Cheap Bodum Santos, anyone??

[Tonka]

Just ordered a Bodum Electric Santos 12 cup vacuum machine....

Here's the best part, £50!!!! I got it from the Bodum Outlet at Bicester shopping village (postage costs £12)

Here is there number for anyone interested:

01869 321209

[Joey]

Are you sure this is cheap?
I thought they only cost about 40 - 60 Euros, which I thought is much cheaper then "L" (don't have that pretty pound sign on my laptop)

At least at ebay they are cheaper....
But maybe they are more expensive in the meantime, haven't roamed ebay for a while....

[Tonka]

Well, I can't find anyone else selling the electric model. amazon used to sell them for £75. You can get the flame ones in kit form for £48, but I cant be arsed with that. £50 seems fair enough to me.... but hell, I only posted this for people who are looking for one and there aren't any on UK Ebay.

[HughF]

There is a 0.75litre eSantos (it's £45 on Amazon.co.uk but no stock there until April so I cancelled my order). Bodum UK don't have any until March. This is probably the larger 1.5litre model - Amazon.co.uk don't sell this one. HB does the 1.5litre eSantos and mine's on the way. We can't get enough coffee out of my 0.75litre eSantos (bought secondhand from Phil) for use at home and I'm enjoying using it just for myself at work. I miss having a vac pot at home for when I don't feel like espresso.

Cheers,

Hugh

[HughF]

Double post was here before I edited it. Sorry, was having problems with my ADSL router. Hugh
Phil - please feel free to delete this second post.

[zix]

HughF, how do you like the quality of the 0.75 litre eSantos? I am thinking of both taste of coffee and build quality of the machine.

[zix]

(don't have that pretty pound sign on my laptop)

Aren't you a mac user, joey? (I was thinking since you have been in the advertising business you would use mac) Anyway, £ is option-3 on my mac keyboard. (And € is shift-4)

[HughF]

HughF, how do you like the quality of the 0.75 litre eSantos? I am thinking of both taste of coffee and build quality of the machine.

The taste of coffee was very good with it at home using a Rocky on 25 from true zero as per Phil's suggestion - a very clean cup with good varietal flavours from fairly light drum roasts. At work with a Zass 156 "knee mill" the coffee seems to need to sit for 2-3 minutes after pouring to lose harshness, probably due to dust - I had a similar problem with cafetiere brewing and that Zass 156. There was some talk of the larger Zass 169's burr mounting being better and I wish I'd bought that one - the 156 rocks around too much if you use it on a tabletop not between your knees (as I don't like using the 156 that way). I'm really looking forward to taking the Iberital grinder into work once the Mini-E arrives for use at home for espresso.
Construction quality of the 0.75L eSantos is fine, I've been using it happily for several months without problems and Phil had this one before me.

There was a very interesting post on the SM list in the last day or so about using 5mm rubber feet under the back (low side) of the eSantos to level the (deliberately sloping) floor of the jug to give longer infusion time without needing to grind too finely. I'll try that next week.

Cheers,

Hugh

[Joey]

Aren't you a mac user, joey?

Hell, no!
Why should I pay 4x the price and only be able to use the "one and only working software" on these compuers...just for the nice design?
Nope, I come from the windows world. You usually stick to what you have started with

[zix]

Aha! Hmmm, well someone of the windows users here must know. Heck, I am kind of interested myself. alt-163 perhaps?

Oh, by the way since we mac users have our OS built on the *nix (freeBSD) platform nowadays, applications are legio, manifold, lots. Still not win=mac though. Things change, although they are still the same... But I am going too far OT so I´ll be quiet now.

[MKSwing]

Hell, no!
Why should I pay 4x the price and only be able to use the "one and only working software" on these compuers...just for the nice design?
Nope, I come from the windows world. You usually stick to what you have started with

Uhuhuh it's fun to see there are people that still think like that today. But it's another topic discussion. (mac mini : 499euros).

[steves]

Oh, by the way since we mac users have our OS built on the *nix (freeBSD) platform nowadays, applications are legio, manifold, lots. Still not win=mac though. Things change, although they are still the same... But I am going too far OT so I´ll be quiet now.

(Thanks for flagging up the "size" tag!)

Aha! Hmmm, well someone of the windows users here must know. Heck, I am kind of interested myself. alt-163 perhaps?

153 I think.

[HughF]

As I mentioned earlier, I tried tilting the Bodum eSantos (0.75litre one) base up about 5mm at the low side of the jug floor yesterday at work; it gives a fuller-bodied brew with more flavour from the same amount of coffee and I'll keep doing it. I'm just jamming a small teaspoon under the base at the moment so I'll try and find some stick-on rubber feet instead.

Cheers,

Hugh

[Rattus]

pound symbol in windows £ = Alt(hold down) + 0163. You need the '0' or you get ú

HTH, Martyn

[zix]

I forgot to thank you for your views of the eSantos, Hugh. It seems like a good machine! I have been considering buying it for myself and/or my parents. Do you have any experience of the eSantos compared to a traditional stove-top Santos or a Cona?