Nespresso C60 Pixie Espresso Maker in Red + Nifty Capsule Coffee Carousel + 2 Stoneware Mugs

Love it so far. Easy to use, easy to clean, easy to fill tank. I now understand what some reviewers had said about refilling the tank. You gotta lift the black top up (attached to the tank) and pull the tank up. The lid has hooks in the back which help the tank stay secured with the Nespresso C60. Awesome that it turns off after 9 minutes or so (although I make a habit of turning it off manually).

My dislikes: the capsules don't make enough coffee/espresso for my tastes so I use 2. I can live with that. The noise is a little loud, especially in the morning. But I know when it's being used so I make sure to yell out "Don't drip on the countertop"! My bundle came with a starter pack of capsules, about 16. The description didn't mention this so I had to find a Nespresso store to buy sleeves (a box of capsules) as this was for Xmas 2012. It also came with 2 coffee cups, which were not received, but the Seller did send them out as soon as they got my email. On a Saturday night. I was shocked but excited. Overall, a great little machine.

My main gripe: the color was not a RED that I was expecting. It looks more like a Clay Red or Brick Red. Still matches my glass backsplash though!

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Bellman SS Stove Top Espresso/Cappuccino Maker

At first I just wanted to have a stove top milk steamer. When I found out that this product also makes espresso I was sold. The product is built well and does what it is made for. There is a slight learning curve to get the right espresso and steam pressure. The nice thing is that you can tweak the pressure of the espresso and steamer. I would give this product 5 stars, however there are three slight flaws: 1. the length of the espresso spout needs to be 1 inch longer because when the pot is on the center of a gas burner I can barely place a mug under it to catch the drip. To account for this, I use a tall mug that allows the spout to fit within the rim, this is important because the espresso often sputters. 2. the main spindle (that functions to deliver the steam and tighten the lid) goes straight through the middle of the espresso basket, this makes packing the espresso tedious, the company should provide a doughnut like packer with the device. 3. The base is quite narrow, on a gas burner a medium to high flame licks up the side of the base. This is a problem because it reduces the heating efficiency and because the handle and knobs are made of plastic there is the potential to melt the parts and you can also burn your hand. to account for this I center the pot over the flame and keep the flame around medium.

If you like tinkering and make espresso occasionally this is a great product.

I found this item at a thrift store but wouldn't hesitate to purchase a new one at full price should the need arise. Until I found the worn box with the weird-looking coffee apparatus inside, I had never even heard of such a thing!

This unit is simple to use and clean with a little bit of research and common sense. The main thing to remember is that this is a pressurized vessel that must be handled with the same level of care you would give a pressure cooker. Other than that, it is sturdily built and has an automatic pressure release valve should you wait too long to open up the coffee or frother valves. Additionally, it would take a great deal of negligence to allow this thing to boil dry, as a lot of water is left in the reservoir even after brewing and frothing a full load of drinks. And, like another reviewer mentioned, a home-made stem cap works wonders in simplifying the loading/tamping process (I smiled in kinship when reading that comment thanks!) For me, I like to use a narrow spray bottle cap. A cut section of a large gauge straw will work too!

The coffee or espresso (depends on when you turn the coffee flow on/off) is fantastic, but the real clincher for me was the milk steamer/frother. LOVE IT and will use it to steam milk for hot chocolate too. I have a collection of presses, drip cups, percolators and moka pots, and this is by far my favorite. For regular coffee I use a large porcelain drip cup over an insulated thermal carafe. I suppose my goal is to have my coffee anywhere, anytime regardless of power and heat source. This baby is coming camping with me next summer!!! Ha ha my hubby and friends are quite pleased about that :-)

BTW I also wasn't pleased with the base's narrow bottom on my big gas stove burners, so I always use a cast-iron trivet to evenly disperse the heat. Lodge sells one here on Amazon.com that works excellently for very little money. Also, I use a large stainless steel frothing cup to catch the coffee, which I them distribute to waiting cups while the pressure builds up for steaming/frothing the milk. With my setup, the steamer knob gets a little hot so I'm careful with that. No problems with melting though the knobs are tough!!! After I'm done, I remove the unit from the stove, set it on a dishcloth on my heat-safe countertop, and open up the coffee and steamer valves. This clears them out very well and safely depressurizes the unit for cleaning or another go-around. Every few weeks, I run it through an espresso/steamer cycle using just water for a good steam flush.

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We with my wife both love good coffee. We buy only gourmet brands and grind beans shortly before brew. Over years we went through several coffee makers. The coffee was never bad, but I was still craving for having at home machine reasonably priced and able to reproduce the best espresso Italian coffee. Started to google and found this one. I use this machine on daily basis, several months already and will never look back. The coffee is delicious and thanks to fact that machine is fully manual, I can make adjustments to what the final product will be. Frothing milk/cream works extremely well too. By adjusting waiting time for proper pressure/temperature amount to built up, the best results can be achieved easily. One warning only this machine is for mature persons only. All warnings about not opening under pressure should be taken very seriously. Unscrew the main cover only when both valves are open and they show no presence of pressure inside.

P.S.1 This machine is not getting clogged under proper operation. However, when not properly managed, coffee grounds can sneak through and clog dispensing valve. The blow back using bike pump will clear valve on first blow.

P.S.2 The little improvement I am using: before filling up the coffee basket with ground coffee, I put a little (home made) cap on center tube. This makes filling the basket a real snap. Users having this machine already, will know very well what tube I am talking about.

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I had one of these for many years and in my last move it disappeared. I was looking for it for a long time on line and finally came across it here and ordered. I am as happy with this as I was with my old one. Makes the best Cappuccino, closest to a Cafe` kind as you're gonna get.

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Like some others have said, this one takes a bit of practice.

1--Do not start the heating with the espresso spigot open as the instructions say. The espresso comes out too soon and you get tepid (not even warm) and weak espresso that way. I am still perfecting it, but it seems to work to keep the value closed until you hear the water inside the machine starting to burble.

2--I have been surprised that the water left in the machine after making espresso/cappuccino is tainted with the coffee grounds (looks like weak coffee). I had expected the machine to not let the coffee grounds interact with the water in the machine (aside from the water that brews the espresso, of course). Doesn't seem to cause a problem as long as you clean the machine soon after use.

3--The grind of the coffee really affects the results--a finer grind (though not powdery) makes much better espresso. And I agree with the comments that the machine should come with a custom tamper to pack the coffee with. Ideally it would look just like the reducer plate (the piece you use if you want smaller quantities of espresso) but without the brew holes.

After a few tries and a little experimentation, it seems to work well overall. Stove-top is the only way to go for off-grid living!

KitchenAid Artisan 5-Quart Stand Mixers

My wedding gift mixer (a Sunbeam Mixmaster) turned 33 a week before Christmas, and my husband thought it was time for me to have a new one. He gifted me on Christmas with the KitchenAid 5 Qt. Artisan in white. I love this mixer and leave it out on my counter, something I never did with the Mixmaster. I recently purchased the citrus juicer attachment from Amazon and am very pleased with it as well. I have not read all 109 previous reviews on this site, but I have read a few that were disgruntled because their Artisans did not mix well. I initially had the same problem with the beater/bowl clearance. It is very simple to remedy. There is a beater adjustment screw on the mixer and the manual describes how to make the adjustments. I got even better instructions by calling customer support at KitchenAid. The technician told me to drop a dime into the empty bowl, turn the mixer on (about setting 2) using the flat beater, and it should move the dime 1/4" to 1/2" each time it rotates around the bowl. This is the right clearance for the beater to mix everything at the bottom of the bowl, but not low enough to cause wear on the beater from constant friction with the bottom of the bowl during usage. I tweaked the screw setting 1/4 turn each time until I got that dime moving. At this setting, I can now beat a single egg white to stiff peaks in the 5 qt. bowl. That's impressive.

This mixer is as sturdy as a tank, and you can hear the quality as it mixes. Although I had previously purchased a KitchenAid mixer for my daughter as a gift, I would never have splurged on one for myself. I am so happy my husband thought I was worth it!

This KitchenAid mixer is an excellent investment! I just love mine! The dough hook attachment is the greatest invention ever. No more kneading! I used this wonderful machine to make 4 pounds of Pizza Geina dough without breaking a sweat. Add your ingredients, turn it on and it does the rest! It has a very powerful motor and every part of this mixer is excellent quality and well made. It is simple to lock in the mixing bowl and it is also a breeze to clean. The different attachments are very easy to attach and remove. It would be impossible not to love it! Did I mention how easy the clean up is? I love it so much I bought the KitchenAid quilted cover for it. Once you use this mixer you will never want to use anything else! The Best!!!

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I have celiac disease, which is essentially an allergy to wheat protein, and I've been GF for 5 years now. (Why does that sound like I'm at an AA meeting?) When I first started baking all my own breads, cakes, etc., from scratch, the books said that I needed a bread machine. I bought one and it didn't work so well with the GF "funny flours." A book finally told me to forget about the machine, buy a stand mixer and use the oven. Brilliant!

I bought my Kitchenaid and haven't looked back. I use this thing at least twice a week, sometimes every day. I don't know how I lived without it. My mom just bought one after she saw me calmly measuring stuff and dumping it in while the mixer mixed all by it itself. (She's been suffering with a handheld all these years.) Stand mixers also mix more thoroughly than handhelds. They also can mix chocolate chip cookie dough all the way to the end of the flour additions.

I've had my Kitchenaid for about 5 years now, though 3 moves, and it's still as sturdy and reliable as the day I bought it. The paint is still perfect. Not a scratch. Certainly not a chip. It's beautiful and lustrous. I have Onyx Black. While I like the look of the Onyx a lot, it's obvious if there's a little flour dusting the top of it. This makes it convenient to clean, but if you don't use it very often but do want it out, you might want to choose a lighter color that won't show dust.

Caveat: It's heavy. B/c I use mine so much, I display it on my counter, drag it forward, use it, wipe it off with a damp rag, and push it back. (And wash the bowl, of course.) But it's worth it's weight in gold. They are a lovely appliance. Not like a frumpy toaster.

Also, a previous review somewhere said that it left dry ingredients in the bottom of the bowl and didn't incorporate them. There's an adjustment screw that you have to fine-tune before you use it. Instructions are in the booklet. I adjusted mine before I used it for the first time (I compulsively read instructions,) and never had that problem.

Buy yourself a proper mixer. You'll be so glad you did.

TK Kenyon

Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel

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In short, don't be. Most of the relatively small percentage of negative reviews on this mixer fall into one of three explainable categories, so if you're considering it, follow along:

The most worrisome category of complaints about this mixer involves a very small number of stories about the food-grade grease that lubricates the internal bearings leaking out of the mixer and into the food-bowl. Although reported in only a tiny percentage of reviews, this was probably the one complaint that worried me the most, simply because if true, let's just say it: it's disgusting.

The first thing to keep in mind in evaluating this complaint is that EVERY electric mixer requires lubricated bearings. Changing models or brands won't change that, and although there may be design differences that make the possibility somewhat different across various models, it's just going to always be there to some degree on every mixer. It's pointless to waste time, in other words, worrying about something that is going to be a possibility on ANYTHING you can possibly buy. So that's the first category.

The second category category of complaints has to do with the mixer dying somehow, either arriving dead or dying quickly. It seems a lot of these complaints are dated from 2007-2009, so maybe there really *was* something going on, but those seem to have tapered off. For the rest, I can only say that speed matters: 2=LOW for dough, 4=MED for batter, and 6=HIGH for creaming. Speeds 8 and 10 are ONLY for whipping air into cream or egg whites with the wire whisk. Anything faster than 2 for kneading dough and you're literally playing with fire.

I can say this with the authority that only comes from wrecking a lot of motors. The quickest way to burn out an appliance is to exceed the available power with the requested load, so the number one way to kill a mixer is to simply add a large quantity of sticky dough and then crank up the dough hook while saying "if 2 is good, then 4 is better and 10 is best." Turning up the speed increases the load, leaving the motor with no reserve capacity as the dough gets tougher. The result is easy to predict.

The second way to kill an electric motor, surprisingly (and you won't be warned about this one by the manual) is to use it with an extension cord, especially a light-duty one. This is the appliance equivalent of running a race while breathing through a straw. You don't run your stove that way, you don't run your refrigerator that way, and you shouldn't run your mixer that way, either. Even WITH the recommended amount of dough, and AT the recommended speed (2), you can still kill it this way. (Please see the comments on this review if you're interested in more discussion on this).

Anyone who is unaware of either of these points will naturally and understandably blame the mixer when it starts smoking and burns out. I'm certainly not saying one of these types of abuse explains every single case of mixer failure--there have to be SOME manufacturing defects--but I'd be willing to bet one of these two things explains 8 out of 10 of them. If you really do need a mixer for large quantities of dough every day, then please invest in a commercial-grade mixer like a twoto four-thousand dollar Hobart mixer, where the designers KNOW the duty-requirements you have in mind. You shouldn't try to haul two tons of rock with a half-ton pickup truck all day and expect it to last, nor should you make the equivalent mistake with a mixer.

The remaining category of complaints seems to be some version of the beaters hitting the bowl. This is a simple adjustment that has been covered elsewhere, but if you missed it, all you need to do is place a dime in the bowl and use the adjustment screw (in the crook of the tip-up hinge) to lower or raise the flat beater until it moves the dime just 1/4 to 1/2 inch on each sweep. This is only end-user adjustment you'll ever need to make, and it likely solves the entirety of the remaining category of complaints I read about.

I decided to take a chance on this mixer despite the negative reviews, after thinking it through in this way, and I'm very happy with it so far (and wow, is it ever better than the old Sunbeam stand mixer I had for ages!) If it ever quits or I change my mind about it, I'll let you know; otherwise, the deal on Amazon is as good as you'll find. (UPDATE: That last comment was made back when this mixer was selling for $229, but the price has risen dramatically since then. The rest of my review still stands...)

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First, the mixer works great. Everything most home-bakers could ever want. But I strongly suggest you select a smooth finish. I got the Krinkle Gray. (Don't know if thats still available.) It looks very 'professional', but it's hard to keep clean. After the first batch of bread dough, the mixer was nearly white, and it took some serious scrubbing to get the flour off the textured surface.

As to the mechanics of the mixer itself, very few complaints. The tilt-head makes it possible to remove the bowl without dismantling the beater (unlike the lift-bowl models). I mainly use the dough hook, and have found that the motor tends to bog down just a bit on extremely heavy doughs. But as I always do the final kneading by hand anyway, its not a major issue; just a little more hand work.

If I ever buy another stand mixer, it will definately be a KitchenAid. Thing is, this mixer will probably outlast me by decades.

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Stainless steel stove top Cappuccino steamer

I've used three other types of stove-top steamers before this one. This is clearly the best made of the 4 types. It produces a strong steam jet, without spouting excess steam through a safety vent just as the steam pressure gets up to a usable level as 2 of the others did. It is also better at producing the small bubbles of a professional machine than any of the others I've tried.