Quote:
Originally Posted by Hakkaboy
5 minutes does seem very tempting, but how long did it take you to perfect your shot? I never really considered making my own simply because I wanted something simple that my wife could use as well
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Nothing too fancy is needed to get a decent shot even for a noob.
Grind beans, put grinds into portafilter, tamp, insert into machine, push button.
All you really need to do is to adjust your grinder until it's the right fineness for your beans where you get 36g of liquid in around 25-30 seconds (assuming an input of a standard 18g double basket).
If you get a bottomless portafilter, you can see if you have channeling (where the espresso is coming out from only one or a few spots rather than all equally down the middle of the basket).
I used to get a bit of channeling, but since I made the WDT tool (I posted it a few pages back in this thread) it's been pretty good.
If you're interested, you can try the Breville Barista Express. It's a good starter machine that also has a built-in grinder. Very popular machine and easy to resell if you decide to upgrade or it's not your thing.
For convenience, I'd probably skip the super automatics and just get a Nespresso. I did a lot of research several months ago and have yet to find one that really ticked the right boxes for me.