Brief Review of Coffee equipment and Evaluation of La Marzocco GS/3 MP use in Coffee making Communication

Professional barista communication, please pay attention to coffee workshop (Weixin Official Accounts cafe_style )

What is worth buying, writing coffee equipment is really a lot of articles, some are newly bought automatic, semi-automatic coffee machine drying list, there are also a series of popular science articles, help like coffee, want to make their own coffee friends to establish the most basic concept, these articles are quite good, many older articles are also one of my enlightenment books. As a coffee lover myself, I am quite deep in playing, and the coffee facilities at home are also good. I often say to friends, if you are sure that you will develop a certain field as a hobby for a long time, then how fast is it? In order not to let everyone take more detours, in order to communicate with a group of friends, to make friends, but also to record their understanding of the equipment at the current level, I want to write about the actual use of the existing machine, because the first contact with coffee, what is worth buying articles helped me a lot, so I decided to put it here. In addition, I will not write the open-box text, there is no nutrition, just write some practical feelings and coffee making skills, mainly for communication.

If you can persist, initially want to write 5 articles from time to time, respectively:

1 La Marzocco GS/3 MP coffee machine;

2 Mahlkönig EKK43 bean grinder;

3 Fuji Royal Coffee Discovery 200 Roaster;

4 Other Italian and hand brewed coffee small equipment;

5 How to use existing coffee equipment to make good coffee.

If you are interested, you can also talk about what I think is the comparison of different coffee equipment.

In addition, these words may involve some conceptual terms and nouns. In order to express conciseness and smoothness, unless it is difficult to understand, they will not be explained. Interested friends can search for themselves and easily know what they mean.

Let's start with the first topic, La Marzocco GS/3 MP coffee machine.

La Marzocco is regarded as Italy's national treasure brand. By 2017, it has a history of 90 years, as long as our army has been built. GS3 coffee machine should be a dream model for many enthusiasts. What is worth buying has also been exposed to the sun by predecessors. It was still a very luxurious existence three years ago. It is called Rolls Royce in coffee machines. It is still very professional now. Many independent boutique cafes in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other big cities use this machine as a shop machine, which shows its professional level. Each GS3 is handmade in Florence, Italy, and the nameplate is engraved on the side of the fuselage. Since the GS3 began production, there have been more than 8000 units in the world. Its price in China has also risen with the depreciation of RMB. It will be purchased in the second half of 2017, and the licensed goods should have been more than 50,000. 2017 new GS3 replaced the anti-scalding steam pipe, also in the original factory that is added to the brewing head real-time pressure gauge, do not have to buy Strada accessories modified, but the original pressure gauge will rotate with the brewing blade, this will be discussed later.

GS/3 MP's main functions and advantages

First, saturation brewing head insulation performance is good. The so-called saturated brewing head means that the brewing head is a cavity, which is connected with the boiler so as to be filled with hot water, and the water pipe connected with the water pump for pressurized extraction is embedded in the brewing head, which is equivalent to real-time water bath, so as to ensure the stability of the extraction water temperature. GS means saturated brewing head, which has been available since the first generation of GS coffee machines that appeared decades ago, and now almost all La Marzocco machines are saturated brewing heads. Other top brands of coffee machines such as Kees, Synesso, Slayer, etc., whose founders either went out from La Marzocco alone, or used to be its distributors, these brands of coffee machines, no matter how innovative other technologies are, without exception, use saturation brewing heads, which shows that this technology has been new for a long time.

Second, the rotary pump extraction pressure is stable. The machine has a built-in rotary pump with low noise. The pressure gauge on the machine body shows that the pump pressure output is very stable during the whole extraction process, so that the extraction process is very stable. In fact, the extraction water flow is very smooth under the condition that there is no problem in operation. The stability of the water flow can be seen by changing to a bottomless handle.

Third, the brewing head has a pressure gauge that displays the brewing pressure in real time. The GS3 has a built-in pressure relief valve to relieve excessive brewing pressure. The MP version allows you to change the actual pressure entering the brewing head by adjusting the stirring angle, thus infinitely adjusting the actual brewing pressure (pump pressure always displays 9bar). This allows you to visually pre-soak at 3 bar, extract the front part at 9bar, extract the back part at 6bar, or extract a cup of non-bitter lungo at 6bar all the way.

Fourth, the steam milk effect is good. The steam of the top coffee machine is enough to use, and the steam stick of GS3 naturally belongs to the category of very good use: the steam stick is long enough to adapt to different sizes of milk tanks; the angle of the 4-hole steam nozzle is reasonable, the opening size is appropriate, and the foaming and cutting time is relatively reasonable; Compared with the single-head coffee machine, the steam amount is sufficient and relatively dry; Under the optimal sending angle, the relative position of the milk tank and the coffee machine is very comfortable; The steam switch is easy to use; The new models feature double-decker scald-proof steam pipes. I later changed the 4-hole steam nozzle that came with the hot mom to the 6-hole steam nozzle of Synesso (need to use raw tape to prevent steam leakage), cutting cotton more smoothly, of course, the hot mom came with it is actually good enough.

Fifth, the machine has an automatic boot function. I think this function is especially useful for me. We office workers have a tight morning time. In order to have a cup of coffee, I often have to set an alarm clock half an hour earlier, get up and turn on the coffee machine, and then go back to sleep for half an hour, and then get up to make coffee. There is no need to start the function at a fixed time. After getting up, the coffee machine has been preheated and can be made directly.

II. GS/3 deficiencies

The GS3 is not a perfect model, but also has its shortcomings, mainly the following:

One is that the human-computer interface is not easy to use. A small LCD screen, a lot of buttons, a lot of functions hidden deeper. Of course, the coffee machine is stable mechanical performance is the most important, so this can be tolerated.

Second, the cup warming plate has no crossbar to block the cup. I like to put a lot of cups on the cup warmer plate, some cups can be put more stable, some cups are easy to slide down, there is no bar I always worry that the cup will fall off and break, after all, professional coffee cups are each expensive.

Third, there are screws in the middle of the water separation net. This is actually a bone in the egg, the vast majority of coffee machine water distribution network on the market depends on screws fixed. Although the e61 brewing head does not have a water dividing net screw, there is no hole in the middle of the water dividing net, so the screw cancellation is of little significance. In this detail, the good ones should be counted as kees. The screws in the middle of the water distribution net of kees coffee machine are actually removed, so that the brewing water is sprinkled on the powder cake like a shower head. Although the brewing quality of this machine was already extremely high, since it was a top-notch machine, wouldn't it be better if the screws could be removed?

Fourth, the brewing head will leak for a long time. This problem I heard other friends with GS3 said, in my machine did not appear, may also be because I am home, and the leakage of that friend is commercial, the cup volume difference is more than 100 times. However, don't worry, the brewing head leaks because the three sealing rings inside are aging. This sealing ring is originally a consumable, so it can be replaced with a new one. The method is not difficult. If you use it at home, you basically don't have to worry about leakage.

Fifth, the new brewing head pressure gauge will turn. The previous GS3, both MP and AV versions, did not have real-time monitoring of the brewing head pressure (note that it is not a pump pressure gauge on the machine). Later, after Strada came out, some players found that the pressure gauge kit on the Strada brewing head could be installed on the GS3, so that the actual brewing pressure could be monitored, so that the variable pressure function of the GS3 became visible, so some friends installed the pressure gauge on the old GS3. After the pressure gauge was installed, with the rotation of the brewing paddle, the table would telescope up and down, but its surface was always directed at the barista, and the effect was very good. The new GS3, price increases at the same time, the original comes with a brewing head pressure gauge, this would have been a good thing, but I do not know if it is a hot mom engineer brain cramps, this pressure gauge and Strada different, will rotate with the brewing paddle rotation (not up and down expansion), so the surface is not always directed at the barista, the barista has to twist his head to see the reading, although the angle is not very large, but still quite awkward.

3. What else you want to say

In general, friends who buy GS3 are usually quasi-professionals with high coffee requirements. They should also be well-informed in coffee equipment. There are not many single-head machine choices at this level: Kees Speedster, single-head La Marzocco Strada, single-head Slayer, single-head Synesso, and cheaper is La Marzocco Linea Mini. Compared with these machines, Slayer and Synesso are too expensive;Strada has fatal injuries with too much water output (which can be solved by replacing the current limiting valve), and it is not too good to buy in China in 2017; Single-head Kees have no transformer function, rotary pump external and no water tank, must have water supply and drainage, and home use is not too convenient. Although Mini is also a hot mom's cost-effective machine, but its brewing pulp is fake MP, only one extraction pressure, playability is not high, and it is a sub-boiler, brewing boiler capacity is small, it is better to add one or two thousand for GS3.

In addition, personally feel that the purchase of coffee equipment do not want to be innovative, must believe that the machine with good reputation is generally not fatal. The cool machine with high price is not easy to use. For example, Strada has too much water output. The water output in the first 10 seconds of brewing exceeds 120g. It is very easy to cause insufficient extraction and perforation of the powder cake. The machine with less than 80g water output is easy to extract bitter and smoked coffee beans. GS3 is a high-end machine with good reputation. I personally measured 90g of water output in 10 seconds. It is considered as a panacea machine. Although manual paddle variable pressure extraction is not easy to copy, it can be freely variable when operated skillfully. Strada, Synesso Although the transformation curve can be copied, its operation mode is also to control the transformation according to time.(That is, how much pressure is used to extract how many seconds), and in practice, the more effective way is to vary the pressure according to the liquid weight (that is, how much pressure is used to extract how much liquid under a certain amount of powder), so I think Strada and Synesso do not want to pay the price of money, and Strada's gear pump is quite easy to break. The money saved is better than buying good grinds and beans.

In addition, if this grade of machine is not used properly, it is also a waste of natural resources, such as regular backwashing, regular disassembly of water separation net cleaning and other maintenance links are necessary, of course, can not simply use tap water or Brita filter kettle filtered water. The use of professional water filter device after filtering tap water is the best effect, can achieve the ideal TDS and pH, but to my understanding, Beijing water quality to meet the requirements, water filter device may have to exceed 5000 yuan, and the main cost of the filter must be replaced regularly. Therefore, I think it is more cost-effective to buy water at home, although the effect is not as good as high-quality filtered water, but it can still be used. I'm using nestle live.

In addition, in addition to the top coffee taste brought by the top coffee machine, in fact, more is the pleasure of making and the satisfaction of vision and touch. There are so many factors that affect a cup of coffee: green bean quality, roasting process, storage of cooked beans, coffee grinding, powder pressing, pre-soaking extraction, how many large and small cafes are equipped with top-of-the-line equipment but using junk coffee beans? Even if the beans are available, it's the barista's skills that really affect extraction, and there are plenty of inexpensive gadgets and tricks that can improve coffee quality on a regular machine, so if you're just drinking it at home, don't use top-of-the-line equipment. Moreover, drinking coffee by myself doesn't need to be so high, and the operation in place is likely to be better than that made by unqualified baristas in cafes with top machines: I used Nuova Oscar coffee machine and MMG bean grinder, using good beans, using some gadgets and using some tips, the coffee taste produced is really good! I remember reading an article written by a foreign professional photographer a long time ago. The title was probably "Why don't I buy expensive equipment". It mentioned that you should try hard to hone your skills so that they match your machine. So I'm constantly wondering if I deserve to use these devices. However, some seniors posted before that it is not recommended to buy and use espresso machines at home. I have reservations about this point of view. This will be communicated to you in the article related to skills later.

Finally, although I like it very much, coffee is just a cup of drink. There are many business purposes behind the concept and behavior of fine coffee. Therefore, don't be too serious. It's not good to be pretending to be someone else.

The above is the first article in this series, which only represents personal views (my views may also change). If there is something wrong, welcome to communicate and correct. The same friends of the imperial capital are also welcome to meet offline to communicate and drink coffee together. There is a follow-up to the series, so stay tuned.