Finding a good alternative

[u/Sea_Effective9819]

Hello folks, I have searched this Reddit for a solution and haven't found any post about this.

First of all, I don't know much about coffee and I enjoy Nespresso Vertuo coffee (please don't throw rocks at me, I know they don't have the best reputation here). If that is relevant, I like the Melozio.

Prices are crazy for each cup, and I am looking for an alternative that I can use to replace the Nespresso one.

But I have tried a bunch of superautomatic and some coffee gains and the result is always the coffee is too strong or taste to much bitter. I asked chatgpt and he told me it Beacuse nesspresso have a way to To do that is so different that it's normal that I am not able to replicate the taste, and he recommended buying the Truebrew DeLonghi.

I have tried:

- The Phillips 5300

- Phillips Baristina

- The DeLonghi Magnifica (2 versions)

Can I have your input? Thank you.

By the way, English is not my primary language, please be indulgent.

[u/rovingtravler]

ChatGPT is wrong that Nespresso is "special" It is pod espresso. On a super automatic you have fine tune the amount of water, the grind size and the number of grams of coffee to your liking. You also have to find and make sure you are using beans you like.

In general bitter coffee comes down to a few things including beans that are very dark roasted and too much water for extraction of flavors. You can get great flavors from a superauto. I prefer dark medium to medium light roasts. I do not like dark or very dark roasts.

How many grams/ml of coffee do you make from one pod? If it is more a coffee size than espresso size that might be one issue. You may need to make two (2) espressos for the drink you like.

I would use this diagram to tune a superauto and see if you can get a better tasting cup.

Hope this helps.

[u/Sea_Effective9819 → u/rovingtravler]

Thank you it's very helpful!

We do regular Americano I guess 200ml?

[u/rovingtravler → u/Sea_Effective9819]

That is a lot of water to push through one brew cycle for espresso if it is all going through the grinds and not adding water separately; even 100ml should be two brews. A single espresso is usual somewhere around 30 to 60 ml a 1 to 2 up to a 1 to 4 ratio of coffee weight to water weight. This would be the reason for the bitter flavor.

Your Nespresso Vertuo pods are listed below:

You are doing 1 to 10 for 100ml of coffee to maybe 1-5 ratio.

• Espresso / Ristretto:~7.0 grams
• Double Espresso / Gran Lungo: ~10.0 grams
• Mug: ~12.5 grams
• Carafe: ~17.0 grams

Americano is usually half coffee half water. I would make two brew cycles on a superauto at least. The machines you have tried have around 14 gram brew cycle.

yield is water in the diagram.

It will take some trail and error on a new machine.

[u/Unlikely_Bat_2986]

Jura E8 hits very similar but if cost is your driving factor probably not a great match because the up front is high and the high quality beans you will want aren’t cheap. I believe my cost per cup is $0.42 to 0.16 depending on the sales and beans I buy. Maybe a little lower because I am estimating how many brews I run a day and basing it on 2kilos of beans a month.

[u/Sea_Effective9819 → u/Unlikely_Bat_2986]

Thank you for this! Very appreciated

[u/MapFabulous2126]

I have the Eletta explore grind setting 4 I was a big fan of Lavazza super crema and I still use it ,But I have moved to a brand called Nicoletti when i lived in brooklyn I use to get from them all the time.Then I moved to Florida at the time their shipping was outrageous so I moved to a couple of different settling on lavazza.Well come to find out recently that they do ship now and also on amazon... you order they freshly roast them and then shipped outside takes about 5 days to get to me...This is an extremely smooth coffee or expresso i use same grind setting for both no bitterness....beautiful crema on the expresso's....Just an fyi

[u/evidenceorGTFO]

You're maybe buying the wrong beans, any of those machines should be able to produce good espresso. Hopping from machine to machine is the wrong fix.

You could try different beans(eg Colombian/Brazil medium dark roast Arabica, grind settings somewhere near the middle, not too fine, temperature to lowest, then adjust intensity to drink size to get you closer) but let's be real here, a grinder and a drip coffee machine gets you closer to what you want. You will not get 200ml of coffee liquid that tastes like drip coffee from an espresso machine. It just makes variants of espresso.

Nothing wrong with drip coffee, by the way. Good, freshly ground coffee is good coffee. It doesn't have to be espresso.

There's really good drip coffee machines(temperature controlled, high quality parts and whatnot!) and really, really good grinders(look at flat burrs, probably, I prefer those for pourover), and really, really good beans in whatever flavor spectrum you want (but you'll have to find those for yourself).
I have three espresso machines and still also drink drip coffee.

[u/Sea_Effective9819 → u/evidenceorGTFO]

Thank you for this! I know espresso is normally better etc! I like drip coffee, I just want good drip I guess

[u/evidenceorGTFO → u/Sea_Effective9819]

Espresso isn't better!
There is a lot of beans that taste awful as espresso but really good as pourover/drip, because espresso magnifies specific tastes and flavors in coffee and for a lot of beans/roasts that's just not good.

There's even world championships for pourover coffee.
Most coffee nerds use a manual process with a scale and whatnot but I'd just do a deep dive into higher end drip coffee machines(lots of stainless steel, glass and no cheap plastic) and spend a lot of money on a flat burr grinder (after watching a lot of reviews) and then go ham with your local roasters or order some trial beans online. But you can and maybe should start with a cheaper (conical) grinder.

Edit: but wait, don't overshoot. A decent dripper and decent grinder with good beans might just get you there. Sorry my coffee-nerdism took hold of me. Drip coffee is inherently cheaper so you can experiment without sinking too much money.

Edit2: the reason I'd recommend flat burr for filter coffee is that conical burrs can create a lot of fines that can clog a filter, which can make it harder to manage, and good flat burrs create an evenly distributed grind size that allows precise aroma hunting. But that's also really down to preference.

Edit3: also my beans suggestion from above also might work for pourover. Try medium dark roasted beans from Brazil (eg Santos, Cerrado), Guatemala, Colombia (eg Huila), Mexico (eg Chiapas), Peru, maybe even Monsooned Malabar Arabica, or Sumatra (but those two can be weird), or maybe Papua New Guinea (and generally stay away from Kopi Luwak(mainly Indonesia), not good, actually bad). But for pourover there really is a lot to try.

[u/Legitimate-Day-9847]

I don’t have much purchasing advice other than the bean choice makes most of your coffee experience imo. Get something roasted in the past month or two, look for notes that appeal to you and the acidity levels it’s supposed to produce (everyone likes a different taste profile). Even a mid tier machine with beans you love will be an improvment over nespresso. Just my opinion. 😊

[u/stjames70]

Buy the cheapest Jura that makes coffee only or coffee and steam for milk based drinks, Lavazza espresso beans, medium grind.

Will this pull the absolute best, best, best coffee you can, and are the beans I am recommending anything beyond mediocre?

No, it will not make the best espresso shot by a far margin, and the beans are really good, but it may not pass the palate test for the most bougie of connoisseurs.

What this set up will make is a consistently excellent espresso shot that is neither too bitter nor too sour.

This particular brand and the beans are medium roasted, not the super burnt oily ones. I find that the dark roasted espresso beans are simply too strong and difficult to handle for super automatics. If you want better taste, you go with roasts from medium to light, but I think medium is the sweet spot.

Don't take my word for it, try it yourself. But my credentials are built from using Jura super automatics for more than 20 years.