better to work with if they have a PID. If you're getting into home barista espresso, in my opinion, you absolutely need a coffee grinder – and not just any grinder, but a burr grinder that is capable of grinding for standard basket espresso. Any extended warranties offered by Peter Tyson are free. We do not include any form of insurance terms such as accidental damage or loan equipment cover. If we're talking about the espresso machines that are really made for the hands-off user, we're really talking about the Sage Oracle Touch, and you don't need a tamper for that as it tamps for you, using the internal tamping fan. The Oracle also has a tamping fan and takes care of the tamping for you, so you don't need a manual tamper for the Oracle either. It's as if the marketing department of some of these brands have been given one brief, and the manufacturing team has been given another, leading to other machines being sold as if to provide the same kind of cup quality and experience of the immensely popular Sage coffee machines, but they just don't come anywhere close.

The Weiss Distribution Technique (WDT) reduces the chance of channeling by breaking up coffee clumps and evenly distributing the coffee in the basket. It's particularly useful if your grinder produces clumps, however, it's really not as big a deal as most people make out. In my opinion, from testing, the actual difference in cup quality with or without WDT is really splitting hairs. Bottomless or “naked” portafilters, as they're sometimes referred to, are great tools for home baristas, as they allow you to see issues with the shot that you might not be able to taste, but I think most people using a hands-off automated portafilter machine will probably find them an annoyance, and if you can't taste the issue, does it really matter?If you have the Sage Oracle or Oracle Touch, or one of the “in-between” machines from Sage that, as I've mentioned, kind of straddle the home barista and hands-off machine user market, then you'll need a milk jug as all of these machines have a steam wand. They all come with Sage milk jugs, though, so you don't need to buy one. These two categories of people are folk who both enjoy speciality espresso, we could call them speciality espresso drinkers, third-wave coffee drinkers, or espresso connoisseurs (I really don't like that word, though, mainly because I struggle to spell it). In my humble opinion, while WDT isn't a huge thing, it won't harm your espresso, it may help it, and it'll probably help with consistency (in terms of consistently slightly reducing channeling), and it's quite a fun thing to do, I find, so I say why not.