I have recently entered the world of “fully manual espresso”, with the Turin Axis and the Weber HG-2 Mk2 manual grinder. Going manual has significantly improved the espresso I make and has almost eliminated “throw away shots” while dialing in grind size. My modded flow control Breville Dual Boiler has become an expensive milk steamer. Why? It’s all because manual espresso respects the coffee puck and allows it to determine how best to extract coffee goodness from it. The Turin Axis is the perfect manual lever machine for this.
The Turin Axis' quality is excellent. One can feel it in its sturdy construction and the way its moving parts operate seamlessly and smoothly. The Axis’ frame is made with “blackened” aluminum (anodized?) which offers a very sturdy platform to work with.
The Axis’ brew assembly is made entirely of stainless steel so hot brew water and coffee acids, never touch the aluminum. This is important as exposing aluminum to hot water/acids, could leach harmful minerals from it.
The stainless steel brew assembly also plays an important role in the Axis’ thermal stability. The Turin uses a PID controlled heating element to heat the stainless steel brew assembly to a targeted brew temperature. Stainless steel has lower heat conductivity. This helps maintain thermal stability, once the brew assembly reaches the targeted brew temperature. The brew assembly, including cold water in the reservoir, reaches thermal stability in around 10-15 minutes. The brew assembly is relatively small and includes the portafilter collar. Once the brew assembly is heated, the collar becomes too hot to touch, so there is almost no decrease of brew water temperature as it hits the coffee puck.
The best thing about the Axis is the manual control it offers the barista. The coffee puck/grind size determines the brew method. The Axis respects the coffee puck and allows it to determine how best to extract coffee goodness from it. Electronic pump machines do not respect grind size/coffee puck. These machines push out a consistent “static pump pressure”, regardless of grind size (resistance) and puck degradation. Because of this, grind size has to be dialed in to “accommodate” the machine’s static brew pressure.
The Turin Axis respects grind size and the coffee puck. The Axis allows the barista to manually control water’s contact time with the coffee puck in a way that will best extract its coffee goodness. The barista does this by manually controlling lever pressure to match the needs of the coffee puck/grind size. Since using the Turin Axis, I have not thrown out any shots while dialing in grind size. All shots have been acceptable at worst and excellent at best.
Want good espresso every time, without having to dial in? Controlling extraction manually is the only way to do this. Get the Turin Axis manual lever espresso machine!!
Received item as described.
You may also like
Recently viewed
Let customers speak for us
from 1362 reviewsBest grinder for the money hands down.
Wow. This grinder is amazing. Im a beginner, but it is smooth, quiet and very consistent. My coffee keeps getting better and better. I think you should buy one too.
Fantastic customer service. Joe called me to let me know I ordered a part that wasn’t compatible and got me on the right track. He even threw in a free piece for declumper. 100% recommend shopping here over others.
For grinding espresso, it is hard to beat. If you also want coarser grind, perhaps it is less ideal. I find 85 best for pour over. Not sure that you could use it for café press.
Great quality, super quiet and delivers fantastic results.
Very happy so far with my grinder (I've had it two weeks) the customer service was really good and shipping was fast once it came in. I pre-ordered the silver grinder with red titanium burrs. Sadly they didn't receive any in their shipment so I was given the option to get a silver grinder with stainless steel burrs and a refund for the upgrade to titanium burrs or get red titanium burrs in the white or black color. I opted to keep the silver color and downgrade to stainless steel burrs as I had been on the fence about upgrading in the first place and I wanted the silver color. I am a little disappointed but this wasn't espresso outlets fault and as I said, the customer service, while not outstandingly so, was great and shipping was quick. So far I am satisfied with my purchase and love the grinder. I've only used it for pour over coffee so have used a coarser grind. It's been working great, the only complaint I have is something that I was aware of from reviews and that is the retention rate. It tends to keep some grounds inside which is a little annoying but definitely worth it for the quality of this grinder at this price. I know some people complained that it was too noisy as something you probably use first thing in the morning but I don't find it super noisy.
Very fast shipping. Everything accurately counted. Nice doing business with you guys.
The first one that came in the mail died within days. Seriously. It just stopped working. Luckily I purchased it from Espresso Outlet for just this reason. I had a new one within days and now that I’ve had some time with it, I’m beyond impressed. You can’t get burrs this large for this price. There has to be a catch.
But there isn’t.
Even my wife, whose tastes are not terribly particular, has told me how much better the coffee tastes. Worth every penny and then some.
Plus, I like using the grind cup to make it look like it just came out of a Devo video.
Dialing in grind size and bought a collar to keep all the grinds in the portafilter. Loving the Eureka Mignon Specialita. Double shot Americano to start the day. Yeehaw!
Love the grinder...makes all the difference in my espresso making.
So far I have roasted 4 batches with the M1 Lite, and I'm very pleased. I have been roasting 6.4 oz / 181 grams for years, so the size matches my needs. Using Artisan on Linux, and all works perfectly. As for the sale, I received shipping info 3 days after I ordered, and it was delivered 8 days from order. Good experience.
Great shipping. Product as advertised.
Machine was shipped ver quickly and the quality has surprised both my wife and I. I have been working in the coffee industry for over 10 years and wanted something to use at home that would give more space for experimentation and for making tasty drinks. This does that with flying colors!!
First of all, there is not a lot of content or discussion about this machine in comparison to others. If you do a bunch of research from various places online you can get a real understanding of the value of this machine at the price point. This machine solves 2 direct problems with budget home machines. 1: direct plumbing and drain. The included pressure reducer/check valve makes this pump way above it's weight automatically. 2: thermoblock for brewing, steam boiler for milk steaming. No other machine has this configuration, and I have no idea why. Because of the very easily accessible OPV it also defeats an additional problem with spending under $1,500. You usually have to choose between a cheaper rotary or gear pump or a vibratory pump that produces way too much pressure. And while this unit ships with the pressure too high, backing off the valve is very easy. The machine also feels incredibly sturdy, even with commercial machines clocking on the portafilter you can move the whole machine on the counter, but not this one. Solid as a rock. Steam performance is incredible, dry steam because no heat exchanging. Hot water tap is my only gripe, just like every machine that sends water from the boiler, it flash boils and makes a hot mess. A cold blending valve might be a good mod when the warranty expires. Overall the espresso features with the programmable pre infusion, volumetrics from the flowmeter are all you really need to match machines 4x it's cost. I will say that the group head heating mechanism is not the most impressive thing, but it is better than nothing and I like the energy efficiency of the machine overall. It is my favorite espresso out of all the places I go to work on espresso machines in the field and I don't think you can do any better for under a $grand.
Great service every time I have a question, need service, or need advice.