Bean to coffee machines - what's coffee like compared to Nespresso?

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Interested in investing in a bean to coffee machine, mainly as I'm fed up with pods and the waste they cause - the recycling service not always operating well.

I like the crema you get with Nespresso. Has anyone made the switch and if so how does the coffee compare? Do you still get crema or does it produce thinner coffee more like filter coffee?

Any other tips?

A decent bean to cup will give proper crema. I’ve got a sage barista express- had for 6+ yrs and it’s used daily and still going strong. Lovely coffee.
Key is buying good beans and working out grind settings for your machine. Fresher the better. Personally I order online direct from a roaster so get super fresh coffee beans delivered every 2 weeks.

Much better. We buy artisan roasted beans and DH watched about a gazillion YouTube barista videos to get the settings right.

You definitely can get a similar crema to the original pods - but not to the vertuo in my experience (mainly because the vertuo is much higher volumes than extracting espresso!). But that might be my sub par barista skills!

It's just making sure you get the right grind size settings + amount for the beans you have (different beans different settings!).

I'm interested in purchasing a bean to cup machine too. Can anyone recommend a really good roastery.

Any recommendations for freshest beans - suppliers?

Bean to cup is a whole different (better) thing

It sounds complicated - is it??

I buy from Dark Woods because it’s local and from a nearby coffee shop as they roast on the premises

I’ve used Pact before. Currently use Ozone coffee as really enjoy their house blend.

More than popping a capsule in but once you’ve got the hang of it will be fine. I find it therapeutic. A few moments peace each morning making and then enjoying my daily coffee.

And any particular machine recommendations? I've heard DiLonghi are good?

We have a DeLonghi though it's not bean to cup (we just buy ground espresso, super easy). And it's fine. It's not the same as espresso you'd get from a £2000 proper espresso machine. But it's a hell of a lot better than a Nespresso.

We have a Siemens built in bean to cup machine and I prefer our old Nespresso, which was very consistent.

Our built in machine has too many options and I find it tricky to get the right settings, which then change as the coffee changes (the bean container lasts about a fortnight) etc. With the Nespresso, you just mashed a button and had consistently good coffee every time.

That said, the Nespressos are an environmental disaster.

I've seen reusable and compostable pods for Nespresso machines. I also seen ads for companies like Odd Coffee that sell capsules that are deemed not acceptable for general sale because they are dented.

Horsham Coffee Roaster have lovely beans and are reasonably priced. I get a fab crema from my Sage machine

Bean to cup is fabulous, as long as you don’t fill the hopper and let the beans go stale, and you’re prepared to spend time dicking around with a very long cleaning cycle. (Usually an hour or so.)

The Beko machine came out well in Which? testing. It's only £199 (or was shortly before Christmas) - or for an extra £20(?) you can get a milk frothing wand too (we didn't as we just heat the milk in the microwave for dh's latte).

It has an excellent crema - and as a result we now drink faaaar too much coffee

Downside is that its water reservoir and coffee bean sections are not that big but they're very easy to refill. It also needs the coffee grounds bit emptied every 8(?) coffees - and you can't pre-empt it it as it counts for itself.

Not the question you asked but you can recycle the pods with your aluminium recycling (cans etc) if you empty the coffee out. I use this device from amazon to remove the coffee (which goes on the compost heap) then rinse the pods and they go in our household recycling.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EcoPress-Aluminium-Capsule-Recycling-Dualit/dp/B0864QFH7V/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2ZBPU7YXXHIQ2&keywords=coffee%2Bpod%2Brecycling%2Btool&qid=1686571413&sprefix=coffee%2Bpod%2Br%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-5&th=1

No comparison imo. DH is pretty serious about coffee, he has a small scale roasting business.

Nespresso, or any pod, doesn’t really taste like coffee to me.

I loathe nespresso coffee and have an espresso machine. I can see the temptation though. I like that they don’t take up too much bench space (mine doesn’t take up much real-estate either, but it’s got a few design issues that involve spending more money to keep it working. Tbf, have had it about seven years and it gets a LOT of work.) I think the espresso it makes is okay, but still not perfect.

We have A DeLonghi Magnifico and no complaints.

We try to buy local for coffee beans, we live in a foodie place so there are a few.

With bean to cup machines, can you just put in enough for one cup so you can switch between types of coffee or are they meant to have a hopper full beans that they dispense from?

We use to have a Nespresso and that was one good thing, you could have a selection of different pods but we got rid of it and have been using an Aeropress, I miss the crema though.

I’ve tried filter, French press, pods and finally BTC . Non of them produce a drink that tastes as good as the wonderful aroma of the coffee brewing.
Iv’e tried many different coffee shops, always sadly let down by the taste.

Don't think so - that's the one big disadvantage compared to pods.

You could just put in a very small amount into the hopper but it would usually take c2 cups of coffee to clear it as there's at least one serving of beans that are already below the "out-take". At least, that's the case with my Beko judging be when it looks (and sounds) almost empty and when the "No coffee beans" light comes on (usually the next cup).

We upgraded from a Lavazza pod machine to a deLonghi bean to cup recently for similar reasons to you.

Here's ours. DH is more the coffee aficionado than me but he's pleased with it. It does have quite a lot of settings to fiddle with if you want to get it exactly right (in a good way, in that you are not stuck with one outcome). It's a helluva lot bigger than the pod machine though, make sure you have the counter space!