Maximum Bob

Not long ago, I mentioned that I’d spotted a conversion kit for Gaggia coffee machines that allowed the traditional system to be adapted for the Gaggia Caffita capsule system.

Now, I’ve previously gone down the route of roll-your-own espresso, as far as buying green beans and roasting them in my old popcorn maker, and there’s a lot to be said for doing things that way. The aroma and flavour of just-roasted freshly ground beans is something else, but the whole process is labour intensive and messy. Sadly, I just don’t have the time to do that kind of things these days, and my Gaggia machine spends most of the time being passed over in favour of the quicker and easier to use Senseo machine.

On the plus side, Senseo is reliable and consistent. If you don’t hit the heights you might with your own roast and grind system, it is a lot less hit-and-miss, and what you end up throwing in the bin is paper and coffee grounds - pretty much biodegradable.

Other pod and capsule systems may offer a wider variety of brews, but at the cost of a lot more packaging. Nevertheless, I was tempted by the Caffita system, as it offered me a way to use my Gaggia machine without the minor flooding and major hassle.

On the other hand, fitting the kit required the dismantling and reassembly of the brew head, and Gaggia were quite clear in their instructions:

IMPORTANT NOTICE
Gaggia United Kingdom Limited will not be held responsible for any work or
modifications carried out by the user. A charge may apply for any rectification of
faults arising as a result of customer misuse or work carried out on the machine
by an unauthorised person.

Errm. Yes. Don’t know what a lawyer might say about a conversion kit being offered for sale to the end user that you’re not “authorised” to fit yourself, but the message was clear: this might not go as smoothly as you’d hope.

So it proved. The instructions, as you can see, are not all that comprehensive. The pictures are too small and unclear, and (for example) Step 4 was very unclear. You’ll also notice that Step 4 is followed by Step 5, which is followed by, er, Step 4.

This is how it went. First of all, I don’t recommend that you casually disassemble your coffee machine. Thank the prophet Teddybear that the water is fairly hot, because the inside of the machine was encrusted with backwashed coffee grounds and various signs of oxidisation. I took everything out that I was pretty sure had to come out, but had to guess about the great big rubber seal, which the instructions appeared to say should be removed, but did not show very clearly.

Then I tried to put it all together again, turned it the right side up, and pumped some water through the system.

Disaster. Clearly the new O-ring seal wasn’t working, so I took it all apart again and put it back together. This time, the seal appeared to be good, but the new spring-loaded capsule-ready brewing handle would not connect. Took it apart again, but now it was HOT, so I had to leave it to cool before attempting to screw everything together. Still, the brewing handle didn’t fit, and this time I managed to strip the thread from one of the allen screws.

Bugger.

The problem seemed to be that in the centre of the brew head was a bolt which was standing proud and preventing a good fit for the new Caffita brewing plate. In consultation with a trained engineer (my brother-in-law), we tried to get it to go deeper, but then we actually broke the thing off. The good news: we could now make a tight seal with the new brewing plate and fit the new brewing handle. The bad news: we didn’t know what the function of the broken part was or if the machine would still work.

Having just scored myself about 15 boxes of Caffita capsules (150 capsules, fact fans), I could feel a new coffee machine coming on.

I reassembled everything and switched it all on. The only slight worry was that as soon as the machine warmed up, steam seemed to be emerging from the brewing plate in a steady jet, possibly because we’d just broken some kind of valve. We were concerned also that the little plastic pointy bit no longer had the support behind it that it needed (the broken part) and would therefore not pierce the capsule.

In the end, it seemed fine. As long as I remember to turn the brew handle round to its fullest extent to make the tightest seal, there are no leaks, the coffee takes the right amount of time to brew (20-25 secs for an espresso), and it floods out of the capsule with a beautiful, thick, golden crema on the top.

As a reliable and convenient way of making a pretty damn good cup of coffee, this system is great. For those concerned with excess packaging and hard-to-recycle goods, it’s a complete disaster. Each aluminium capsule contains 8 grammes of coffee, but also a little plastic mesh/filter basket at top and bottom. For every cup of coffee you make: yikes! I had visitors this afternoon and whizzed through 12 of the things in a single session. I’m now toying with the idea of taking them all apart to dispose of the various materials appropriately at the recycling place. That said, each of the 12 cups was a perfect brew with a thick crema.