DiyPresso: DIY Espresso Machine

Sadly the website was knocked out by HN, I guess.

Anyway, I really like my Flair. It is fun to press the thing manually. And it is nice to have espresso still during a power outage (as long as I can get ground beans and fire).

I think this is a different definition of “do it yourself” though, hahaha.

Not only is the Flair very nice to use, and does it allow you to make pretty good coffee, It is also the cheapest setup I found to make espresso

I've had a flair for about 3 years now and love it.

Simple, not that expensive, extremely easy to clean and yet has less annoying maintenance than a fancy machine. Extremely unlikely to break. Very good control of the process and very good coffee.

Obviously the weakness of the flair is the turnaround time. (I don't have the Flair 58). But I am the only one in my house who actually drinks Espresso. For the amount I drink I don't think the Flair actually takes much more time than a very expensive automatic machine, because I would leave the fancy machine turned on and hot and ready to make coffee.

I find the turnaround time of the Flair a good thing. Firstly it makes a nice 5-10 minute ritual first thing in the morning, especially when combined with a hand grinder. And secondly it is just enough effort that it prevents me from drinking too much espresso which I absolutely would do if I had a more automated process.

Yeah, the turnaround time is a thing, but I mostly only notice it when I’ve ground my beans too fine and pushing the lever takes too long. Which was an error in the first place, I guess.

If everything is going well, I’ll usually just do one shot right after the other (no cleaning), like a barbarian. It works fine and I don’t have to heat up the water chamber again, haha.

Three shots is the point where I start to get annoyed with the thing and four shots is when I start to get jittery. So, it all worked out.

I have a Flair. Poking a temperature probe into the emerging stream revealed that a finely choreographed preheat ritual is necessary to get even close to the usual recommended 200F.