Puck screen is the common recommended tool to people starting their espresso journey. It is said to improve water distribution at to the puck, which promotes even extraction which means better tasting espresso. My my best of effort, I can’t detect any change in flavor with or without the puck screen. The benefit of using puck screen – is to keep your group head clean. When you stop the pump, some of the coffee ground will be suck up to the
Normcore
Thickness: 1.7mm
This is a mesh puck screen, which means it has several levels pressed together with a laser etching. It is the thickest and also the heaviest (but not by much). It used to cost around 250kr on amazon.se but it is now 185kr.
Pros: It is probably the one that works best.
Cons: it feels bulky. It probably works the best but it is also the hardest to clean. I had to soak it in puly caff from time to time to clean it even after putting it in disk washing machine. There could be concern that it will cold the water down more than it should, but given its thermal mass compared to the group head it should be very negligible.
3MHW-Bomber
Thickness: 0.8mm
It is a hybrid puck screen, with a plate with bigger holes and a net with smaller holes. Price is around 140kr on Aliexpress but I bought 5 for 330kr.
Pros: Of all three, this one is the best looking, not as bulky as the normcore but not as slimy as the Temu one. It also seems to work great – on par with Normcore, while much easier to clean.
Cons: it’s asymmetric so if you put it in the puck up side down, it is not as beautiful.
No name Temu puck screen
I had I hope for this but it turn out to be quite a disappointment. It is by far the cheapest, for around 2 pieces/35kr. It is simply a very thin metal place with holes
Pros: It is the thinnest (0.2mm), and also the lightest (2.7gr), so virtually no impact on thermality. It is also the easiest to clean.
Cons: it is too thin it is easy to bend, harder to hold as well. When you store 2 or more of them, they are easy stuck together. Performs the worst as the holes are big enough for grounds to get through.
All in all, my favorite is the 3MHW-Bomber. It has the best craftmanship, it has a nice balanced between size and function. After some trials I decided to put away my Normcore and Temu, and use it exclusively.
“There is no too clean espresso machine”. That is my favorite quote when it comes to cleaning espresso machines and equipment. When you use your machine, the coffee ground and oil build up, and it can, and will affect the taste of your espresso. Why spend thousands of USD buying fancy machines, and few dozens for each bag of specialty coffee, without getting the best out of it.
Property cleaning and maintaining machine is also helping to prolong your machine and increase your enjoyment of using it.
For every machine
Keep your group head clean after each use. There are several ways of doing that, and you can do a combination of them that you like best
Draw some hot water from the group head with an empty portafilter to clean any debris remaining
Use a paper filter or a puck screen. This prevents the coffee ground from being attached to the group head.
Wipe the group head with a wet cloth (preferably microfiber) after the shot
Use this fancy tool from Espazzola to clean it up.
You will also need to backflush – i.e. using a blind basket – a basket without holes so water can’t be escaped. It will flow back to the machine and escape through the OPV (over pressure valve), bringing with it any coffee ground and oil that is inside the group head. Each type of group head needs a different backflush schedule – more on that later.
For milk wand
Purge the wand before each use.
Wipe the wand right after frothing. Immediately if your is not non burn – i.e. it gets very hot to touch. Otherwise the milk will be baked and is very hard to remove.
Purge the wand as soon as possible after each froth.
If your milk wand has removable tip, remove it once every month to check for blockages
For equipment
If you are using a bottomless portafilter, either wipe it or rinse it under running water after each use to remove any stuck coffee ground. One quick way to check if the basket is clean is to use a household paper to wipe it. If it comes out clean, you are good. If it comes out black – you need to clean a bit more.
If you are using the normal portafilter with sprout, pop the basket out and clean both it the portafilter (if you have never done it, you might be surprised, yuck!). This is also one of the reason I’d prefer the bottomless.
Every week, soak your equipment that have been in contact with coffee ground in a detergent that can clean coffee oil. I recommend to use puly caff as it’s effective, safe (it’s NSF-certified), and cheap to use. Add 10gr of pulycaff to 1 liter of hot water, stir it well then soak your equipment for 15 minutes, then clean and rinse them thoroughly.
For Integrated/saturated group head
Those group heads can be backflush as many times as needed.
Once every week, use 3-4gr of pulycaff in a blind basket, and draw a few shots until the pulycaff is dissolved, then draw a few more until the water in blind basket is “clean”. Remove the blind basket, and draw a few more shots without the portafilter locked in.
Every 3 months, or less, open the shower head and clean it. (tip: make sure that the group head is cooled down and completely comfortable to touch. it can retain heat for a long time)
Change your gasket every year if it is rubber (as it degrades with heat), or every other year if it is silicone. That is just the guideline, check if it is hard and has lost its elasticity.
For E61 group head
E61 group head needs lubing with food grade silicone grease, and backflushing with pulycaff washing that away, so you need to be conservative about that. Instead:
Backflush with water only after the final shot of the day.
Backflush with pulycaff every other month, then grease your lever. If you do not, your lever will be squeaky, it will feel tight to open/close, and it will wear much faster.
Open your shower head every week and clean it up. Use a spoon and gently remove the shower head. If you have a hardened rubber tool to avoid scratches, even better.
Change your gasket every year if it is rubber (as it degrades with heat), or every other year if it is silicone. That is just the guideline, check if it is hard and has lost its elasticity.
Descaling
Limescale is the #1 enemy of espresso machine, especially for dual boilers ones with the steam boiler – as the water boils, it leaves the remaining mineral behind, the TDS in the water increases, and the chance for limescale build up gets higher.
If your water is relatively soft, always use the water softener and change it when it is used up.
If your tap water is very hard, you might need some other options instead of using it directly. You might have to use distilled water + added mineral (distilled water does not taste good, and it can also be harmful with electronic component in the boilers. Certain sensors rely on the ions available in the water to work (properly).
Draw 200ml of water from the hot water tap to increase the water exchange, use that for heat your cup. Don’t draw too much as it can expose the heating element to the air and fry it. This ensure that your steam boiler gets fresh water every day, avoid high concentration.
Descale according to the manufacturer guideline. NOTE: be more cautious if one or both of your boilers are brass, as descaling chemical can cause harm to them.
Routines
Each use
Draw some water from steam boiler if you have dual boilers
Clean group head and portafilter
Wipe and purge milk wand
Wipe splashes of coffee (from channeling) or milk (from frothing) if any
Every day
For E61: backflush with water only after last pull of the day
Weekly (or every 3 days, depends on our usage)
Soak portafilter, basket etc. in pulycaff solution, and clean them thoroughly
Clean the dip tray
For saturated group head: backflush with pulycaff
For E61: remove and clean shower head
Every other week
Clean water tank with some disk soap, rinse it thoroughly
Every other month
For E61: backflush with pulycaff, then lubricate the lever
Every 3 months
For saturated group head: remove and clean the shower head
For E61 with flow control: lubricate the o rings of the flow control
Every year
Check gasket and replace if they become hard
Remove cover and check for internal for any sign of leaks
Making espressos, and espresso-based drinks at home is not about the joy of a hobby, but also an economic way of drinking high quality coffee. Let’s talk about it.
An espresso at a cafe costs around 30kr, while a big latte costs around 45kr.
if you drink twice a day, your and your partner would cost between 120kr and 180kr
Assuming you drink 300 days a year – then each year, it’s around 36.000kr and 54.000kr for coffee 😮
Now if you are making espressos at home.
Each double shot espresso needs about 18gr of coffee, but we have to consider waste and throw away (for example when you dial a new coffee), so let’s be conservative and assume that 1kg of coffee makes around 45 shots.
A good 1kg of coffee is between 250kr to 400kr (specialty grade – and that is usually much better than what you are served in a normal cafe). So it’s about 5.5 to 8.9kr for coffee for each drink.
A big latte needs around 250ml of milk (including waste and throw away), so each 1.5l of milk can make 6 latte. A 1.5l of Arla standard 3% milk costs 17.9kr (as we always buy at Willys), so it’s 3kr per drink for milk.
Of course you need electricity for heating up the machine. My machine which is an E61 uses around 0.6 kwh-0.7 kwh per day for 4 lattes. Electricity price has gone up a bit, we are quite lucky to only have to pay a fixed price of 1.3kr/kwh, but let’s say you have to pay a bit more, 1.5kr/kwh, it’s 1kr per day for the machine.
And you need other things for cleaning and maintenance – you need water softener. I used Lelit 70l water softener which costs around 110kr/each, and I change every 2 months, which means almost 2kr/day. I also need pulycaff for cleaning machines and other stuffs, but after 2 years I haven’t gone through 1 bottle of 900gr yet (costs around 150kr), so the cost is very minimal.
Basically, it’s 22-36kr per coffee per day, 12kr per milk per day, 1kr electricity per day, and 2kr per cleaning per day, it’s around 37kr- 51kr per day for 4 lattes.
Now you have coffees at home and you will drink more often, let’s say it’s 365 days per year because you also have friends come over, it’s 12,410kr to 18,615kr.
Even with some fancy machines and equipment to start with, you would be break even in one year. That includes things like fancy cups, WDT, scale etc.
Cost
Buying
Making
Machine cost
N/A
10.000kr – ∞
Per drink
30-45kr
8.5-12.5kr
Drinks per year
4x per day, 3 days
4x per day, 365 days
Cost for coffee
36000-54000kr
12410kr-18615kr
Some might argue that the making espressos also costs time, but you also need to walk down the street (assuming that you have a cafe right around corner) and wait for your coffee. Also need to factor the time to put on/off clothes.
Not to mention the relaxing feeling when brewing espressos is priceless.
Of course those numbers only apply if you drink coffees frequently. Things will change if you drink less, or more, or without milk.
This is a super short review of this fairly popular espresso machine. I bought this last year, despite a lot of arguments from my wife. She even threatened to throw it out if I bought. I did. And now she demands latte/cappuccino every day!
My budget was pretty limited at that point, so other decent options (HX or even dual boiler machines) are out of reach. Barista Pro fits in my budget (and kitchen), and when Amazon had a very good discount on them, I pulled the trigger.
I was happy.
When it was new
Don’t laugh.
Pros:
Sage/Breville is feature oriented, and when you open the box, you have everything you need to get going: a milk jug, a 54mm portafilter with 4 different baskets (2 double shots (1 pressurized, 1 non pressurized), 2 single shot), and of course, a grinder built-in. If you are new, this is hugely important. Some sellers do not include the milk jug, or even tamper (looking at you, Lelit!), and it’s bad that you are excited to open your new fancy espresso machine and realize you can’t make a decent cappuccino due to lacking equipment. The UI is intuitive and easy to work with. Once you understand the basics, using the machine, UX wise, is simple and easy.
The flow is well defined, and smooth – you take the portafilter, put it in the holder and click – the grinder grinds coffee for you, in the fineness you chose and the time you pick. Then you take the tamper (attached to the machine using a magnet, a pretty smart design), tamp it, put it in the head, place your cup, and press a button. It is the convenience you are paying for.
Cons:
Once you open the box, you quickly realize this machine is not built to last. It’s a thin layer of stainless steel outside of plastic. Build quality is … fine, but don’t expect the same quality as Italy-made machine. It’s been reported that while Sage/Breville service is very good during warranty, but one you are out of warranty, you have to pay hefty fee for repairs, because they just break down. And repair usually means “replace”.
The machine is advertised as “3s start up time”. You press a button, and the machine is ready. Truth is, however, if you want to get better shots, you need to wait for at least 10m, and flush 1 or 2 cup first. With the empty portafilter inserted, press the double shots button, and let the hot water flows through it. It warms up the head, the portafilter, and make sure you get stabilized temperature in the boiler. Otherwise, your cups will be incredibly sour. Or some times, both sour of bitter!
The machine overall is quite noisy, both the grinder and the pump. it’s not a big deal until you have tried quieter machines. This is even more true when you have empty grinder, it sounds like it gonna break (it is fine to grind in a short amount of time, mind you)
Another downside is that this uses a 54mm portafilter. The portafilter itself is fine, well made and solid, but after a while, you will want to try out new things, like bottomless portafilter. But this is when you realize you are left with either options: 1. buy cheap no brand products from China or 2. absurdly expensive or 3. both. Should it come with a 58mm portafilter which is the “industry standard”, you will have more options from reputable brands, at reasonable prices.
The built-in grinder is merely adequate, it’s step conical burr grinder (some says it’s actual stepless, but you will need some “tricks” for that). You will be able to grind espresso with it, but not with the fineness adjustment needed to extract the best out of your coffee. Whenever you can, upgrade to a good espresso grinder would make a huge difference in your espresso. (Note: a good espresso grinder can easily cost $400 or more!). Also, cleaning it is not the easiest task – it’s doable, but requires additional tools (like a vacuum cleaner) to do it properly.
It’s messy to grind a double shot (18-20gr), because some coffee ground will be left on the portafilter holder, or on the drip tray. Yes you can use a dosing cup, or a funnel, but you will, once again, agonize the limited options of a 54mm portafilter.
So so
The included tamper is “serviceable”. It can be tucked in which is need, and it does it job. But I’d suggest to buy a nice, ergonomic tamper as soon as you can. It’ll make your experience much more enjoyable.
The steam wand is ok, but it is on the weak side, and it produces wetter steam than I would like. It is enough to froth the included milk jug, but if you want to use a bigger jug (so you can make 2 cappuccinos or 1 big latte in 1 go), it’ll not powerful enough.
The included milk jug is OK. Good ergonomic, but the wall is a bit too thin, so it gets hot very quickly. I had hard time holding it when it reaches 55*C. In comparison, my Motta one is only fairly warm even when the milk reaches 60*C (that is however not the perfect thing)
Summary
In the end, Barista Pro is a well rounded, full featured espresso machine. It’s a budget/entry one, capable of making good shots. You have everything you need to start going, but it also does not really excel in neither brewing, nor steaming. Once you horned your skill, upgrading to a better grinder, and a better machine 58mm portafilter will be a big step.
