Gaggia Brera Bean to Cup Coffee Machine

Product Information

As you can see in this photo, I've slid off the Panarello, and I've just used the pipe. It's a case of just putting the tip into the surface of the milk, to begin with, and drawing air into the milk while it's still cold. This is actually a really clever feature that Gaggia don't talk that much about in a lot of their blurb. The Gaggia bean to cup machines have an inbuilt mechanism that allows them to detect the pressure required to auto tamp the coffee prior to pulling the shot, and the machines learn from this and apply this to the next shot.

I’d really like it if it did like 15ml shots and/or 18g shots. As it is, I do double 30ml/11.g shots for most milk drinks to get the strength. These machines have software which enable them to detect whether more or less pressure than expected had to be exerted, and they make an adjustment in the number of milliamps used to exert the pressure on the coffee. So if you use a new coffee and it tastes wrong, just give it a few shots and it should improve. This probably makes it sound easier than it is. In reality, texturing milk to get it to the right consistency for latte art, is a real skill – takes a lot of work, and pouring latte art is even harder. Really takes some practice, I've been working on it for about three years, and I've had some pro training, and still, while I can do an OK job some of the time, still I fluff it up quite a bit. Great feeling when you get it spot on, though!The Gaggia Anima Deluxe seems like a sort-of hybrid machine. It’s a bean-to-cup station with auto-preparation of milk, but doesn’t get you the one-button milky drinks that a lot of bean-to-cup buyers are after at the price. If you’re after that, consider the Prestige version. Wait, did I say there was only one true Gaggia home barista espresso machine? I lied ;-). OK, this is still the Classic Pro, but it's the limited edition “Acrobat” version. These are numbered limited edition versions carrying the special acrobat barista artwork. I believe there are a few of these left, and at this discounted price, personally, if I was buying a classic pro, I'd buy the Acrobat version. The three bean settings are how you set the dose. 1 bean is 7g, 2 is 9g, and 3 is 11g. So if you want a double shot at 14g, keep it on setting 1 and press the espresso button twice. Setting to the 2 bean setting and pressing the espresso button twice will give you a double shot from 18g, and 3 will give you 22g.

This is the base level one-touch milk carafe version of the Anima, with a milk carafe to handle the milk. So instead of a steam wand or a cappuccinatore to deliver the milk, you put the milk in the carafe, slot this in, and the milk is taken from the carafe, frothed, and dispensed into your cup/glass. When I say “base level”– basically the body is all plastic on the Anima Class, while you get a brushed stainless steel front and top with the Anima Prestige, below. We were impressed with the espresso's robust crema and rich flavor on the test. We also liked that the drinks can be customized regarding strength, aroma, drink size, and temperature. Pressurized baskets (Sage call them Dual Walled baskets, Gaggia call them Perfect Crema baskets) do away with any need for dialling in, so they take you toward the convenience of bean to cup (OK, not quite) and although the espresso isn’t on par with dialled in shots via traditional baskets, in my humble opinion espresso via pressured baskets is usually better in taste and mouthfeel – while giving more control over ratio, than espresso via bean to cup machines.

SAECO PHILIPS INCANTO CLASSIC HD8911/02

If you're not used to using a bean to cup machine, and you're coming from using a semi auto espresso machine such as a Gaggia Classic, you'll probably find you need to go for a higher strength setting. Bean to cup machines doesn't tend to give quite the same intensity of espresso from the same dosage. How fine the adjustment is with bean to cup machines is debatable, to be honest. You're never going to be able to finely dial in, with a bean to cup coffee machine, it's more like ballpark dialing in. So the difference between 5 adjustments to 10 or 13, probably doesn't make a huge amount of difference. I'd recommend taking them out of the freezer the night before too, grinding frozen beans probably isn't the best idea for more than one reason. The controls on the Brera seem to me to be really well thought out, leading to a really simple operation, for such a well priced machine.