Vittoria Coffee on special again
1kg 2 for $30 @ Woolworths
Coffee snobs will go elsewhere but I enjoy this. It doesn’t get any cheaper.
Vittoria Coffee 1kg 2 for $30 @ Woolworths
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Likewise. I do spend a bit on local roasts from Canberra, Melbourne & Brisvegas - but the Vittoria is a regular fallback option (and the default for taking to work). IMHO, the 'Organic' bags are even better - not that I'm too concerned about labels like 'Freetrade' or 'Organic' - it is just sound, reliable coffee that my grinder gets along well with…
I bought this on sale a month or two ago and couldn't get anything resembling espresso from it. Had conical burr grinder on finest setting, but still just getting dish water 10s extraction. Made me wonder if the beans were old (although they weren't close to expiry) - might explain the sale price?
I've had some success with Vittoria Oro beans before, but I try to buy fresh roasted if possible. So not sure if it's the non-oro beans or what.
I also happily drink instant, so I don't class myself as a full time snob - just a filthy casual really.
I use a Rancilio Rocky grinder on the finest setting it will allow without binding. Works for me. This blend has the right acid and strength for my taste for espresso and the occasional short mac.
Lol saw your post after my comment. Same grinder and same result. I would still go with harris 3 anyday as it has the same low acidity with a much richer flavour and good head
I've got the Breville Smart Grinder. I suspect the Rocky is a better grinder (although they're probably not miles apart) but I don't have this problem with most beans.
The 1kg bag is really too big for me anyway - making only 1 cup a day they go stale too quickly.
@3:
How long have you had the grinder?
I had 2 of them, each only lasted about 7 months being used 2 times a day.
They still worked/made ground coffee but were not consistent and even the finest setting would produce a coarse grind that made a fast extraction.
It's a great grinder with great features but seemed to lack in long lasting quantity.
@spaceflight: At least a year - I might pull it apart and inspect the burrs, give it a clean. Thanks for the tip
@3:
Not a problem.
I found that the adjustment mechanism (I think) sunk, couldn't adjust up correctly or came loose in the housing.
When I took the hopper etc off I could lift/push down on the burr mechanism/motor so it seemed like the movement that was there worked back into the burrs and provided a poor grind.
Breville sent me some free shims (just call and ask) which helped for a while until the movement worked its way back in.
@3: It is the air that gets to the beans, so always squeeze out the air and keep them in the top (warmest part) of the fridge. I store my opened bags under the kitchen cabinet at foot level where it's cool.
Campos sell a bean keeper tin which works like a piston, the capacity varies as the base slides up until when the weight of the beans keeps it down. May well be worth the $50 if you make a cup daily. I just fold my partially emptied bag and squeeze the air out as best I can before putting it in a cool, dry place. Since we make 3 cups/day 1kg doesn't last too long. But I can taste the last 1/3 is not as nice as the first.
I use the Aldi blue bags, @$11.50, they seem to beat everything prefer it to the Organic Vittoria, Lavazza, etc. but most likely it is now what we are used to. It is arabica blended with robusta though. My theory is the imported bags are all too old, the locally roasted ones often suffer delays through the supermarkets depending on the volatility of demand, perhaps Aldi (roasted in Melb) is usually around the right age when bought in Sydney, who knows- but they have a dark roast (red bag) now so if everyone chooses that maybe the blueys will get staler and the scam will be done.
I had to crank down the grinder to almost touching point to get a meaningful extraction. And it's still very hit and miss. Not sure if these beans are vert low in oil content
As a general rule supermarket coffee beans are usually already stale. The staler the coffee the finer you need to grind and often still gush with the finest setting. With freshly roast coffee, coffee snobs often dial the grind slightly finer and finer as the coffee ages, but I'm talking over 2-3 weeks whereas super market coffee has probably been on the shelf for months. I remember once seeing a bag of supermarket coffee with a best before date 12 months from the date I saw it.
@42:
From my experience, they put a 12 month expiry date on them, based on this you can sometimes find "fresh" coffee at the supermarket if you look, or at least work out how stale it is going to be.@tryagain: I study the best by dates to reverse engineer the age of the packet of Aldi beans. The longest period to 'Best before' date I've had so far is 14 months for the blue 'crema' bags. So if less than 13 months, they're getting old!
That is why I call it Shittoria
I call it Bittoria because I always find their coffee to be bitter and lacking in aroma. Never had a single good coffee from them, whether it's cafe coffee or home-made.
I had the exact same experience! Bought some last week as we ran out of the good stuff and it was roughly half price at woolies. Breville smart grinder cranked right down to fine and it still came out shockingly quick with no real extraction.
Just ended up adding the beans to the compost, sad.
This is the worse supermarket bean you can buy. I stick to ALDI beans $11.49/Kg. At grind level 6, you get 25 second extraction with the pressure gauge right at the 12 o clock.
Agree same here - I actually had same issue with Breville Smart Grinder - will not try vittoria again (has happened on other occasions too) - I got the sense it was humidity. Anyway - ALDI and Coles beans work great and nowhere near the finest setting. I know there is a shim kit you can get from Breville to increase how fine it gets to.
@Ruckmauler: Beware the SG Pro often needs to be adjusted (see instructions) back a notch after its run-in- else you can run out of 'fineness' on the LCD scale (with some beans).
There's something you must be doing wrong. Are you using a double shot, how chunky is your grind? I found going from a Sunbeam 17 grind setting down to even still a 13 made a massive difference, any finer and I'd be jumping off the walls. The flavour is the most intense I've ever had, from any bean or barista. The drain from your machine should be black as, if it's not then you did it wrong.
I can be a snob sometimes but for regular drinking I seem to pull better shots with Harris 3 than this.
Harris is a good product though. Same maker as L'Or but locally roasted.
I agree… better than a lot of 'fancy' places in laneways, hipster baristas, and 'amaaaazing' reviews.
I visited the roastery for Harris and you know what? They also roast for many premium cafes in Aus and I don't see why not grabbing a bargain for Harris over others.
Harris Columbian is the shiz
Great price. Vittoria is always too dry for my machine though.
I prefer the ~$12/kg Aldi Lazzio beans better even though they quietly changed from 100% arabica to a blend of arabica and robusta.
Robusta isn't bad, arabica has been marketed as the 'premium' been as it's harder to grow and as such is worth more.
Robusta isn't a chap filler, an arabica and robusta blend generally makes for a better espresso with a longer lasting flavour :)
Thanks for the info. I noticed the nuttier flavour after the change, but I've adjusted and quite like it now.
I'm happy to give the Aldo one a shot… is it pretty low in acidity? good crema?
I recommend you give their Lazzio Medium roast a go. Flavour is surprisingly good, acidity is low but I still notice it and I get a good crema out of them when I grind them relatively fine. EDIT: Don't forget to check the best before dates and grab the freshest.
I like the Harris Signature and Harris 3, but decided to checkout Aldi Lazzio Medium not so long ago. Got to say, given the price differential (this is $11.49) as opposed to Harris ($18), quite happy to alternate and swap around - when waiting for Harris sale. OK both on crema and acidity. Harris is probably still a bit better (sure, this is just down to personal taste) but this is good value for money.
I'm not enough of a coffee snob to have my own grinder but I don't mind Aldi's ground fair trade next to it on the shelf! It has a sweeter nose than some.
+1 for Aldi beans , I was spending $25 a kilo for locally roasted beans and the Aldi ones taste as good to my tastebuds.
Also Aldi beans seems a lot fresher than beans I have tried from woolworths or coles.
I use a Breville smart grinder which has improved my coffee making greatly and sunbeam EM7000.
I'll +1 your +1
Aldi beans are pretty darn good. I was using Patio Roaster beans, they are the current winners of Best Milk Coffee Golden Bean Awards.
While not the same as a $36 bag of Patio beans it's very palatable. I never liked Vittoria, a bit over roasted for my liking.
Where is this promo advertised? Shows $28 for 1kg for me and no link to the promo…
2kg for $30 is good
In two days per the headline
Thanks chops, I know when it is.
I wanted to where it was advertised… was it in a catalog, in newspaper or online somewhere..
Catalog
Not a bad price for these. I find the Robert Timms espresso beans to be fairly OK too, as low as $10/kg on special
I actually like the coles brand beans, $12kg, aldi also do a nice bean too. Roughly same price as Coles brand.
I cant buy this coffee even on special - I rate this and grinders the ones I avoid of the supermarket ones
Vittoria beans….how is that deal when its only good to be put in compost bin.
I prefer Lavazza as my supermarket fallback bean.
yep, me too.
This is so yuck. Life is too short for terrible coffee.
I have taste, just no discernment. We buy the Coles beans for $12. I compared it with some coffeesnob beans, they tasted different, just not better to me. I know I’m using my machine correctly, people like my coffee… I just feel like I’m letting coffee lovers down.
AddNinja, Same here. We buy the cheap Coffee beans, very little difference in the right Auto machine.
Well it's like what they say about wine …
Is it the “life’s too short for cheap wine” saying?
If it is, I think it is bad advice. I’m old, and I’ve drunk $5 Aldi wines to very expensive wine in my time. The Aldi stuff is perfectly good for me. It also wins blind tasting awards. I buy expensive wines as gifts for those that care, but…
I sometimes I wonder this (and I mean it without offence). If someone in their early twenties tells me life is too short for cheap wine, I wonder if:
A. They know something I don’t.
B. They don’t know what they are talking about.I was thinking of the thing that seems to be the opposite of that - if you do a blind test and prefer the cheaper wine then OzB winnnnaaaahhhh! :D
I'd actually say the same thing about "fine dining". Some fine dining actually has good interesting flavours. Many others are just small shitty sizes that just taste all the same, if anything at all cos you get so little of it …
I have left fine dinning places with their shitty sizes and had to buy a pizza later as I was starving. I enjoyed the pizza more. It was a normal pizza too, not one of those gourmet pizzas either.
Save your money and get a freshly locally roasted bean, these are not worth it especially if you're using one of the ozbargain breville machines ;)
They were 2 for $14 at IGA a while ago. So $7ea for 1 Kg
Its hard to get excited over 2 for $30
Just picked up today the their Mountain Grown beans for $18.50 at Woolies. Worth the extra $3.50 in my taste
My Breville espresso and separate grinder could never make a good coffee with these beans. Later I tried the Aldi beans and found these to be excellent.
CBF grinding so I buy these ground (shock horror) and run it through an aeropress. Inverted, stirred 20-30 times and left to brew for a min or 2. Good enough. :P
I'm even lazier, I CBF doing an inverted aeropress :-)
What gets me about home coffee making is that the extra expense and faffing about with fancier ever-gear only delivers very ever-tinier improvements. To give some examples:
* I've tried a hand grinder with Lavazza beans and it was not noticeably better than with the store bought pre-ground Lavazza Oro beans, but was noticeably more effort and time (and yes, I've tried fresh-roasted fancy beans from fancy roasters, but the extra expense and faffing about getting them was again not worth the extra time and expense and hassle for the relatively small improvement).
* I've tried to convince myself to get a Breville Smart Grinder, but the bang-for-buck part of me struggles to see the benefit ($160 is the best recent price for that grinder, but I'm unconvinced that it would deliver substantially better results than my current Ceramic Burr Manual Coffee Grinder + elbow grease).
* We've had expensive Krupps machines before, but the results were no better than stove top moka pots.I guess the consequence is that I feel like with coffee you can spend very little extra time and effort to go from pretty ordinary coffee -> pretty reasonable coffee (e.g. instant -> aeropress + supermarket ground coffee stocked up when on special), but then getting from that to café grade coffee seems like you could invest a massive amount of time, money, and effort (i.e. high opportunity cost) and get really quite small incremental improvements in return.
Anyway, just $0.02 from someone who likes coffee but requires a decent bang-for-buck-and-effort ratio, which I'll probably get negged for.
I completely agree about diminishing returns so spending $$$$ on coffee, machines etc doesn't produce better coffee. BUT Breville grinder and Krupps is not really a true representation of 'optimal' coffee experience. I have a half decent machine (Rancillio) which I've had for nearly 10 years with no issues (effectively paid for itself) and the effort to make well above average coffee is minimal. So anyone who is somewhat discerning about their coffee, there are some reasonable options without going overboard.
I don't like this one. I use Breville's smart grinder on the finest setting and it always under extracts.
From Coles/Woolworths my favourite is the Coles Fairtrade Organic 250g Coffee Beans (Woolworth's has a similar quality one but its 200g for the same price).
It's $2/kg, so its only 50c/kg more than this. Plus it's always this price and it doesn't get stale as fast since its a smaller bag.I've tried most of them at Coles except for Harris and Grinders. I would try them if they had a smaller bag.
You need to adjust it now it's run in, on most SG Pro grinders the burrs can be set progressively closer if you remove the top lock next time it's out of beans.
I've already got that set to the lowest. Is yours getting good extraction on it?
The loweest? Factory setting is done by machine, most are 5 or 6- usually about in the middle. How many times did you adjust it down? Maybe you went the wrong way, If on the tightest, the burrs are likely to jam/be severely damaged. Manual says to only adjust one notch at a time to avoid catastrophic damage.
@resisting the urge: Yeah it's on 1. I changed it to this when I was testing out different beans and couldn't get a good extraction. Suggestions online said to lower it which is what I did. I didn't think there would be a downside to it.
But after reading your comment and checking online I got a little worried. So I checked my burrs and they are still fine, but I will raise it up to 5.
It still extracts fine on 5 for the beans I use so that's all that matters!
Cheers for warning!@chanleystan: Ah, I see, you may need to have turned it up, not down. that tightens the burrs. Going lower opens the gap between the blades. Perhaps try 6 if 5 has the LCD scale always too close to zero / the right side of the scale.
I am enjoying the last 1kg I purchased from Woolies, but judging by the comments I will have to try the ALDI beans.
I use Woolworths Select beans at $12 per kg. Have tried most supermarket beans and the only one that was similarly good was Lavazza Oro at $30+ per kg. Also used to regularly use the Aldi dark roast again abour $12, didn't realise they had changed the bean mix which is probably why I don't find it as good whenever I can't get the Select and switch back. As with most I just buy what I like, i've tried speciality beans but can't get the same flavour intensity, typically too 'nutty'
I'd give the Select a go, don't know how he preground stuff works out.
pre-ground is ok for stovetop espresso or plunger etc but doesn't work in proper espresso machines. It'll come out like underextracted dishwater.
I bought a bag of these half price from woolies and they are THEY WORST beans ive ever used.
BES920 + Smart Grinder, could not get a single good extraction from this bag of poo pellets.
Might try aldi's $12/kg variety but supermarket beans have fooled me once!!
With your equipment if you try Aldi's beans I think you will be pleasantly surprised! I too was reluctant to again try supermarket beans; however, Aldi's are difficult to beat in terms of results and price.
I just buy the ground version, store it in the fridge and every day make a couple of expressos on a stovetop expresso machine.
I would say 9 out of 10 brews are really good.
100x better than instant, suits me. Better than many I pay for.
BES920 + Rancilio 'Rocky' - no problem. Grinder is set to mark '5'. 30 second extraction (incl ~5 second pre-infusion) at 9 bar - All good.
Buying any coffee bag that does not include a Roast date is a waste of time.
Typically coffee beans to be used up between 4-10 days after Roast date for best results, thats if you want truly fresh tasting coffee from your beans.
Find a local roaster & buy fresh beans & enjoy the difference!
I understand this point of view - but remember you are talking 300% to 400% $$ more! They had damn well taste better.
I enjoy the mountain grown vittoria which is worth the extra couple of dollars when it is also on special. Perfectly enjoyable as a daily latte or cappuccino made with my machine at home.
I used to be a serious coffee drinker and I finally managed to get off the drug 7 years ago. But funnily every time I walk down the coffee isle I still check if my beloved Vittoria is on sale. Even after 7 years… And the smell…. Ooooh….
You'll be back
Next time you're feeling a little sad, walking down a dark alley early one morning, and sniff out a starving hipster running a popup pirate espresso lounge… bwaahhaahaahaa
Espresso drinker here. I've enjoyed this for years.