Coffee Beans for Fully Automatic Machines

Find your favourite coffee for fully automatic machines

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For coffee lovers who like convenience, a fully automatic machine is a dream come true: once set up, it provides you with great coffee with minimal effort.

But to ensure that your morning coffee tastes really good, it is crucial to use the right coffee beans for your fully automatic coffee machine. After all, the quality of your coffee depends entirely on the beans.

What's more, every fully automatic coffee machine works differently and needs to be set individually – at least if you want to enjoy a perfectly balanced cup of coffee.

But which coffee beans are actually suitable for fully automatic machines?

Beans with a low acidity content and a dark roast are particularly suitable for fully automatic machines. Light roasts rarely perform well in fully automatic machines. We recommend our Tiga Terra coffee as an all-rounder for fully automatic machines – for espresso, café crèma and even milk drinks.

We don't just talk, we speak from experience. That's why we have tested our coffee beans extensively in fully automatic machines – with a wide variety of machine settings.

In this article, you will learn:

• how to choose the perfect bean for your fully automatic coffee machine
• how to set up and clean your machine correctly
• and how to make your coffee even more delicious

Use the right beans for your fully automatic coffee machine

So which coffee beans are right for your fully automatic coffee machine? The choice of beans is crucial for the quality and taste of your coffee.

First of all, you should know that a fully automatic coffee machine differs fundamentally from an espresso machine: the coffee is brewed with only a short extraction time, and you cannot adjust the grind as finely as with an espresso machine.

The problem of short extraction time

What exactly does ‘extraction time’ mean? Extraction is one of the most important factors for good coffee. During the extraction time, hot water runs through the ground coffee and extracts the aromatic substances from it.

Extraction consists of a total of three phases, each of which lasts approximately eight seconds:

• In the first phase, the acids are released from the ground coffee.
• In the second phase, the aromatic substances are released from the ground coffee.
• In the third phase, the bitter substances are finally released from the ground coffee.

What happens if the extraction time is too short? Your coffee will taste watery and bland. This is also known as under-extraction.

And that is precisely why light roasts rarely taste good in fully automatic machines – even if you have set the grind, brewing temperature and dosage per cup correctly. The lighter the roast, the higher the acidity of the beans and the less satisfying the result in a fully automatic machine.

And be careful: beans that are too light can even damage the grinder in your machine. The beans are too hard and can damage the grinder.

Light and acidic coffee beans are not well suited for fully automatic machines. Stronger and darker roasts are much better suited for fully automatic machines. These beans also cope well with a short extraction time.

Fully automatic machines with one or two bean containers

Some machines have two bean containers, providing space for two different roasts, while others only have space for one.

If you can only decide on one variety, you need an all-rounder like the Tiga Terra. With its strong, chocolatey aromas, it is perfect for all coffee drinks from espresso to café crème from a fully automatic machine. The chocolatey aromas come into their own in milk drinks. You can't go wrong with this one.

If, on the other hand, you have two bean containers, you can offer a wider range. In this case, I recommend our Tiga Terra for espresso and espresso-based drinks. You can fill the second container with beans for café crème, e.g. with our Toleyo roast.

Use the right grind

Once you have chosen the right coffee beans, you are faced with the next task: setting the grind on your fully automatic coffee machine correctly. The right grind is just as important as the right beans. This is because the grind is directly related to the extraction time:

• If the coffee grounds are very finely ground, the coffee flows through more slowly and absorbs a lot of flavour. As a result, your coffee will be stronger and more full-bodied.
• If, on the other hand, the coffee grounds are more coarsely ground, the coffee flows through more quickly and absorbs less flavour. The coffee is under-extracted and watery.

So it's important to find the right flow time for your coffee.

In our tests with various fully automatic machines, we found that the brewing time for a perfect espresso varies greatly from machine to machine. On average, a flow time of around 10 seconds should be about right. Feel free to experiment with different settings and grind sizes. Ultimately, your personal preferences will also play a role.

Caution: If possible, do not set the grind to the smallest setting. There is a risk that the grinder will become clogged.

Select the correct dosage and intensity

With a fully automatic machine, you can rarely adjust the amount of coffee yourself, and if you can, then only to a limited extent. Typical rules of thumb for the optimal extraction of coffee and espresso do not work here.

Often, you only have the option of choosing between ‘strong/robust’ and ‘weak/mild’. The settings available depend heavily on your machine.

Nevertheless, here are our recommendations based on experience: for a café crema, we use a medium setting (e.g. three out of five beans); for an espresso, on the other hand, we prefer it strong and full-bodied, so we select a high intensity (five out of five beans).

The right amount and temperature of water per drink

Every fully automatic coffee machine has a programmed amount of water that it uses for your coffee. However, this is often not optimally set – if your machine offers this option, you should check and adjust the settings.

We recommend:

• 35 ml of water for an espresso
• 110 ml of water for a café crèma

The more water you use, the weaker your coffee will be. Therefore, do not try to adjust the amount of water for a larger cup. This will dilute your coffee and release the bitter substances from the coffee grounds. It is better to make two espressos from the machine or extend your coffee like an Americano with hot water.

Some machines also offer the option of manually adjusting the water temperature. If this is the case for you, set the temperature to 95 °C. At this temperature, the flavours from the coffee beans can be extracted best by the fully automatic machine.

Do not leave coffee beans in the fully automatic machine for too long

Coffee tastes better the fresher it is. Therefore, do not fill the bean container with too many beans at once. Coffee beans lose their aroma very quickly when exposed to air. Only fill the fully automatic coffee machine with as many coffee beans as you need for one day and store the rest safely in a sealed coffee packet.

It is not without reason that people say: oxygen is coffee's greatest enemy!

Use the right milk

Do you like cappuccino or latte macchiato? Then milk, or rather milk foam, makes up a large part of your drink. This makes it all the more important that this part tastes good too.

Homogenised milk with a high fat content works best in a fully automatic machine. Ideally, it should be taken from the fridge, because many machines do not heat the milk to a specific temperature, but for a specific time. And milk that is too warm is bad for the taste and also for the quality of the foam.

Use filtered water

Coffee consists of 99% water. It stands to reason that the water you use has a major impact on the quality of your coffee. That's why we strongly recommend that you only use filtered water in your fully automatic coffee machine. Many machines also have a built-in water filter in the water tank. You should change this filter every one to two months.

Summary

If you know what to look for, choosing the right coffee beans for your fully automatic coffee machine is not that difficult.

Be sure not to use light roasts. These do not work well in fully automatic machines and can even damage the grinder. Darker roasts, such as our Tiga Terra coffee, perform much better.

To get the best results from your machine, you should also set the grind size correctly and measure out the right amount of coffee. Feel free to experiment a little with your machine here.

Also, make sure you have set the correct amount and temperature of water. To get the most out of your fully automatic machine, you should clean it regularly and only fill it with beans in portions.

Finally, you should use the right milk and only filtered water for your coffee.