Sage Appliances BES100 Espresso Knock Box, The Knock Box Mini

£174.5
FREE Shipping

Sage Appliances BES100 Espresso Knock Box, The Knock Box Mini

Sage Appliances BES100 Espresso Knock Box, The Knock Box Mini

RRP: £349.00
Price: £174.5
£174.5 FREE Shipping

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Please bear in mind that not all manufacturers provide correct imagery and we may put a similar or alternative image to the actual product for illustration purposes only.The actual item you receive may differ from that which is displayed, for example the box may have changed or a model may have been upgraded or changed after we have added the product online. If you're a hands-off, traditional espresso machine user, really this means you're a Sage coffee machine user, and you have the Sage Oracle or Oracle Touch. In my humble opinion, at the time of writing, these are really the only machines that I believe give true home barista quality espresso with the convenience of bean to cup. When you don't get it right, it's not so mesmerizing to watch when you end up with an espresso spurter to the eyeball, so you may want to invest in a shot mirror! ;-). If you have the Barista Touch, you do need to tamp manually, and that comes with a tamper that fits in the magnetic tamper slot. There's nothing stopping you from buying an aftermarket tamper though, there are loads of tampers available these days that are compatible with the Sage 54mm group machines, including hand tampers, and calibrated tampers, but you don't “need” one, as it comes with one. At present, Sage are really the only brand in the UK that is properly approaching the hands-off true espresso market, coffee machines that deliver barista cup quality with bean to cup convenience. There are other brands on the market who say that some of their machines are for this market, I've tried them, and as far as I'm concerned, all the other machines I've seen so far that claim to compete with Sage in this area, are only doing this in the marketing blurb!

As you would expect, we’re looking at a quality stainless steel unit here, which just glistens and oozes with class. It’s a lovely thing to have in your kitchen, and wouldn’t look out of place in the trendiest of coffee shops. Measuring 13.4×13.4x13cm it is a decent size – big enough so that you don’t spend a lot of time emptying, but without imposing itself on your kitchen counter. A happy medium. Obviously, someone can move from one category to the other. I certainly did, I was a very normal coffee drinker up until about 2014/2015 when I started to dip my toes in the proverbial rabbit hole, which is what prompted me to start this blog, almost straight away, just as a hobby for the first few years. It may seem a bit technical to introduce brew scales to the mix, but it's really not. All you need to do is tare the portafilter on the scales before you pull the shot, note the dose weight, and then put your cup on the scales and tare before the machine pulls the shot for you, so you can see what volume of espresso you're getting. This allows you to know what ratio you're getting, meaning the amount of espresso vs the amount of ground coffee.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. You may think you don't need it because your grinder has a timer and the espresso machine has an automated shot button, you still need scales, 100%. You'll get a different weight of coffee from the same grind time at a different grind size, or even at the same grind size with a different bean. Also, you'll get a different volume of espresso with the exact same pre-programmed shot button even at factory settings, when the grind is different and/or when the beans are different. 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? We have put this at the top of our list because it is a great base for you to begin your search – compare all the others to this one and you won’t go far wrong. As a lower-to-mid range in terms of price, this is an excellent option.

So I'm breaking this post into two main sections, the two groups of coffee machine users who I think actually need coffee machine accessories, and that are hands-off speciality coffee drinkers and home baristas. Again, if you like you can swap out the shower screen, the metal mesh part where the water drips from, with a compatible shower screen, and as with the baskets, you can do that if you like, but it's unlikely to make a big difference, and whether any difference means an improvement, is down to personal taste. Freshly Roasted Coffee Beans What is clever about this, is that there is an inside section within the aluminium housing which you can take out to empty and clean. This means you don’t have to lug the entire box out with you every time you empty it, but also, the inner section is dishwasher safe, so when it comes to cleaning it, you can just pop it straight into the dishwasher and go about your business!

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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. If you've started to get into the home barista hobby, and you want to develop that further, investing time, effort, and money into continually upping your home espresso game, and you're even excited by the prospect of spending an hour or two on your days off, pratting about with coffee (which is how your other half may refer to it, by the way) then you're what I'm referring to as a home barista. 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.

Some may see the plastic body as a disadvantage, when compared to the stainless steel that some of the others are made out of, but it does have the benefit of not being as noisy when you are emptying the portafilter. I do it, because I quite like doing it, I find it quite therapeutic, and if I've had to go particularly fine with the beans I'm using I think it probably has more of a benefit, as there tends to be more clumps to break up when you grind finer.

You don't need a tamping mat for the likes of the Oracle or Oracle Touch unless you're planning on manually distributing and tamping. The same is true with the Barista Express Impress, but you will need a tamping mat for the Barista Touch. But until/unless that happens, if you class yourself as a completely normal coffee drinker, you're just looking for an ultra-convenient cost-effective way to stay caffeinated, then honestly, don't worry about coffee machine accessories.

Anyway, the reason I'm not discussing coffee machine accessories for “normal” coffee drinkers, is that I honestly don't think there are any accessories or gadgets that the normal coffee machine user actually needs, that won't come with their coffee machine. Or, should I say, on any coffee machine. The Grindenstein has been specially designed to fit on an espresso machine’s drip tray, meaning that it won’t take up any extra room on your work surface. It measures just 10.2×10.2×10.2 centimetres, so won’t have any trouble fitting in – although obviously this does mean that you may end up emptying it quite often. Sage are expert at designing kitchen appliances with cleverly integrated functions to take the stress out of cooking. Their range of smart appliances, which includes kettles, toasters, and blenders, through to their ice cream maker and microwaves, has been exactingly considered to give you perfect results every time, all at the push of a button. Whether its prepping, boiling, whisking, whipping, grilling, cooking and baking, thanks to Sage, cooking has never been so easy. If you are using a spray bottle, I would recommend being very sparing with the mist. Also, definitely only do this for single dosing.

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I'd strongly advise against spraying your beans in the bag, or your hopper, or wherever you store your beans, because wetting your beans and leaving them wet, will in (theoretically at least) increase the aging process. If you do store your beans in the hopper, by the way, I'd advise against that too, hoppers aren't intended for storage. See: This is the coffee I drink every day, it's amazing, and I would say that of course, but I'll put my money where my mouth is, with this chunky discount: In fact, I think they're more than great. For the person who has a relatively normal relationship with coffee, bean to cup coffee machines are amazing, you can get them for a few hundred quid, representing a MASSIVE yearly money saving for most people who regularly get their coffee fix from chain coffee shops, and they'll give you much better coffee than any other type of “normal” coffee machine, using fresh coffee beans! I'm mentioning these machines, by the way, because some people who're looking in the “hands off” category may enjoy the middle ground between hands-off and home barista, which includes the Barista Touch and Barista Express Impress. Leveller This would seem like the perfect opportunity to introduce you to the supplier of freshly roasted, high-quality coffee beans that I started a couple of years ago, initially as a little project with a few special coffees. The Coffeeworks now supplies 19 different freshly roasted coffees (roasted within a few days of dispatch), and we have a small but growing section for coffee gear too including coffee machine accessories.



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