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Thoughts? I ditched faffy home espresso a while ago in favour of a moccamaster, but this little thing look nice.

Even pre-owned would be at the top end of your budget, but I'd recommend grabbing a Magimix (4200xl is the most versatile size). Fair few on eBay.

Bland mince/burgers basically means that you've not added enough salt and not cooked long enough/at a hot enough temp. Admittedly store bought mince can be a bit hit and miss, a better outcome is normally from buying some braising steak or brisket and whazzing it in a food processor. In...

While all the other replies are good advice, I think there actually might be a common mistake you're making that is causing the problem. Properly browned beef mince that isn't out of date is pretty mild tasting, but boiled beef mince that happens when you don't brown it properly does taste...

I've got both of those scales and use them for my daily coffees. The Hario has really shot up in price it looks - they were only about £30 when I bought mine. I wouldn't say they're worth £50. It's a very japanese bit of kit: it feels very robust, retro and reliable, but at the same time it's...

One of the maccies near me did them when they were only in a few locations. I ordered them a few times and they tended to be really well put together. I'm a bit doubtful if that would be the case now they've been rolled out everywhere. They different components of it seem to be of a better...

I really rate Aldi for their cheese. Two stand outs are their aged gouda and buffalo mozzarella. Not normally a fan of their as I find them a bit bland, but their mozz is the best I've tasted in England and the gouda is super nice if you leave it on the counter and let it get all sweaty. I'm...

The part that tamps is threaded, so you just can adjust the depth of it. The whole thing is pretty weighty though and seems well made. Costs about 10% of the proper OCD one and I'd imagine works just as well. The original concept was indeed just to use it to level out the grinds, but it...

Snagged a sage dual boiler last month and have been really enjoying it. Definite step up on my coffee game. Upgraded the crappy built in tamper to a puck style one (chinese copy of the pricey OCD one). Really recommend one if you're on a 58/58.4mm size portafilter. Makes an even tamp effortless...

You can definitely get more than 14g in a double basket. Also, supermarket beans that tend to be a little older are generally less 'fluffy' than newer beans so can seem to take up less space in the portafilter. Is it a pressurised or a non-pressurised basket? (see here)

2nd hand price for Silvias (v2/v3 in particular) is a lot better than it used to be - they routinely go for around £200 now - have a look at ebay completed auctions for a price guide. Critically, they're really well built and relatively simple internally so if they break it's perfectly...

I'd say a second hand Rancilio Silvia. You can get for examples for about £200.

Just to correct you a bit here - there are plenty of hand grinders that are suitable for espresso. Skertons and Porlexs are nice grinders, but they're cheap grinders. Hell, you can get Porlex knock offs on Amazon for about a tenner now. Although hand grinders aren't for everyone, if you spend...

I think this could go on forever, and I don't wanna hijack Ace Modder's thread, but I'll just say this: The body doesn't store extra fluid in cells like that, so intracellular fluid isn't really relevant to a discussion about hydration. The only place your body really 'stores' surplus...

Okay, so you're sort of right and wrong at the same time. Yea, adding minerals (ie, electrolyes) to water will make it be more easily taken up into cells (why you think this is a good idea, I'm not sure). You're increasing the osmolality of the fluid and this helps it move between fluid...

Maybe? I think it's pretty subjective. For me drinking water on an empty stomach just makes me feel a bit bloated.

You'd give two litres of fluid to an average sized person in hospital who was nil-by-mouth and that'd keep them ticking over quite nicely with a reasonable buffer. Government guidelines of two litres of water, plus the fluid intake you get from food are pretty generous even for an active person...

This is a poor idea. If you feel drinking excessive amounts of water is good for you, then okay, but don't add salt to it to try and trick your body into retaining it. A healthy body is meant to dump that extra fluid. I doubt that 'a pinch' of salt would have any notable impact in reality, but...

Not sure there's a lot the body can do to adapt to your consuming a couple of litres more fluid than you need a day, unless you've become a camel :) I think it's more likely that you adapted to peeing twice as much as you used to.