I've been reading and learning a lot from this website for the past couple of months. I took some advice from a thread here and I have been visiting lots of nice coffee shops in the area to see if this habit is for me, and I think I am ready to commit to making espresso at home.

A little background first. I started drinking hot tea last winter, but neither my wife or I have ever really enjoyed coffee as a beverage. I enjoyed the scent off coffee and some foods seasosned with coffee, but as a drink most of what I had been exposed to was pour quality drip coffee.

My goals - caffeine that's light on calories. I have been using a powdered energy drink mixed in with water to get a boost of caffeine. It's about 100 mg of caffeine and 20 calories.

I have mostly been enjoying cortados and macchiatos at the local coffee shops and I have finally found a few places that I don't feel the need to sweeten what I am drinking. If I do feel the need to sweeten a drink I generally have been using honey. These two types of beverages are what I am planning on making at home. If I end up enjoying straight shots that's a bonus, but I do not intend to make larger volume milk drinks.

At this point I'm and leaning towards the following setup

Espresso Forge
Pharos grinder (+OE tamper & dosing cone)
Breville Variable Electric Kettle (leaning to the 1.0 vs 1.7)
Bellman stovetop steamer

I anticipate making 1 to 2 drinks per day for myself. The kettle and steamer might also see use for tea and got chocolate duty for my wife.

Anything else I should try?

Any big concerns with this setup? I know the Bellman is not necessarily an ideal steamer, but I'm hoping my steaming volume is low enough to not make it a big limiting factor.

The EF + Pharos is a wonderfully capable espresso system. I sold my modded Pharos for my current Mahlgut Grist but both are capable of delivering very tasty and satisfying espresso using the Espresso Forge.

The only limitation of an "open boiler" or maybe more aptly called a pour over espresso design like the EF (IMHO) is keeping the brew water hot enough to deal with light roast levels. But City+, FC, FC+ and darker come alive through the EF.

Jakus wrote:My goals - caffeine that's light on calories. I have been using a powdered energy drink mixed in with water to get a boost of caffeine. It's about 100 mg of caffeine and 20 calories.

With that goal, why not take caffeine pills? 100mg and 200mg pills are readily available, and much less expensive than coffee. The pills or energy drinks also work better than coffee for 'most' people - at least for distance running. (As an aside, some people like me perform worse with caffeine regardless of source - it depends on the genes.)

In any case, a Cortado just needs warm (not hot) milk, i.e., a microwave. A Machiatto needs foam, which needs a steamer. Both use espresso. Espresso is the hardest kind of coffee to make. If I were you, then I'd pass on espresso - and the steamer - for the time being, and get an Aeropress for $30. You can make a nice Cortado-like drink with an Aeropress with essentially zero training/experimenting/hours and hours of learning. The same is not true for espresso, especially with a fully manual machine like the EspressoForge, and you with no prior espresso experience. Note that I am not saying to not get an EspressoForge or an espresso machine; I am saying that, as a first-timer, to start with an Aeropress so that you will immediately get drinkable results, and be able to then buy/try all kinds of coffees first.

As for grinder - nothing against the Pharos - I have two of them - but again, I'd say watch some Pharos videos on YouTube and ask yourself if you really want to do all that faffing about when a Lido or a Baratza will be sooo much easier to use.

Good luck!

I use an Espresso Forge and Lido E at work. It's really simple to get good results, especially with medium or darker roasts. I just use the recipe of 20 grams of coffee pulled for 10 seconds at 2 bar, 3 second ramp up to 8 bar, slowly decend to 6 bar over 25 seconds, and hold there until coffee stream blondes or 30 grams in cup.

There's more grinding involved with the Lido compared to the Pharos, but the process is more convenient. Instead of a kettle, I heat the water in a microwave to boiling in a paper cup with the rim shaped to a point for easy pouring. For steaming milk, I use a Mr. Coffee steam toy, but let me caution you that it took forever to get the factory smell out of it. Nonetheless, the microform without the plastic tip cover is actually very nice.

Wanted to follow up on this thread

As it turns out I live about 2 miles from the inventor of the Espresso Forge. He was kind enough to let me come over and try one to see how I liked it. After a few hours and about a million questions I was ready to jump in.



I got all my accessories in and was finally able to spend a couple hours dialing things in. It took me about 6 shots to get it all to come together, but by the end I was pulling really good shots. Sorry I didn't take any pictures of the final results, but it's still pretty hectic for me.

I'm really happy with everything. The Forge does a great job, the Pharos took a little bit to figure out but by the end of the day I had it pretty well down. The Bellman stove top seems to have plenty of power and as worked well with my small pitcher. The Bonavita pairs perfectly with the Forge. I can set the Forge in the lid opening to preheat it easily.

The coffee I found locally has been ok, but I'm still looking for a couple go to roasts.

This website has been a huge help getting me going.

I use the Forge And Lido ET. Once I learned to grind super fine I started getting really shots
Use the same Bonavita electric kettle. Use a hand foamed to foam my milk for milk drinks

My only problem has been the three legged platform. I don't trust it to handle the hard pushes to extract the coffee

Instead I purchased espresso cups whose diameter fits the Forge
I place the Forge over and onto the cup. The downward push holds the cup steady. Voila, Espresso!

Just curious - what diameter cup is needed to do this, and what was the particular cup you found that works?