The coffee industry is wonderful and innovative. This innovation has seen the release of countless accessories for the home barista set up, but what’s actually ESSENTIAL?
We’ve put this together to help you understand the “Wants & Needs” with home coffee machine accessories.
Essential Barista Accessories
To put it simply, there are 6 absolutely essential accessories you need for a manual home machine (except for the machine and coffee of course!).
- Espresso back flush powder
- Milk Jug
- Tamper
- Tamper Mat
- Thermometer
- Group cleaning brush
Espresso Back flush powder
Cleaning your coffee machine is a crucial part of maintaining your equipment and the taste of your coffee. Not cleaning your machine causes coffee oils and residue to stick to the equipment. This will negatively impact the taste of your coffee. These instructions are for machines with 3 way solenoid valves as they can be cleaned using the back flush powder.
We recommend that you clean your coffee machine and handle once a week. The process of cleaning your coffee machine can be daunting at first. That’s why the team at Complete Cafe Services are happy to provide you instructions HERE.
Complete Cafe Services offer an environmentally certified back flush powder, specially designed for coffee machines HERE.
Milk Jug
If you have milk in your coffee, a milk jug is an essential accessory to creating barista quality milk at home. Manual coffee machines do not steam the milk from an inbuilt canister, so you will need a milk jug to properly add hot milk. Using a milk jug and pouring correctly gives you the ability to mix the espresso crema with the milk, to create a silky, smooth coffee.
We offer a range of milk jugs HERE.
Tamper
Every manual coffee machine requires the coffee to be tamped into the basket. Without a tamper, you simply cannot make coffee on a manual machine. Because of this, a tamper is an absolutely essential accessory for a home coffee set up. Some machines come with stainless steel tampers that do the trick, but if you’ve received a plastic tamper, you may want to think about upgrading. The coffee tamper is what levels your coffee puck to create an even extraction. It does this by applying pressure on a flat surface to the grounds in your portafilter. Without tamping, you won’t get a pressure build up that creates a thick, creamy, crema rich extraction. Plastic tampers aren’t capable of delivering the same, even distribution of pressure that commercial grade tampers are.
Check out our range of quality coffee tampers HERE.
Tamper Mat
While the tamper mat might not feel as essential as other items, it works to protect your gear. A tamper mat will protect your counter tops from damage from the portafilter, while protecting your portafilter from damage from the counter top. Quality tamper mats are made from durable food grade silicone rubber. Designed to protect your gear and surfaces, this is a must have accessory for baristas.
You can see our quality tamp mats HERE.
Thermometer
No matter how good of a barista you are, a thermometer is an essential accessory. You may feel confident in gauging the temperature by hand most of the time, but your temperature sensors change when you touch different objects around a coffee machine. Holding onto a cold carton of milk or touching a warm coffee machine will all effect your ability to consistently gauge the temperature by hand. Additionally, different milks are best heated to different temperatures. For instance, the proteins in soy milk start to split at a lower temperature to full cream dairy milk. Using a thermometer gives you the ability to accurately create smooth, creamy milk every time you make a coffee.
We have thermometers to suit all milk jug sizes, you can check them out HERE.
Group Cleaning Brush
Cleaning your coffee machine is a must, you’re working with a consumable product after all. A group brush is a must have to keep those pesky coffee granules from your coffee! Maintain your group heads and shower screens with an ergonomic handled brush designed to assist in getting into every nook and cranny.
Great group brushes have a bent groove to stop hot water from burning your hands during use. Regularly cleaning your group head will prolong the life of your shower screen and seal while ensuring your coffee doesn’t taste bitter and burned from residual grinds.
You can see our favourite group brush HERE
So there you have it, the absolute essential accessories you need for a home barista set up.
If you need any assistance in finding the right gear for your machine, feel free to give our friendly team a call on (08) 8338 0600.
