Sunbeam EM2300 (about twenty year) long term review

I've had this Sunbeam coffee maker since about 2004 and I paid about AU$100 for it when the Baby Gaggia was about $600

The unit dimensions (in cm) are: 31 high, 17 wide and 28 deep (front to back)

A good friend of mine had the Gaggia Classic and I wasn't sure I wanted to commit that much money (I was again a student at the time) and the Sunbeam appealed to me on the basis of price and benchtop footprint. I've always managed to have cramped kitchens. Indeed it features in this 2014 (whimsical comic) video I made when I was living in Finland and again you can see there was limited space on the benchtop.

So, yes, its been between Australia and Finland and back to Australia (more than once).

Basically its a single boiler system which is NOT a Termoblock (also something I don't really like), like so many machines in this pricepoint they have one of those baskets designed for noobs (or morons) which has a closed in base with a pinpoint hole to:

• provide emulsification of the oils to make a faux crema (to make the incompetent feel good immediately)
• give some back pressure for the pump to ensure flow rates and extraction with improper grinds (again, to make the incompetent feel good)

Being the guy I am (check out the DIY tag as well as the coffee tag for posts) I immediately took out my angle grinder and carefully opened that base up ...

which requires some of that outside be left around the edges of the base to be a support for what is essentially a pressed in mesh

I could have opened it up a wee bit more, but its sufficiently open (more than 90% open) now.

A weakness of the system is that the water from the top shower (more like a dome above the basket, which seals on the flat part of that basket rim) isn't so perfect in water distribution and so the system benefits from a nice (51mm) insert that lays atop the coffee and sits perfectly inside the basket

This has been such a great improvement to my shot consistency (which I've only had for a little over a year now).

The controls are quite rudimentary and if you are a noob (which sadly is who this machine is aimed at) you can stuff things up (perhaps not as much as you can with a Gaggia though).

1. the bottom switch turns the unit on and begins heating the boiler
2. the top switch starts the pump and you have to turn it off manually (just like the Gaggia)

However the "saving grace" of this system is that to activate the boiler you have to turn the steamer dial where a "cam" presses down on a microswitch inside to activate the "other heating circuit" to get steam up to pressure.

The upside of this is that unlike the Gaggia you can't accidentally have the boiler at well over 100°C and essentially "cook" your brew ... the downside is that it spits a little water for a bit as it starts to steam. I put a cup under it and you can learn to judge when's a good time to start steaming this way too (if you are the kind of person who learns by doing). Turning off the steam therefore also turns off the steamer circuit.

The machine doesn't power down, so (like the Gaggia) you'll have to remember to turn off the power.

With the lid off you can see the wiring and the two thermostats for the different temperature control (water vs steam). 

Frankly, for the money I think manufacture is simple and effective. That its lasted 22 years and been moved around a lot is a testimony to its reliability.

Milk steaming is in my opinion among the best and no extra work is needed to have a good simple chomed metal steam wand straight from the Get Go (unlike say the DeLongi ECP3630 which is perhaps the modern version of this design)

indeed the end unscrews easily for cleaning (should you happen to clog it by not clearing / cleaning it after use)

it even comes with a pair of cleaners (one small one for the little hole which I cut off the base of the basket anyway) that are under the lid of the removable water tank.

That about rounds up the machine.

Tips

I'll say that I think its important to always use filtered water (meaning filtration for ION's like Calcium) out of the water because that will destroy the boiler more quickly. Depending on your city or town water there can be a lot of ions in the water, so invest in a filter jug (I used a Britex, but no in Finland where water quality seemed excellent).

For those who want to get a bit more advanced in operation; you can actually have some "blunt" control over the water temperature that flows out of the group set. I find this important because in my dial in process with my beans I felt that my water temperature was a bit cool.  Claude suggested:

and while its hard to measure (because a very fine, light weight, sensitive and accurate thermometer needs to be used and the temperature will change as fresh colder water comes into the boiler), I believe mine is under that 93 mark. So I wanted to raise this a little.

My method goes like this and has the assumption that water boils quite reliably at 100C. Here, my altitude, is about 500m. Again I'll turn to Claude for a nicely formatted summary (of something I doubt is contentious)

I've confirmed this with my own (pretty decent, laboratory grade thermometer) and its quite close and begins sinking fairly quickly when you take the power away. 

To get my boiler up to 98 I can just turn on the the boiler again by opening the steamer knob just enough to hear the boiler begin to operate. By running it till water is just beginning to sputter out of the spout I know I've pretty much got to boiling (and it won't go past that point quickly with the boiler open).

I now turn off the knob (make sure its a bit firm or the pump will cause water to push out the steamer wand) and start the pump (obviously the handle / group set is attached through all this).

By getting a sense of how long (I used my phone's stop watch) it takes for the low roar of the boiler to start and spitting to begin, I can make an estimation of temperature because it will rise in a fairly linear manner.

This has made a great improvement to my medium roast coffee. I've since found others are doing this (so in case its not as obvious to the Noobs as it was to a chemistry and electronics guy) Tom calls it Temperature surfing:

He doesn't have a video on modifying the basket in the group set but there was no "easy purchase" option for me 15 years ago.

From here its about you, your taste, your grinder and your beans. I keep notes about my beans and what grind works for each, as its different.

Plenty of good discussions on the internet about this, but I happen to have a fair amount of time for what James says:

So remember the size (depth as well as diameter) of the basket and have a go at this video

Myself I find that 19g is about as much as I can get into my basket (and I've made a simple tool to achieve that in my grinder). 

its literally as simple as bit of grease proof paper that I've cut into a cuff that stands sufficiently above the rim of the basket. I just tap that down (by hand) then on the bench gently remove the paper cuff (pulling it up) while giving the the whole thing a quick "tap" back down on the bench to make the coffee settle into that small gap between "where the paper was" before you pulled it up. Note the small black dot, this and one on the other end shows the overlap so I can grab that and the other side and pull up keeping its shape ...

Importantly my grinder has a dial that allows me to adjust how long it grinds for, and its (electronically) linked to the grind size, (somewhat) and reports numbers on the digital display for both grind and time. This means I can repeatably get a dose as I change between beans.

Then have a watch of this video and see what you think. Ultimately start practicing, take notes and enjoy your coffee journey

There you have it, a great machine which I can honestly say "they don't make them like this anymore" for that price point.

I hope that this review even if you get something like a Delongi (a great machine too) and begin modifying that to help you get good quality coffee at home for yourself.

Enjoy