Good morning and welcome to the second part of my review of my new Quick Mill Carola Evo espresso machine! Let’s look at the actual coffee it makes!
Quick Mill Carola Evo Review: Part 1
The most detailed review of an espresso machine, ever
QUICK MILL CAROLA EVO REVIEW: PART 2 HOW’S THE COFFEE?
In Part 1 of my review, I talked some about ordering from Chris’ Coffee, setting up the machine and making a serious mistake right out of the gate, which was setting the PID temperature to WAY too hot based on some advice that was given to me, that in retrospect, made no sense. Now that I’ve been using the machine for a couple months, it’s time to talk about it in regular use.
First of all, I love the way it looks. I cleaned up and organized my coffee counter and I have to say, this big (small for most machines of this type because of no steam and hot water), shiny monster looks awesome on my countertop. It does sit pretty tall, but with standard height cabinets it still has room for cups on the cup warmer. I do have to move the machine out from under the cabinets to fill it up, though, but I did with my Gaggia Classic, too.
In use, this machine does take a lot longer to come to temperature than the Classic. With the Classic, I could have it heated and ready to rock in 15 minutes, if not quicker. It also didn’t seem as scary, electrically, so I was comfortable plugging it into a smart plug and turning it on every morning from bed with my phone. The Carola Evo seems to use a lot more power and I have ungrounded outlets in my old kitchen, so I’ve had some sparks fly one time, threw the breaker a few times, and if I touch the machine and then touch my metal sink I can feel electricity running through me. I’m sure that’s fine, right? I know, I’m risking some serious damage, so I will rectify that ASAP. All that being said, I unplug it if I’m not standing in the kitchen with it, but it does take about 30 minutes to heat up. The PID light never seems to shut off, even at heat it sort of does a slow blink every few seconds. Hopefully that’s OK. The E61 group that I wanted so badly has hot water that circulates through it, and the thing is massive, so there is a lot more mass to heat up. When I turn the machine off I can touch the group head a few hours later and still feel warmth coming from it, that’s how much metal is in this thing.
One of the things I like about the Carola Evo and E61 is you can add a new variable, which is to pre-wet the puck in the portafilter. Sometimes people refer to this as “pre-infusion” but there is a difference that I’ll explain in a sec. On the E61 machines, if you engage the switch a little bit it opens a valve that lets water move into the shower screen and into the portafilter, but it doesn’t engage the switch enough to run the pump. On a plumbed-in machine where the water comes directly from a water line and not a tank, this is considered “pre-infusion” because that water is under some pressure, whatever the pressure in your water lines is. On a machine like mine, where I’m running it from the tank, this is considered “pre-wetting” because the water is under almost no pressure. This technique seems most useful for super fine grinds when I’ve been playing with ristretto style shots. It seems to keep the channeling to a minimum, although I’ve had a few extractions where I pre-wet for 40-ish seconds before the whole puck is saturated according to what I’m seeing on the naked portafilter.
Overall, comparing the Carola Evo to my Classic, the Carola seems more sensitive. Day-to-day changes in the coffee as it loses moisture and the environment changes seem to affect it more, so I feel like it takes more skill to pull good shots with the Carola than it did with the Gaggia Classic. I know a selling point of the E61 is its consistency from shot to shot, but I think that has more to do with doing shot after shot in a single session, not so much 1-2 shots per day like I do. The process of distributing and tamping seems extra-important on the Carola and I haven’t quite found that sweet spot, yet. I think it can handle a slightly finer grind than my tuned Gaggia Classic, and it is harder to choke the machine as I’ve taken it super-fine and still been able to get a crazy ristretto out, although the times for the shot are super long.
Overall, I’m happy with my machine. I feel like I’m re-learning espresso because of it, taking more care in my preparation, etc, but it has been fun and the coffee tastes good, generally, and I’ve been pretty happy with the process. I do sort of miss my old ability to dial in pretty much every new coffee in 2-4 shots like I could with my Gaggia, and then not have to mess with the parameters much day-to-day while reviewing a coffee, but in the long run I think I’ll get there with the Carola, too, and I’m hoping with care that I’ll still be using this machine in 20 more years!