DiyPresso: DIY Espresso Machine

I am the “self-upgrade my hardware” type. If there’s one piece of advice I didn’t listen to it’s “just buy the nicer machine” for espresso. While it’s fun that I got to upgrade the parts and make it better. It also cost me just as much money. The tinker aspect only involves a few simple upgrades on my Gaggia Classic Pro.

But what I didn’t realize is that espresso machines, much like other consumer hobbies was already a fairly expensive area to get invested. You get the machine but then you need a grinder, a milk steaming container, the beans, the tamper, the portafilter mesh screen, a deeper basket, bottomless portafilter, the “better” steamer tip for the wand... On and on you can invest money in this consumer hobby, middle man cornered market. Do you have the special tool to loosen your grounds if you didn’t tamp correctly? You’ll use it once or twice before just dumping out the grounds instead.

I have definitely reached my financial limit on the coffee experience. And most of the extra crap I bought bundled. At some point if I continue investing, I would not be saving money from buying a $3 cup of coffee from the cafe and the awkward barista waiting for me to tap the tip screen.

When I sell I’ll probably just buy a moka pot and milk steamer of some sort instead.

Pareto principle. I bought a Gaggia but didn't do all of the extra stuff you mentioned, because I simply don't care enough for marginal returns. That's why a moka pot, which I had before, would still not be a good enough successor, because getting just the Gaggia is enough for most people who want to make espresso, the optimizations you talk about, while I have heard of all of them, are pretty much unnecessary if you are not trying to reach 100% of the output. I am content with 80% good enough results.

The advice though on the market is that if you want a good cup of coffee you need to do more than buy the machine. I agree that the gains are marginal. With a PC, I can upgrade my ram and the gains might be marginal, but I still have a world of free stuff I can install and tinker on it. Once the espresso machine is built/upgraded then that’s it really. You can only buy more things for it. There is no exploratory afterward to enjoy really.

I don’t agree that a moka pot wouldn’t be enough. Percolation through a moka pot tastes 10 times better than my Gaggia. My Gaggia has no determination when enough is enough, I have to count to 20-25 seconds each time I want a cup. I once accidentally percolated a cup with it by not refilling the resovoir enough. The little water the boiler was able to pump out was pure steam and it was my best cup of coffee I had with the machine, even if it was maybe detrimental to the machine itself.

> The advice though on the market is that if you want a good cup of coffee you need to do more than buy the machine.

The advice from anyone trying to sell you fancy tools and from anyone trying to justify to themselves that they bought fancy tools will always be that you need to buy fancy tools in order to enjoy the product. It is, of course, an obvious fabrication to anyone not inside this loop, and a form of cruelty against someone like you who got burned by it and wants out.

> I agree that the gains are marginal.

Not even marginal. It very very very quickly becomes so far below marginal that neutrinos and putting your left leg into your pants first instead of the right leg will make a more consistent difference, but people will continue to exaggerate differences and insist that you need to spritz the grounds with holy water and give them a back massage first before brewing to make anything halfway palatable.

> Percolation through a moka pot tastes 10 times better

And a moka costs $20 and lasts through a nuclear war.

> And a moka costs $20 and lasts through a nuclear war.

Good luck finding quality coffee beans after the war, unless your bunker has a coffee plantation attached.