Video Overview | Nuova Simonelli Appia Life Compact 2 Group Espresso Machine
Transcript
I'm Ryan from Prima, and this is the Nuova Simonelli Appia Life Compact commercial espresso Machine.
If your cafe, bakery or restaurant is stretched for counter space, but you're looking to start an espresso program, the Appia Life Compact is the most efficient footprint of any two group espresso machine on the market, yet still equipped to handle the demands of a busy cafe. Let's take a closer look at this awesome little machine. The Appia Life Compact is a two group espresso machine with two steam ones allowing for two drinks to be made simultaneously by one or two people. But the entire workspace measures only 22 inches in width and depth. So if you can squeeze together a two foot by two foot space somewhere in back-of-house where you have access to water, power and a drain, you can make the Appia Life Compact work for you.
To achieve such a condensed platform, you might ask where the compromise is between this machine and, say, a standard two group machine, which is nine inches wider. The answer is that the Appia Life Compact, features a smaller seven and a half liter boiler compared to the full size two groups, 11 liter boiler. For context, this boiler creates both the pressure and temperature needed for steaming drinks and brewing coffee through a process called heat exchange. The larger a boiler generally, the more demand the machine is able to accommodate before requiring some time to reheat and regain temperature and pressure. The full size model requires no time to recuperate during long back to back drink making sessions because of its thermal mass. But the compact smaller boiler is more limited in its capacity. We put the compact through its paces by steaming and brewing back to back drinks and found that it was able to handle around 8 to 10 large milk drinks in immediate succession before it needed about 5 minutes to reheat and regain pressure. This means that the Appia Life compact isn't a machine for high volume cafes, but it is able to handle modest demand in environments where coffee is a secondary offering, like a restaurant or a bakery.
Another thing that makes this machine ideal for squeezing into a tight corner is its power options.The Appia Life Compact is one of very few two group espresso machines available with 110 volt power operating on 110 volts will further limit the number of drinks you're able to make consecutively, but it allows this machine to fit into even more environments. If you anticipate any extended busy periods. It's best to select 220 volt power and make power accommodations in your space.
Other features included with the Appia Life Compact include optional auto steam, which detects when milk has reached the proper temperature and automatically shuts off the steam. Whether you choose auto steam or not, the steam wands are also cool touch preventing anyone from accidentally burning their hand. Further aiding in the Appia Life's user friendliness is volumetric programmability. This feature allows someone to precisely set the volume of up to four espresso profiles per group. Once programed, the user needs to press the button only one time and the machine will automatically disengage the pump and stop the shot. Auto steaming capability. Cool touch wands and programable volumetrics all help maintain consistency, and they also help make this machine more approachable for anyone who's not a barista. It's easy to train anyone to make drinks with the Appia Life with a small margin of error.
All right. Let's take a look at the Appia Life compact up close. So starting left to right here, we have one lever operated steam wand, pushing up is a purge. If you push up and if you hold down, it holds it on. Easy on the other side here, there's an auto steam, which I will get to in just a minute. And that is an optional feature. If you want, you can have a duplicate steam wand on this side. Okay. From here we have four programmable volumetric doses per group plus one semi-automatic option per group in semi-automatic mode. The barista is responsible to start and stop the shot. To program volumetrics, all you need to do is hold down the stop button until the panel starts flashing and then select which program you'd like to set. Run the water through Hit stop and then stop to save. Okay. And now, every time I hit this button, it'll brew and stop with the exact amount of water through the group that we've programmed. And here in the middle we have hot water. And this is pulling water straight from that single boiler. It's not recommended to overuse this for quite a lot of drinks because it will really affect the temperature and pressure recovery of your machine and its overall drink making capacity. But it is there for the occasional drink when you need it.
Okay. So let's go ahead and brew a shot of espresso and then we'll use the auto steamer to steam some milk. Let’s do it. All right. I'm brewing with 16 and a half grams today and will be brewing at about a 1 to 2 ratio, which I have preprogramed on the Appia. Quick tamp. Nice thing is you get this raised platform, so if you're not using tall paper cups, you can lift espresso cups like this straight up to the group to prevent any splashing. You can put a scale here if you want as well or not if you have your volume metrics programed. Okay. So I'm going to use the double shot button. Alright espresso is done. Now, in the real world, you would steam your milk simultaneously, but I'm going to do them individually for you. So we're going to use the auto steamer today. Auto steam is super nice, especially if you don't have professional baristas behind the bar. If you just need to teach someone to make a drink consistently, this really does help. Basically, it has a temperature probe that is parallel to the cool touch steam wand here so that you can't burn yourself with this. But it also will stop steaming as soon as it detects that proper milk temperature has been reached, which just, you know, really slims that margin for error for overheating milk. Okay. So all you need to do is texture your milk and the machine will do the rest, done. The Appia stops itself and I'm just going to give this a quick wipe and a purge, and we're all set. Ready to combine our ingredients.
That's the Nuova Simonelli Appia Life Compact Two Group Commercial Espresso Machine. For help getting your espresso program off the ground, contact our commercial services team today at the link in the description. Thanks for watching.
