How To Dial In A Bean To Cup Machine (Like A Nerd)

An overview video for how to get the best out of bean to cup machines with specialty coffee. I hope this can be useful to those of you with these machines!

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[herbsmanherbs]

With De'Longhi machines, after grinding but before extraction starts, you just press the brew button again to cancel the brew. It ejects the dry, ground, unextracted coffee into the grounds catcher, unmoistened and ready to be weighed. No need to cut the power or reset anything.

[barryb]

It would be great if there was a centralized spreadsheet where everyone can contribute results for their specific machine. Seems like it could save quite a bit of precious time and coffee!

[peterv]

As a mechanic of bean to cup machines and coffee enthusiast I'm very interested in the review. I hope you've been experimenting with the unique SBS dial on the front of that Gaggia Accademia. One of the few bean to cup machines that can adjust the flow.
A few things in this video: are you aware the amount of ground coffee in strongest setting is not always the same? With a Saeco/Gaggia/Philips for example it depends on a algorithm based on the power consumption of the brew group motor. This is meant to adjust for fine/coarse grinds.
The majority of these machines is marketed more towards a long coffee than espresso. At least here in the Netherlands. 90 percent of my customers use it for just coffee (and cappuccino now and then).

[Stueny]

I'm very pleased to report that my Delonghi Magnifica Smart S was pretty much dialed in from the factory. 3.82 ratio coffee to water from 8 grams of ground coffee and around 30.5 grams of liquid. I bought a precision scale to see if I can make the coffee better but I guess it was as good as it could be after my initial blind tweaks. Thank you for the great video and the guidance.

[bartr]

I've been the 'coffeemachine tuner' for a lot of friends and family. Untill now I've been adjusting based on the things I learned in your other videos. I did find that setting the grind setting finer than factory is always a great first step towards better tasting coffee. But a lot of times the stream of the liquid coming out of the macine turned way too light in just a few seconds. Usually by just randomly changing thing it got better, but this video is very concrete and helpful! I also love the tip to just weigh the ground coffe, never thoguht of that!
Thanks a lot! I'm glad I became a bit more coffee nerd today

[FasterBikeBlog]

Thanks! After some trial n error, these are my settings for the Melitta Purista and Lavazza Crema e Gusto beans: temp high, bean 2 (10g, 3 bean is 13g), Grind 1 (finest, still good flow), 40 mL, which is exactly 1:4 ratio. As said, if you go lower than 1:4 it starts to taste first a little sour and then really weird. A little higher is to "watery". Thats at least my results and taste. Now I will start experimenting with the beans...

[alanboreham]

Thank you for taking this on. I have watched untold hours of videos about these machines, and hadn't come across a single one that discussed how to dial it in - until now. You have made real what numerous reviewers either ignored or made sound like magic. Good work.

[ElieMIESIAC]

I have never heard a single flavor descriptor within a WBC routine that would come close to how much I love you

[SurefireSentinel]

I’ve been waiting for this for so long! Haha. We have one of these machines at work and I’m never really happy with what it produces, but I know the beans have a lot to offer. Can’t wait to get back to work now and tinker. I’m going to be very jittery tomorrow! Thank you James!

[FormerNewAger-sbue]

I've come to really enjoy your videos Mr. Hoffmann. Your ability to simplify and organize complexities, the pleasant tone in your voice, your gentle demeanor, and your uncommon knowledge denotes wisdom, temperance, maturity, and humility; virtues seldom observed in one person.

"...diligent hands bring wealth."-Proverbs 10:4

[timr]

Putting 'nerd' in the coffee machine's logo in the thumbnail. James, this level of passion and literal nerdiness is why I love you and your channel <3

[morgensellier]

Thank you for doing this video, James! I know most coffee purists turn up their noses at superautomatics (and their cheaper pod cousins), but I think their utility as an accessibility tool is overlooked. Luckily I don't have to ration my energy so strictly anymore, but there's been times in my life that having the coffee machine meant I didn't have to choose between a hot drink or a shower. Seeing something specifically geared towards my beloved superautomatic makes me feel so happy and included!

[gbjbaanb]

TBH the primary use-case for these things is in small, or home, offices. I've worked in many places that had industrial vending coffee machines that were worse than instant, but one day I joined a place that had a delonghi BtC machine and it was significantly better. I bought one for myself! The problem of course, is that in such an environment, you don't want espresso or similar, you want a mugfull to sip while contemplating the meaninglessness of your existence as the sales manager tells anyone still listening of this meeting's weekly projection forecast revenue opportunity projections.

So I'd be more interested in the "real world" uses of these for getting a decent mug of coffee out of them.

[sakuzaku]

Thank you, James, for discussing bean-to-cup machines - looking forward to your reviews, especially as I’m debating between full automatics, semi automatic and manual (and pour overs) as my old machine retired. Love your informative videos; learned a lot about coffee!

[indrajitdas]

Context: Just a regular coffee consuming guy who moved from drip coffee’s to espresso years back and then moved from Starbucks to a Nespresso to a Breville Barista Pro with big store beans finally from the last one year to locally roasted beans. My espresso and milk steaming been giving me great results and I have not found a better espresso or cappuccino in specialty coffee places.

Review: wanted to move to a super automatic for the convenience and after getting frustrated dialing in based on other videos, finally found yours. I had the impression from last few years that you are regarded as a god in the espresso world and now after having seen this one and was able to do the initial dialing in with my new Jura E8. Will work on nuancing but wanted to say, Thank you James.

[rud]

I found that my Philips has so limited settings in grinder and heat, that it was more a matter of finding a coffee that it could do right and it wasn’t the most expensive beans that tasted best because of the limitations. Still, proper freshly roasted beans that hasn’t been sitting in a supermarket for a year are still worth it for a fuller taste. Now that my old Philips Saeco needs replacing soon, I will go looking for one with greater adjustment ranges.
I like the automatic machine because I will never be good at making coffee with consistency and I fell the machine helps me take a lot of the parameters I fail at getting right out of the process. But I know it can only at most get 70% there of getting the most of the beans compared to a skilled person doing it manually.

[TadyWalsh]

As a first step to home espessso milk based drinks, I think they're a great option. I had a Delonghi unit we bought second hand and used till it literally fell apart. Made consistent, very good, very tasty coffee. Not the "greatest cup of coffee ever brewed (TM)" but certainly, consistent and good. I think that's important for a lot of people. I've gone down the home espresso setup with grinders and bottomless portafilters and the like since, but I have friends who have various versions of these and they work well. Nice to see them reviewed, I wouldn't turn my nose up at the coffee from them (though some of the bean choices can be terrible) so deffo great to see that there are ways to tweak and "dial in" a decent coffee from them.

[tomsmith]

Thank you James. This is literally what I need right now. Our coffee machine has broken, and we're trying to decide what to get. 1 button brewing would be nice, as I'll still make a v60 or aeropress when I want something different. But this is really making it seem like a good deal to spend the extra £150+ on the Sage Barista Pro and taking care of the puck prep myself...

Looking forward to the comparison. I've hacked our machine atm, so it at least produces coffee, so it's less urgent.

[kenchestnutt]

We have larger, comercial versions of these bean to cup brewers at work but I suspect they work exactly the same. The coffee is generally pretty bad even though they use excellent beans from an excellet local roaster. I will play around (as much as I can) using this video as a starting point. Thank you for giving me a little direction here!

[rickmuller]

Thank you so much for this video. I’ve been watching your videos for years, all the while regretting the sub-par coffee I get from my Delonghi Magnifica. But after your video and something like 3 minutes of tinkering, I’m making excellent espresso. I had been tinkering with the settings for years, but the optimum settings were so extreme (maximum on beans and minimum on water) that I didn’t even try them. It was a ridiculously small amount of work to pull out my baking scales and weigh everything, and 2 shots later I was in great espresso territory. (I *still* am dreaming about replacing my rig with a niche grinder and a nicer espresso machine, but who isn’t?) Thanks for this and all the enthusiasm you bring to my daily addiction.