Sage Appliances BES100 Espresso Knock Box, The Knock Box Mini

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In an ideal world, I think most people would find both of these machines better to work with if they have a PID. You don't need a tamping mat for the likes of the Oracle or Oracle Touch unless you're planning on manually distributing and tamping. The same is true with the Barista Express Impress, but you will need a tamping mat for the Barista Touch. The Weiss Distribution Technique (WDT) reduces the chance of channeling by breaking up coffee clumps and evenly distributing the coffee in the basket. It's particularly useful if your grinder produces clumps, however, it's really not as big a deal as most people make out. In my opinion, from testing, the actual difference in cup quality with or without WDT is really splitting hairs. Personally, I think most people using the Oracle or Oracle Touch aren't going to want to mess about doing this, and I think it's fairly unlikely that they'll notice the difference in cup quality anyway unless they happen to have an amazing, Q-grader level palate. Dosing Ring

On emptying though, a nice little touch from Dreamfarm is that you get a little booklet which details how to use coffee grinds as a natural fertiliser – it’s nothing that you couldn’t find on the internet, but it’s handy to have there. I installed the one from Shades of Coffee, it was really easy to do, and I'm absolutely useless at DIY, so if I did it, you can probably do it. I wasn't even sure which end of the screwdriver was which. PID (For the Rancilio Silvia and Gaggia Classic) It's not as if adding WDT to your workflow is going to take your espresso from zero to hero, in fact, I regularly do tasting with and without WDT, and most of the time I can't actually detect the difference, that's not to say there isn't one, but I think it's often very small. Sage are expert at designing kitchen appliances with cleverly integrated functions to take the stress out of cooking. Their range of smart appliances, which includes kettles, toasters, and blenders, through to their ice cream maker and microwaves, has been exactingly considered to give you perfect results every time, all at the push of a button. Whether its prepping, boiling, whisking, whipping, grilling, cooking and baking, thanks to Sage, cooking has never been so easy.

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You abso-chuffing-lutely need brew scales. You need to know what weight of coffee you've dosed into the basket, and how much espresso you've ended up with in your cup, so you know what your ratio is. If you don't know this, you can't possibly dial in, and you'll never be able to get consistent espresso. It's as if the marketing department of some of these brands have been given one brief, and the manufacturing team has been given another, leading to other machines being sold as if to provide the same kind of cup quality and experience of the immensely popular Sage coffee machines, but they just don't come anywhere close. If you're using a WDT tool, using a leveller after WDT is a good way to make sure that you have a level surface prior to tamping. As with WDT, it's overkill really for the likes of the Oracle or Oracle Touch, but if you are using the WDT method then I think some people may find that also using a leveler after may help with consistency, in a very small way at least. Bottomless Portafilter

There are probably only a few coffee machine accessories that are actually essential, and for the rest of them, it just depends on what you're looking for from your espresso machine. My plan with this post is to help everyone to understand which tools you need, and which you can ignore, for you personally, because there really is no one size fits all approach for home espresso. Coffee Machine Accessories – The Horses for Courses Approach Bottomless or “naked” portafilters, as they're sometimes referred to, are great tools for home baristas, as they allow you to see issues with the shot that you might not be able to taste, but I think most people using a hands-off automated portafilter machine will probably find them an annoyance, and if you can't taste the issue, does it really matter? But until/unless that happens, if you class yourself as a completely normal coffee drinker, you're just looking for an ultra-convenient cost-effective way to stay caffeinated, then honestly, don't worry about coffee machine accessories. If you're a hands-off, traditional espresso machine user, really this means you're a Sage coffee machine user, and you have the Sage Oracle or Oracle Touch. In my humble opinion, at the time of writing, these are really the only machines that I believe give true home barista quality espresso with the convenience of bean to cup. We have put this at the top of our list because it is a great base for you to begin your search – compare all the others to this one and you won’t go far wrong. As a lower-to-mid range in terms of price, this is an excellent option.At present, Sage are really the only brand in the UK that is properly approaching the hands-off true espresso market, coffee machines that deliver barista cup quality with bean to cup convenience. There are other brands on the market who say that some of their machines are for this market, I've tried them, and as far as I'm concerned, all the other machines I've seen so far that claim to compete with Sage in this area, are only doing this in the marketing blurb! I'm starting off with the most obvious tools and accessories for home barista espresso, so if you're already familiar with most of these, and/or you already have most of them, then just scroll down a bit to the likes of the WDT, RDT, Shower Screens, Mods and so on, that may be what you came here to find. Coffee Grinder Any extended warranties offered by Peter Tyson are free. We do not include any form of insurance terms such as accidental damage or loan equipment cover.

Obviously, someone can move from one category to the other. I certainly did, I was a very normal coffee drinker up until about 2014/2015 when I started to dip my toes in the proverbial rabbit hole, which is what prompted me to start this blog, almost straight away, just as a hobby for the first few years. That being said, you're not obliged to use the Sage milk jug, obviously, and there are loads of different milk jugs on the market.

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If you have the Sage Oracle or Oracle Touch, or one of the “in-between” machines from Sage that, as I've mentioned, kind of straddle the home barista and hands-off machine user market, then you'll need a milk jug as all of these machines have a steam wand. They all come with Sage milk jugs, though, so you don't need to buy one. If you've just invested in an espresso machine, or you've not done it yet but you're planning on it, you may have found yourself “falling down the rabbit hole”, and if you haven't, just be warned ;-), you're probably about to. This usually involves discovering that there are a million and one espresso machine accessories you need, also known as home barista tools. When I say “normal”, coffee drinkers, I mean the majority of the population of the UK at present, who just see coffee as a means to an end. People who just want a cup of coffee because it's part of their daily ritual.