What does a carob coffee maker mean: types, principle of operation

To pre­pare a real strong espres­so, a spe­cial tech­nol­o­gy is used in which the beans come into con­tact with hot water, which is passed under pres­sure. This allows you to achieve the most com­plete extrac­tion, pre­serv­ing all the aro­mat­ic and taste qual­i­ties of cof­fee. This method of prepa­ra­tion is reflect­ed in the work of the carob cof­fee mak­er, which allows you to quick­ly pre­pare a qual­i­ty drink.

What does carob coffee maker mean?

Many users do not ful­ly under­stand what a carob cof­fee mak­er is. At its core, this is a cof­fee machine for mak­ing cof­fee in a spe­cial way. The design includes a horn or hold­er with a han­dle, designed for lay­ing ground grains. Sin­gle- and dou­ble-horn devices are known, dif­fer­ing in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and vol­umes of the fin­ished drink. A device with one horn dis­pens­es no more than two cups, and mod­els with two horns are used in offices and oth­er places with a large num­ber of peo­ple.

These cof­fee mak­ers are dis­tin­guished by the fol­low­ing tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics:

• Pres­sure. Craft­ed inside a fil­ter con­tain­er filled with cof­fee pow­der. In dif­fer­ent cof­fee machines, this fig­ure ranges from 2–6 to 8–9 bar. To achieve such indi­ca­tors, the pump devel­ops a high­er pres­sure — about 15 bar.
• Type of cof­fee. Usu­al­ly a ground prod­uct is used, which is com­pact­ed tight­ly after back­fill­ing. The high den­si­ty of the pow­der retains water and ensures the most com­plete extrac­tion of nutri­ents.
• Cap­puc­ci­na­tore. Installed on every device. Its design is made in the form of a tube with a noz­zle installed at the end. Hot steam is sup­plied through this noz­zle. Cap­puc­ci­na­tors are either man­u­al or auto­mat­ic.
• Vol­ume. It depends on the amount of the fin­ished prod­uct. Most devices have small vol­umes, since espres­so shots are very small — 25–35 ml each.
• Heater. Struc­tural­ly, it is a con­tain­er inside which the heat­ing ele­ment is locat­ed. In sim­ple cof­fee mak­ers, this is the water tank itself, and in more com­plex and expen­sive ones, spe­cial ther­mal blocks are installed.

Dif­fer­ent mod­els are equipped with auto­mat­ic decal­ci­fi­ca­tion, anti-drip sys­tem, tem­per­a­ture con­trol and hot water por­tions. A timer and oth­er use­ful func­tions can be set.

Selection Guide

1. The first thing you should pay atten­tion to is the mate­r­i­al used to make the horn. It is best to pur­chase a mod­el with a met­al horn, as it is more durable and makes more deli­cious cof­fee.
2. The high­er the pres­sure, the stronger, thick­er and rich­er the cof­fee will be.
3. In addi­tion, it is impor­tant to pay atten­tion to the num­ber of fil­ters. This is an impor­tant indi­ca­tor if cof­fee is pre­pared for a large fam­i­ly.
4. For a large fam­i­ly, you can con­sid­er options with two horns so that you can pre­pare cof­fee for two fam­i­ly mem­bers at once.
5. Many mod­els can work with cap­sules. If this is impor­tant, then you should choose mod­els with this func­tion.

Watch a video about the prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion of a carob cof­fee mak­er

Types of carob coffee makers and coffee machines

There are two main vari­eties of carob cof­fee mak­ers. They are divid­ed accord­ing to the prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion asso­ci­at­ed with heat­ing water and its pas­sage through cof­fee pow­der. Hence, they got their names — steam and pump-action.

Features of steam coffee machines

This type of cof­fee mak­er is dis­tin­guished by the sim­plest design. The water in the sealed cham­ber is heat­ed to the boil­ing point. Steam is formed, cre­at­ing a pres­sure of about 4 atmos­pheres. The water that has not turned into steam, under the influ­ence of pres­sure, ris­es up the tube and enters a con­tain­er with ground cof­fee. Pass­ing through the pow­der, it absorbs aro­mat­ic, fla­vor­ing and oth­er use­ful sub­stances. At the exit, the drink is com­plete­ly ready to drink.

How did the device come about?

The very first mod­el was invent­ed at the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry by the Ital­ian engi­neer L. Bezzer, who patent­ed his device. It was notable for its fast espres­so brew­ing speed, but the cof­fee in it was bit­ter due to over­heat­ing of the struc­ture.

Soon, sev­er­al more mas­ters began to con­duct exper­i­ments, and one of them, D. Gadzhia, man­aged to place a pis­ton inside, which helped the liq­uid pass through the ground tablet of grains with­out over­heat­ing them. As a result, a pro­to­type of the future pres­sur­ized cof­fee machine appeared.

The principle of operation of the carob coffee maker

In most cof­fee mak­ers, the drink is pre­pared by mix­ing ground beans and hot water. The horn device works in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent way. The cof­fee pow­der is placed in a hold­er and pressed. Fur­ther, water vapor or water heat­ed to a high tem­per­a­ture pass­es through this mass under high pres­sure. Dur­ing the pas­sage, it absorbs all the use­ful sub­stances and at the exit becomes a deli­cious aro­mat­ic drink.

This is a gen­er­al scheme of oper­a­tion, which may dif­fer depend­ing on the type of cof­fee mak­er — steam or pump. In both cas­es, cof­fee comes out with­out impu­ri­ties, is pre­pared quick­ly and effi­cient­ly.

Main selection criteria

You need to know the main char­ac­ter­is­tics of carob cof­fee mak­ers in order to make the right choice when buy­ing it.

Horn material and size

When choos­ing, it is very impor­tant to pay atten­tion to the mate­r­i­al and size of the horn. It can be made of plas­tic or met­al.

• The met­al cone is more expen­sive, but it is also more prefer­able due to the fact that the drink is thick­er and rich­er. In addi­tion, the met­al horn has an almost unlim­it­ed ser­vice life.

Steam pressure

Steam pres­sure is one of the most impor­tant indi­ca­tors, as it is respon­si­ble for the qual­i­ty and speed of cof­fee prepa­ra­tion. The pres­sure can vary from 3.5 to 15 bar. A cof­fee mak­er with pres­sure up to 5 bar pre­pares a drink for a long time. In terms of strength, it is sig­nif­i­cant­ly weak­er than the same cof­fee, but pre­pared in a cof­fee mak­er with a pres­sure of 15 bar. The high­er this indi­ca­tor, the faster and bet­ter cof­fee will be pre­pared.

Advice! For home use, options with a pres­sure of 8 to 10 bar can be con­sid­ered. This indi­ca­tor is con­sid­ered the norm for mak­ing high-qual­i­ty espres­so.

Appliance power and water tank

The pow­er of the device affects the speed of prepa­ra­tion of the drink. For exam­ple, cof­fee mak­ers with a pow­er of 1000 W can brew one cup in 2–3 min­utes. More pow­er­ful options with pow­er up to 1500 W pre­pare espres­so in just 30–40 sec­onds.

The vol­ume of the water tank varies from 0.2 to 1.2 liters. Mod­els with a large tank are not rec­om­mend­ed for pur­chase, as the cof­fee mak­er is designed for only a few cups of cof­fee.

Addi­tion­al func­tions

Mod­ern mod­els of carob cof­fee mak­ers include many addi­tion­al fea­tures. Many of them are real­ly use­ful and con­ve­nient, some are just a mar­ket­ing ploy to attract cus­tomers.

• Cap­puc­ci­na­tore is not avail­able in every mod­el. Its pres­ence allows you to make espres­so cof­fee with milk foam. The pres­ence of this func­tion will allow you to pre­pare cap­puc­ci­no in its clas­sic form. The cap­puc­ci­na­tore can be mechan­i­cal or auto­mat­ic. The mechan­i­cal ver­sion works as fol­lows: a tube is low­ered into the glass, through which steam pass­es, mak­ing foam.

Auto­mat­ic cap­puc­ci­na­tors ful­ly auto­mate the process. All you need to do is acti­vate the cap­puc­ci­no mode on the con­trol pan­el. Many mod­els have a func­tion that allows you to adjust the den­si­ty of the foam.

• Adjust­ing the bowl feed will help you find the opti­mal posi­tion of the bowl. This func­tion allows expe­ri­enced baris­tas to vary the den­si­ty of the foam and its height.

• Addi­tion­al func­tions also include heat­ing the drink. The func­tion­al­i­ty of the device can be accom­pa­nied by light indi­ca­tors.

• Any cof­fee mak­er comes with a remov­able drip tray. This is nec­es­sary so that after mak­ing cof­fee, do not stain the sur­face.

• The pow­er-on indi­ca­tion indi­cates that the device is in work­ing order.

Advice! Before buy­ing, you should famil­iar­ize your­self with all the addi­tion­al fea­tures and choose from the list those that will def­i­nite­ly come in handy in your case.

How to choose a carob coffee maker for home

There are a large num­ber of mod­els of this type, there­fore, many users expe­ri­ence cer­tain dif­fi­cul­ties in choos­ing. Experts rec­om­mend not focus­ing on the brand and cost of the device. The main atten­tion should be paid to the design and the pres­ence of addi­tion­al func­tions.

Out­ward­ly, each cof­fee mak­er is very sim­i­lar to its coun­ter­parts. Their designs are also about the same. But for the home, it is bet­ter to pur­chase an inex­pen­sive steam-type device, designed for small por­tions. A pump cof­fee mak­er with a large tank and high per­for­mance is rec­om­mend­ed for the office.

What types of drinks can be prepared?

There are not so many options for mak­ing cof­fee. In steam vari­eties of devices, these are espres­so and cap­puc­ci­no. In pump action, lun­go, amer­i­cano and lat­te are added to the list.

Impor­tant. In cof­fee mak­ers, not only ground cof­fee is used, but also spe­cial com­pressed tablets called pods. They sim­pli­fy the cook­ing process and allow you to some­what diver­si­fy the taste.

How to use a carob coffee maker coffee machine

The prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion of these devices under­lies their prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion. Regard­less of the type of cof­fee mak­er, all actions are per­formed in a cer­tain sequence:

• Puri­fied or bot­tled water should be pre­pared in advance. Ordi­nary tap water spoils the taste of the drink and con­tributes to the for­ma­tion of scale.
• Grind the right amount of cof­fee, since only cof­fee machines are equipped with a built-in cof­fee grinder, and even then not all.
• Cof­fee is poured into the horn and pressed to the most dense state. Pow­der dust must not enter the thread.
• The filled hold­er is installed in its place.
• The device turns on and the cook­ing process starts. It remains only to wait for the fin­ished drink.
• If desired, you can use the cap­puc­ci­na­tore and cre­ate milk foam. It is added on top after milk is poured into the fin­ished espres­so.

The most popular coffee recipes

In the carob machine, you can pre­pare var­i­ous cof­fee drinks. The main thing is to strict­ly fol­low the instruc­tions in the recipe.

Espresso

To make espres­so in a carob cof­fee mak­er, you will need the fol­low­ing ingre­di­ents:

• 9 g cof­fee pow­der;
• 30 ml of water.

The fol­low­ing manip­u­la­tions are per­formed:

1. Cof­fee pow­der is placed in the horn and rammed with tem­pera.
2. The tank is filled with water.
3. The cups are heat­ed with steam and placed on a stand.
4. The device turns on.
5. After 30 sec­onds, the cups are filled with hot espres­so.

Americano

Mak­ing an Amer­i­cano is incred­i­bly easy. To do this, brew espres­so accord­ing to the above recipe, but pour it into larg­er cups. Then it remains only to pour an addi­tion­al 60 ml of hot water into the fin­ished drink.

latte

To pre­pare a lat­te, you will need the fol­low­ing prod­ucts:

• 50 ml espres­so;
• 200 ml of milk;
• 3 g cin­na­mon;
• 3 g chopped nuts.

The fol­low­ing actions are per­formed:

1. Beat pre-chilled milk with a cap­puc­ci­na­tore.
2. Pour it into a tall glass gob­let.
3. Gen­tly, along the wall, pour into the same glass of espres­so.
4. Put milk foam on top.
5. Sprin­kle the sur­face with cin­na­mon and nuts.

Cappuccino

To get a gen­tle cap­puc­ci­no, you will need the fol­low­ing prod­ucts:

• 50 ml espres­so;
• 100 ml of milk;
• 50 ml whipped cream;
• 20 g choco­late.

Per­form the fol­low­ing actions:

1. Milk is heat­ed to 80 ° C and poured into a glass.
2. Add hot espres­so to the mix.
3. Spread whipped cream on top.

Ready cap­puc­ci­no is rec­om­mend­ed to sprin­kle with choco­late chips

Irish coffee drink

To make incred­i­bly deli­cious cof­fee in a cof­fee mak­er, you need to take care of the fol­low­ing prod­ucts:

• 18 g of crushed cof­fee beans;
• 60 ml of water;
• 15 g of gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar;
• 60 ml cream;
• 30 ml whiskey.

The recipe involves doing the fol­low­ing:

1. Brew two shots of espres­so.
2. Mix a table­spoon of water with gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar and sim­mer on the stove for one minute.
3. Add whiskey and fresh­ly pre­pared syrup to espres­so.
4. Pour the result­ing mix­ture into a tall glass.
5. Spread the whipped cream even­ly over the sur­face.

Caring for carob coffee makers

Time­ly clean­ing is the key to long-term oper­a­tion of any cof­fee mak­er. Clean and well-main­tained equip­ment keeps the taste of the drink at a high lev­el.

First of all, the cof­fee oils left after brew­ing are removed. It is they who cre­ate a beau­ti­ful foam, but being deposit­ed on the details, they spoil the taste of cof­fee, mak­ing it ran­cid. Anoth­er seri­ous prob­lem is scale. It is grad­u­al­ly formed even from pure water, dis­rupts the oper­a­tion of mech­a­nisms and can lead to pre­ma­ture fail­ure of even the most pow­er­ful cof­fee mak­er. Final­ly, milk residues deposit­ed in the cap­puc­ci­na­tor tube cause the appear­ance and devel­op­ment of path­o­gen­ic microor­gan­isms.

Not every carob cof­fee machine sup­ports auto­mat­ic clean­ing. There­fore, the fol­low­ing activ­i­ties are reg­u­lar­ly car­ried out in man­u­al mode:

• After each prepa­ra­tion, the horn is washed with clean run­ning water.
• The cap­puc­ci­na­tore is cleaned with a dry cloth. If dried dirt has formed, it must be removed, soaked in a clean­ing agent and then rinsed thor­ough­ly.
• The horn must be cleaned month­ly with spe­cial clean­ing tablets. They are laid instead of pow­der, after which the cof­fee machine must be put into oper­a­tion. Shut­down is car­ried out imme­di­ate­ly after the start of water sup­ply. The con­t­a­m­i­nants dis­solve for about 15 min­utes, after which the device is turned on again to rinse the horn with water. The appli­ance is con­sid­ered clean when at least two liters of water have come out.
• Planned decal­ci­fi­ca­tion is car­ried out approx­i­mate­ly once a year. To remove scale, use spe­cial prod­ucts rec­om­mend­ed by the man­u­fac­tur­er.

Functional

Carob cof­fee mak­ers may include addi­tion­al fea­tures that make it eas­i­er to use and main­tain.

Light indi­ca­tors indi­cate the process sta­tus and the pres­ence of water. Some mod­els are equipped with a dis­play that shows infor­ma­tion about the run­ning pro­gram, the num­ber of serv­ings, as well as warn­ings about a mal­func­tion or lack of water.

A con­ve­nient option for carob-type cof­fee mak­ers is sup­port for the use of pods (pack­aged cof­fee). How­ev­er, it increas­es the cost of the device.

Pro­tec­tive func­tions — auto­mat­ic shut­down from an over­heat and steam valves. These options ensure safe oper­a­tion and extend the life of the instru­ment.

Some pump cof­fee mak­ers are equipped with two pumps, which allows you to pre­pare cap­puc­ci­no and espres­so at the same time. Mod­ern mod­els have a “stop” but­ton, which can forcibly stop the oper­a­tion of the device if some­thing goes wrong.

Cooled cof­fee los­es its taste and aro­ma, so many elec­tri­cal appli­ances are equipped with the func­tion of main­tain­ing the tem­per­a­ture of the fin­ished drink.

An impor­tant option for cof­fee mak­ers is sup­port for the use of pods (pack­aged cof­fee). These are con­ve­nient paper bags with por­tions poured crushed grains. This option allows you to pre­pare high-qual­i­ty espres­so in sec­onds, and also facil­i­tates the process of car­ing for the cof­fee mak­er. How­ev­er, the pres­ence of this func­tion affects the cost of the device, increas­ing it sev­er­al times.

An impor­tant cri­te­ri­on when choos­ing a cof­fee mak­er is pres­sure. The high­er the val­ue, the rich­er and more aro­mat­ic the cof­fee will be. The max­i­mum allow­able pres­sure is 25 bar. Many stan­dard instru­ments have read­ings of 10–20 bar.

A use­ful fea­ture is auto­mat­ic decal­ci­fi­ca­tion. It is designed for effec­tive self-clean­ing of the device from deposits and var­i­ous kinds of con­t­a­m­i­nants.

Malfunctions of carob coffee makers

Get­ting used to using a cof­fee mak­er every day, every cof­fee lover expe­ri­ences seri­ous dis­com­fort in case of a device mal­func­tion. But do not despair, because many break­downs can be fixed on their own. Let’s con­sid­er pos­si­ble mal­func­tions and ways to elim­i­nate them.

With nor­mal care, the carob appa­ra­tus lasts a long time and rarely breaks. How­ev­er, some­times it still hap­pens and looks like this:

• The water sup­ply has stopped. Imme­di­ate­ly you need to check its pres­ence in the tank. The fil­ter may be dirty and the float show­ing the water lev­el may be mal­func­tion­ing. First of all, you need to clean the inter­nal ele­ments of debris and scale.
• The water does not heat up and the cof­fee is warm. Check set­tings, repeat cycle if nec­es­sary. This hap­pens dur­ing long peri­ods of down­time.
• Water flows out from under the horn. Most often, it is enough to clean the O‑ring from cof­fee residues and oth­er con­t­a­m­i­nants. It may need to be replaced. If the ring is nor­mal, you need to clean the fil­ter in the horn.
• The fin­ished drink flows out in the form of a thin stream with a whis­tle or hiss. The fil­ters will most like­ly need to be cleaned. If auto-clean­ing is avail­able, per­form it com­plete­ly, and clean the remov­able parts man­u­al­ly.
• The pow­er indi­ca­tor is on, but cook­ing has not start­ed. Check the tab of all com­po­nents, as well as the but­tons for stick­ing. If the machine does not work, you will have to turn to the ser­vices of spe­cial­ists.

Size and material

An impor­tant selec­tion cri­te­ri­on is the dimen­sions of the cof­fee mak­er. Small mod­els with a capac­i­ty of 0.2–0.6 liters have a pres­sure of 4 bar, and larg­er devices (up to 1.5 liters) — 15 bar.

The size is also impor­tant to con­sid­er for the con­ve­nience of plac­ing the cof­fee mak­er in the kitchen. She should have a sta­tion­ary place so that you can make a cup of aro­mat­ic cof­fee at any time.

The body of the cof­fee mak­er can be made of plas­tic or stain­less steel. The sec­ond option is more prac­ti­cal and fits per­fect­ly into any kitchen inte­ri­or, but it has more weight and is more expen­sive. Plas­tic appli­ances are cheap­er and lighter, but there is a high risk of dam­age on impact.

Reviews

Sergey A.: “I like Ger­man tech­nol­o­gy for its reli­a­bil­i­ty. I have been using the Melit­ta cof­fee mak­er for sev­er­al years, and there has not been a sin­gle fail­ure dur­ing this time. It is made from very durable mate­ri­als. And the cof­fee is excel­lent.”

Lisa G.: “I have used Delonghi appli­ances before and recent­ly bought a Delon­gi EC 685 R cof­fee mak­er. Looks great in the kitchen. And what an espres­so! We have a Smeg cof­fee machine at work that is fan­cy, with dif­fer­ent func­tions, and my cof­fee turns out just as well.”

Olga K.: “I want­ed to choose some­thing orig­i­nal and func­tion­al for the kitchen, and I bought an Ari­ete Cafe Matisse cof­fee mak­er. It is named after Hen­ri Matisse. You could choose black or beige, but I liked red more. Like “Red Fish” (this is his pic­ture). The cof­fee mak­er has a trans­par­ent water tank on the back, it is very con­ve­nient to con­trol how much water is left in it. In gen­er­al, every­thing in the cof­fee mak­er is thought out, every detail. Very con­ve­nient.”

Extraction: technology of proper coffee.

Cof­fee brew­ing (extrac­tion) is the process of trans­fer­ring aro­mat­ic sub­stances from the bean into the water. The taste of the final drink will depend on the degree of grind­ing and extrac­tion time: cof­fee will release more aro­mat­ic and fla­vor­ing sub­stances if the area of ​​con­tact of water with cof­fee par­ti­cles is larg­er and the extrac­tion is longer.
To get deli­cious cof­fee (regard­less of the method of prepa­ra­tion), the drink must con­tain 20% aro­mat­ic and fla­vor­ing sub­stances. If there are more of them, the cof­fee will taste unpleas­ant, and if there are less, it will be flat. To mea­sure the per­cent­age of aro­mat­ic sub­stances, there is a spe­cial device — a refrac­tome­ter. If you don’t have it, you can base it on your own taste pref­er­ences by care­ful­ly bal­anc­ing extrac­tion time and fine­ness.

The cof­fee will brew stronger if the par­ti­cles spend more time in the water. At first glance, it may seem that the con­tact area will be larg­er if the grind is coars­er. How­ev­er, this is not the case: the coars­er the grind­ing, the small­er the con­tact area.

The image below clear­ly demon­strates why this hap­pens:
Because fin­er cof­fee par­ti­cles have more sides in con­tact with water, they brew faster. Like salt, which dis­solves faster in water when fine­ly ground, fine­ly ground cof­fee brews stronger and faster than coarse cof­fee. When brew­ing cof­fee in a cone, too coarse a grind will force water through the cof­fee too quick­ly, so it will not have time to brew. Too fine grind­ing will not pass water well, and the cof­fee will turn out too rich.

Possible problems and malfunctions

If water splash­es out of the horn, it may be because the pres­sure is too high. To rem­e­dy the sit­u­a­tion, you can turn off the steam func­tion.

If the cof­fee mak­er works inter­mit­tent­ly, you need to check if every­thing is fine with the mains volt­age. In addi­tion, mal­func­tions can be caused by poor qual­i­ty con­nec­tions and seals, which hap­pens with cheap equip­ment.

If the milk does not whip well, the prob­lem is most like­ly in its qual­i­ty.

Try to replace it with anoth­er one. The prob­lem may also be that it was not chilled enough, and the cap­puc­ci­na­tore was immersed too deeply in it.

If the cof­fee has a plas­tic smell, you need to run the water through the cof­fee mak­er sev­er­al times and drain it.

How to take care of the design

In order for the carob cof­fee mak­er to serve you faith­ful­ly for many years, you need to prop­er­ly care for it. Use it care­ful­ly and clean it from con­t­a­m­i­nants in time. First of all, clean­ing requires a cof­fee hold­er:

1. Remove the horn from the hold­er.
2. Remove any remain­ing pressed and ground cof­fee from the con­tain­er. You can use the help of a spe­cial spoon.
3. All com­po­nents of the hold­er must be washed under run­ning water. Do not use abra­sive prod­ucts, aggres­sive deter­gents, or prod­ucts with a pun­gent odor. The lat­ter can give the cof­fee drink an unpleas­ant after­taste and aro­ma.
4. If you pre­fer to use nat­ur­al types of deter­gents, then use soda or spe­cial house­hold chem­i­cals that do not con­tain chem­i­cals, fra­grances and oth­er harm­ful com­pounds.
5. Before return­ing the washed hold­er to its place, dry it thor­ough­ly.

The hold­er is an impor­tant ele­ment for most cof­fee mak­er mod­els, so pay enough atten­tion to clean­ing it. Some­times the taste of the fin­ished drink will direct­ly depend on how well you care for the pressed cof­fee horns.

Comparative characteristics of coffee makers

Make and mod­el	Com­pound	Cost, rub.	Advan­tages	Flaws	Points on a 10-point scale
Smeg ECF01	met­al	38 790	good qual­i­ty; drip pro­tec­tion; sim­ple con­trol pan­el; the pres­ence of a cap­puc­ci­na­tore; the device beeps when it needs to be cleaned	high price; you need to whip the foam your­self	ten
De’­Longhi ECP 341 Dis­tin­ta	met­al	10 740	low price; water lev­el indi­ca­tor; remov­able drip tray	lack of con­trol pan­el; there is no block­ing of inclu­sion in case water is not poured	9
De’­Longhi EC.680.M	met­al, plas­tic	15,000	remov­able tray (you can use glass­es of dif­fer­ent heights); heat­ing after shut­down; high pres­sure	no cof­fee grinder you need to pre­pare cap­puc­ci­no man­u­al­ly; no cof­fee strength con­trol	9
Gag­gia Carez­za DeLuxe	met­al	21 900	com­pact­ness; auto­mat­ic wash­ing; pres­sure gauge; switch-on indi­ca­tion	no anti-drip sys­tem; no auto­mat­ic espres­so dis­penser	9
Asca­so Dream Ground	met­al, pol­ished alu­minum	42 990	hot water sup­ply and pro­tec­tor; prepa­ra­tion of two cups at a time; mea­sur­ing spoon and tam­per includ­ed	heavy weight (7 kg); no dis­play	eight
Polaris PCM 1523E	met­al	11 485	switch on sen­sor; speed (the drink is ready in 30 sec­onds); met­al horn	you can not cook sev­er­al serv­ings; no dis­play	eight
De’­Longhi ECP 33.21	plas­tic	12 000	eco­nom­i­cal con­sump­tion; you can choose the amount of water; acces­so­ry stor­age sys­tem	vibra­tion and noise dur­ing cook­ing; cup height lim­i­ta­tion; small vol­ume (liter)	eight
Vitek VT-1516SR	stain­less steel, plas­tic	7990	auto­mat­ic cap­puc­ci­na­tore; over­heat pro­tec­tion; con­trol pan­el illu­mi­na­tion; sealant and sul­fur spoon includ­ed	noise dur­ing oper­a­tion; pos­si­ble leaks	7
Kit­fort KT-703	met­al	9640	no smell of plas­tic; stand for small glass­es; auto pow­er off	heavy con­struc­tion; no fas­ten­ing on tank lids	7
KRUPS Calvi XP 3440	plas­tic	18 990	silent oper­a­tion; small size; loads fast	the drink turns out to be cold due to weak pres­sure; fil­ters are dif­fi­cult to attach to the horn	7

Both domes­tic and for­eign man­u­fac­tur­ers offer a wide selec­tion of carob cof­fee mak­ers. They have every­thing you need for home use. They are com­pact and easy to oper­ate. The devices load instant­ly and pre­pare the drink just as quick­ly.

Carob coffee machines by type or which one to choose?

Carob cof­fee machines are divid­ed into lever, auto­mat­ic and semi-auto­mat­ic
.

Lever cof­fee machines

- These are clas­sic man­u­al cof­fee machines in which water is sup­plied to groups using a lever and hand strength. The barista man­u­al­ly con­trols the flow of the group, low­er­ing and rais­ing the lever-lever — each cup requires his undi­vid­ed atten­tion. Lever cof­fee machines are suit­able for pro­fes­sion­als who want to con­trol the process of mak­ing cof­fee, as well as cof­fee shops and cof­fee-to-go out­lets with a low seat­ing posi­tion and low traf­fic. Oth­er­wise, the barista sim­ply does not have enough time to serve all the vis­i­tors.
Lever cof­fee machines have a high rep­u­ta­tion among espres­so con­nois­seurs — the own­er, as if from the doorstep, declares that he under­stands cof­fee, and his baris­tas are pro­fes­sion­als in their field. Only high­ly qual­i­fied baris­tas can real­ly use lever cof­fee machines. In addi­tion, there are few lever cof­fee machines in Rus­sia, and it is not so easy to find orig­i­nal spare parts and spe­cial­ized ser­vices. In the event of a cof­fee machine break­down, you will have to replace it with anoth­er one (not a lever one), and the barista will have to rebuild. Semi-auto­mat­ic cof­fee machines
dif­fer in that the strait in them is car­ried out with the help of a but­ton — the barista turns it on and off on his own. The big advan­tage of this type of cof­fee machines is the low cost and excel­lent taste of cof­fee, which depends on the cor­rect com­paction of cof­fee in the sieve fil­ter of the cone and the dosage of the water spill. A semi-auto­mat­ic cof­fee machine is suit­able for places with lit­tle traf­fic, since the prepa­ra­tion process requires the full atten­tion of the barista. It is also suit­able for those who like to exper­i­ment with the taste of cof­fee and bring it to per­fec­tion. Semi-auto­mat­ic cof­fee machines have a good rep­u­ta­tion — they are “Ital­ian” clas­sics. Such cof­fee machines are easy to main­tain: a large num­ber of ser­vice cen­ters, a wide range of spare parts and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of rent­ing and leas­ing. In almost every brand, you can choose a semi-auto­mat­ic cof­fee machine for any bud­get, design and taste.

Auto­mat­ic cof­fee machines

- per­haps the most pop­u­lar type of carob cof­fee machines. They are great for cof­fee shops that pre­pare a vari­ety of espres­so-based drinks. The spillage of water in such cof­fee machines occurs auto­mat­i­cal­ly and does not require the atten­tion of the barista to each cup. The qual­i­ty of cof­fee depends sole­ly on the cof­fee beans and the qual­i­ty of the grind. First, for each group, the amount of water that must pass through it is set, after which, by press­ing the but­ton, the cof­fee machine spills the spec­i­fied amount (± 2–3 ml).
The main con­ve­nience of auto­mat­ic cof­fee machines is that the barista can pro­gram the cof­fee machine in the morn­ing and not be dis­tract­ed by the group’s flow rate, but sim­ply press the but­ton. These cof­fee machines are ide­al for high-traf­fic areas and cof­fee shops where there are chef baris­tas and novice baris­tas. Despite the excel­lent rep­u­ta­tion and pop­u­lar­i­ty, auto­mat­ic cof­fee machines are much more expen­sive than semi-auto­mat­ic ones. Such cof­fee machines look mod­ern and pre­sentable, and at the same time they are pow­er­ful. Even an inex­pe­ri­enced barista can han­dle them: the chef barista can set up the cof­fee machine, and the rest can use it. Keep in mind that you need to set up an auto­mat­ic cof­fee machine every day — an expe­ri­enced chef can teach begin­ners how to set up a cof­fee machine accord­ing to the instruc­tions to secure them.

Differences between coffee machines: what can influence the choice?

First of all, cof­fee machines dif­fer by num­ber of pumps
- devices that cre­ate pres­sure in the cof­fee machine and pump water into the boil­er.

Coffee machines with one pump.

In most cas­es, the pump per­forms sev­er­al func­tions at once: it cre­ates pres­sure, spills water in the cof­fee group, and pumps water into the boil­er for heat­ing. Thanks to one pump, the same pres­sure is set on all groups, at which espres­so is pre­pared. The pumps of some cof­fee machines work only on the pas­sage of espres­so — in order to pump water into the boil­er, they use the pres­sure in the water sup­ply sys­tem. When the water lev­el drops, the pump does not turn on, but only the valve opens. If the cof­fee machine is pow­ered by bot­tled water, you should use addi­tion­al pumps that cre­ate pres­sure.

Coffee machines with multiple pumps.

Some cof­fee machines have sep­a­rate pumps for each cof­fee group. The main advan­tage of such cof­fee machines is the abil­i­ty to adjust the pres­sure indi­vid­u­al­ly for each group. The dis­ad­van­tage is that they are sig­nif­i­cant­ly more expen­sive than sin­gle-pump cof­fee machines and take up a lot of space. A mul­ti-pump espres­so machine will suit you if you plan to use dif­fer­ent recipes on dif­fer­ent cof­fee groups with dif­fer­ent pres­sures.
Also cof­fee machines may vary by pump type

:

vibratory pumps.

They have a sim­ple device and, due to their com­pact size, are installed on semi-pro­fes­sion­al and house­hold cof­fee machines with low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Such pumps can­not reg­u­late pres­sure, there­fore, an excess pres­sure valve is addi­tion­al­ly installed on cof­fee machines with vibra­tion pumps — it helps to relieve excess pres­sure and set the desired val­ue. The advan­tage of such pumps is the afford­able price (15–50 euros), and the dis­ad­van­tage is a lot of noise.

rotary pumps.

Rotary pumps are usu­al­ly installed on pro­fes­sion­al cof­fee machines with medi­um and large capac­i­ty. In addi­tion to the pump itself, they have an elec­tric motor that rotates the blades inside the mech­a­nism. The main dif­fer­ence from vibra­tion pumps is that such pumps cre­ate more sta­ble pres­sure and are less noisy. At the same time, they take up much more space and are more expen­sive (about 200 euros with­out an elec­tric motor). Rotary pumps can be locat­ed both inside the espres­so machine and out­side. For exam­ple, remote pumps can be installed in a cab­i­net under the cof­fee machine to make it eas­i­er to change pres­sure set­tings. Cof­fee machines may also vary accord­ing to the method of heat­ing reg­u­la­tion
:

Coffee machines with pressure switch.

The main func­tion of the pres­sure switch is to main­tain the set pres­sure range and tem­per­a­ture of the boil­er in the cof­fee machine by turn­ing the heat­ing ele­ment on and off. As the water in the boil­er boils and a cer­tain pres­sure lev­el is reached, the cir­cuit closed by the spring pres­sure opens and the heat­ing stops. The pres­sure and tem­per­a­ture can be high­er if the com­pres­sion ratio of the spring is increased with the adjust­ing screw — thus the cir­cuit will open lat­er. The advan­tage of such cof­fee machines is the low cost, and the dis­ad­van­tage is the dif­fi­cul­ty in con­trol­ling the tem­per­a­ture.

Coffee machines with PID controller.

The PID con­troller is a pro­por­tion­al-inte­gral-deriv­a­tive con­troller. In cof­fee machines with a PID con­troller, a pres­sure switch is not installed. It con­stant­ly checks the tem­per­a­ture with a sen­sor and switch­es the heat­ing ele­ment on and off as need­ed via SSR (Sol­id State Relays). Cof­fee machines with sep­a­rate boil­ers are usu­al­ly con­trolled using a PID con­troller. Its advan­tage is that it con­trols the water tem­per­a­ture in the boil­er as accu­rate­ly as pos­si­ble, and the main dis­ad­van­tage is the price (it is sev­er­al times more expen­sive than a pres­sure switch). Cof­fee machines may vary by the num­ber of boil­ers
:

Single boiler coffee machines with heat exchanger.

Such cof­fee machines are equipped with one large boil­er (more than 5 liters), which main­tains the required pres­sure and tem­per­a­ture of 120°C. When prepar­ing espres­so, the pump turns on, and cold water from the water sup­ply enters the heat exchang­er, after which it heats up and enters the group, and then into the cof­fee tablet. Steam for froth­ing milk is obtained by open­ing the steam valve con­nect­ed to the top of the boil­er. For such cof­fee machines, the size of the boil­er is impor­tant: the larg­er the boil­er, the less like­ly it is that the tem­per­a­ture will drop on an intense flow. We rec­om­mend choos­ing cof­fee machines with boil­ers from 10 liters. The dis­ad­van­tage of sin­gle boil­er cof­fee machines is that the water tem­per­a­ture dur­ing espres­so prepa­ra­tion is not sta­ble and it is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to adjust it accu­rate­ly. It is either too high at the begin­ning of the extrac­tion, or becomes insuf­fi­cient after a few cap­puc­ci­nos have been made and water from the boil­er has been used. Anoth­er dis­ad­van­tage is that it will take extra time to make espres­so — after warm­ing up the cof­fee machine, there is super­heat­ed water in the heat exchang­er, and its tem­per­a­ture is too high for mak­ing espres­so. Before prepar­ing a cup of cof­fee, a “dry flush” should be car­ried out to drain the super­heat­ed water into the drip tray. The advan­tage of sin­gle-boil­er cof­fee machines is the low price.

Multi-boiler coffee machines with separate boilers for steam/boiling water and espresso.

These are two‑, three- and even four-boil­er cof­fee machines, in which, in addi­tion to a boil­er for steam and boil­ing water, there is a sep­a­rate espres­so boil­er for each group. The tem­per­a­ture can be adjust­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly for each group — this is espe­cial­ly con­ve­nient if you plan to pre­pare dif­fer­ent cof­fees on the same cof­fee machine at the same time: for exam­ple, lighter and dark­er roasts. The main advan­tage of a mul­ti-boil­er cof­fee machine is that, unlike a sin­gle-boil­er one, it does not require an “idle flow” — each boil­er has its own PID con­troller set to a dif­fer­ent tem­per­a­ture. The steam and hot water boil­er is main­tained at around 120°C and the espres­so boil­er at around 93°C at the stan­dard fac­to­ry set­ting. Even when prepar­ing a large amount of espres­so, high ther­mal sta­bil­i­ty is main­tained. The cof­fee machine also has a heat exchang­er that runs through the steam boil­er. The heat­ed water flows through it into the espres­so boil­er. In such a cof­fee machine, it is pos­si­ble to adjust the exact tem­per­a­ture of the water in the espres­so boil­er and sep­a­rate­ly in the steam and boil­ing water boil­er. In addi­tion, the espres­so boil­er does not form cal­ci­um (scale) because it is main­tained at a tem­per­a­ture of 90 to 95°C — thanks to this, the cof­fee machine will last longer. Com­pared to sin­gle-boil­er cof­fee machines, the dis­ad­van­tage of mul­ti-boil­er cof­fee machines can be called a high price. Cof­fee machines can be equipped econ­o­miz­er
(from the Eng­lish econ­o­miz­er) — a hot water mix­er that reg­u­lates the tem­per­a­ture of the water leav­ing the cof­fee machine and opti­mizes the effi­cien­cy of the sys­tem. It adds cold water to boil­ing water in a cer­tain pro­por­tion, there­by sta­bi­liz­ing the heat bal­ance of the cof­fee machine. Pro­fes­sion­al mod­els of the sin­gle-boil­er cof­fee machine lines are equipped with an econ­o­miz­er — with the help of it, the barista reg­u­lates the tem­per­a­ture of heat­ing hot water.

The use of an econ­o­miz­er is rec­om­mend­ed by cof­fee indus­try experts and spe­cial­ists to reduce ener­gy use and pre­vent uncon­trolled water and steam escap­ing. It has been proven that the effi­cien­cy of boil­ing water increas­es by 30% through the use of an econ­o­miz­er. In addi­tion, the econ­o­miz­er saves water and ener­gy con­sump­tion and can be adjust­ed inde­pen­dent­ly.

Cof­fee machines also dif­fer by num­ber of groups

. The group is the main unit of the cof­fee machine. Group through­put reach­es 60 cups of espres­so per hour: 30 sec­onds per espres­so and anoth­er 30 sec­onds to pre­pare the hold­er and group for the next cup. The more groups the cof­fee machine has, the more cups can be pre­pared at the same time. As a stan­dard, cof­fee machines have 1–4 groups, how­ev­er, on request, you can put up to 18 groups in a row. So one group is 60 cups/hour, two groups is 120 cups/hour, three groups is 180 cups/hour, and so on.
By group height
cof­fee machines are divid­ed into:

• High groups
  - for tall glass­es “to go”: 13.5–14 cm
• low groups
  - for stan­dard espres­so cups: 8.5–9 cm
• Adjustable groups
  - for dif­fer­ent cups and glass­es

The choice of group depends on which drinks you plan to focus on. Take­away glass­es, lat­te mac­chi­a­to, etc. are bet­ter suit­ed for a high group. For espres­so, a high group will not work — you will have to use a stand to avoid splash­ing and loss of tem­per­a­ture. Low groups are the most pop­u­lar, as they are suit­able for any cof­fee drinks.

What other options can a coffee machine have?

Cup warmer.

Almost all mod­i­fi­ca­tions of cof­fee machines will have elec­tric active heat­ing of cups at the top as an addi­tion­al option. It’s no secret that it’s best to pour espres­so into a warmed cup. Thanks to the large non-stop boil­ers, the usu­al pas­sive area on top also heats up per­fect­ly, espe­cial­ly in two- and three-group ver­sions. There­fore, the cup warmer func­tion does not play such a big role.

Programmable strait.

On many cof­fee machines, pro­gram­ma­ble but­tons for turn­ing on and off the strait in groups are installed, allow­ing you to “remem­ber” the right amount of water. In sim­ple mod­els, the barista turns on and off the strait on his own — such cof­fee machines require the con­stant atten­tion of the barista, so they are suit­able for places that are not the most pass­able. In cof­fee machines with pro­gram­ma­ble but­tons, the flow starts at the touch of a but­ton and stops when the set amount of mil­li­liters is reached. This is con­ve­nient because the barista can pro­gram the cof­fee machine in the morn­ing and not be dis­tract­ed by con­trol­ling the flow rate of the group.

Built-in scales.

This option is sim­i­lar to a pro­gram­ma­ble flow. The main dif­fer­ence is that the scales do not mea­sure the amount of water that is sup­plied to the groups, but the actu­al weight of the cup — this allows you to quick­ly adjust the espres­so.

Built-in timer.

This is a very con­ve­nient option: the sec­onds of the flow are dis­played from the moment the pump is turned on until the pump is actu­al­ly turned off — there is no need to use a sep­a­rate timer.

Pros and cons

Carob cof­fee mak­ers have many advan­tages regard­ing both the oper­a­tion of the device and the qual­i­ty of the fin­ished prod­uct.

Here are a num­ber of pos­i­tive points for which they are appre­ci­at­ed by users:

• lack of cof­fee grounds in the cup of the fin­ished drink;
• the abil­i­ty to pre­serve the unique aro­mas of the used cof­fee vari­ety (a list of all cof­fee vari­eties with their char­ac­ter­is­tics is pre­sent­ed here);
• high extrac­tion (carob cof­fee mak­ers extract up to 25% of valu­able sub­stances from raw mate­ri­als, in con­ven­tion­al devices this fig­ure is bare­ly close to 18%), due to which cof­fee is spent less;
• the speed with which it is pos­si­ble to pre­pare cof­fee;
• the abil­i­ty to pre­pare drinks accord­ing to dif­fer­ent recipes, thanks to the pres­ence of addi­tion­al func­tions.

They usu­al­ly talk about the dis­ad­van­tages of the device by com­par­ing it with oth­er mod­els. For exam­ple, carob cof­fee mak­ers are very rarely pro­duced with a built-in cof­fee grinder, which for some users is a sig­nif­i­cant minus. An overview of the best cof­fee grinders can be found here.

It is prob­lem­at­ic to make hot choco­late or cocoa in them, which can be done using cof­fee machines of dif­fer­ent brands. How to make hot choco­late at home we talked about in this arti­cle.

Carob cof­fee mak­ers require some addi­tion­al devices — for exam­ple, a tem­pera (press) for com­pact­ing cof­fee, as well as skills in work­ing with this device.

Advantages and disadvantages

To clear­ly see all the pros and cons, check out the table that will help you choose the right device for you.

cof­fee machine	Cof­fee mak­er
pros	Minus­es	pros	Minus­es
The grind­ing of grains is car­ried out direct­ly in the machine imme­di­ate­ly before mak­ing cof­fee	High price	Afford­able price	Grains must first be ground
Pos­si­bil­i­ty to adjust the tem­per­a­ture	Impres­sive dimen­sions	com­pact­ness	No tem­per­a­ture con­trol
High brew­ing speed	Noise at work	Low noise	Speed ​​is low­er than cof­fee machines
Built-in milk frother	Ease of device and repair	The foam must be beat­en sep­a­rate­ly
Deep taste and aro­ma of cof­fee	The use of pre-ground raw mate­ri­als can adverse­ly affect the taste.
Pos­si­bil­i­ty to pre­pare sev­er­al vari­eties of drink at once
car wash

As you can see, the pros and cons of these devices are almost polar to each oth­er. To make your final choice, please refer to the fol­low­ing table.