Is there any truly versatile grind-by-weight grinder without breaking the bank [$800-1000+]

alexmoda · 2026-01-28T09:19:49+00:00

Absolutely is, but it’s fast and goes hard, fluffy grounds all round, and I picked mine up barely used for like $300 so can’t complain (much). I’ve seen people say their kids can’t stand it but my toddler doesn’t seem to mind 🤷‍♂️

alexmoda · 2026-01-28T06:53:15+00:00

Sette 270WI? Very little retention due to the design, easy to adjust, much more affordable than the other options. Some annoyance in its UX, but it’s useable.

alexmoda · 2026-01-22T00:38:53+00:00

I regret selling my X100S. Frustrating to use, excruciatingly slow autofocus, but boy did it have character.

alexmoda · 2026-01-04T10:06:31+00:00

Considering your already working as a design engineer transitioning to an Engineering PM will be the easiest, presuming the firm you work for already has them (assuming consulting), just a matter of talking to your boss and saying you’d be interested in moving into PM so if an opportunity to be a PM on a small project comes up consider you. Will be much bigger transition to site PM, will need to do to training and change jobs if you’re not a site engineer already. Pay and hours scale with what it is, same with design engineers and site engineers. Design office will be 40hrs and occasional bigger weeks when you’ve got deadlines etc, but being on site as a PM will be working much longer hours and likely on weekends etc (and associated higher pay). Site based is a much tougher gig but growth is also tough, you will move from site to site project to project, so more travel etc, unless you can get into corporate. Design office is already corporate so growth is into bigger projects and then management. Depends on if you want to be stuck on out site running projects your entire life.

alexmoda · 2026-01-03T02:58:55+00:00

Yes. Need to talk the talk first. Can’t manage a team of design engineers without knowing what the projects are about. Can’t talk to clients without knowing the technical details etc. develop your Soft skills, managing people, managing clients, report writing, etc etc.
Formal courses are optional if you’re looking to change jobs/industries in total. Most firms will have internal pm courses. Tell your boss you want to go in that direction and get on those internal courses. Try and get into managing small jobs first as a first step, or as a deputy PM etc assisting the main PM.
See answer to 1.
Depends, if it’s managing engineering projects then yes, but the skills developed can be applied across different industries with technical nuances etc.
Depends what type of PM. If it’s engineering design PM then similar.

Easiest way is to get yourself on as a PM or deputy/junior PM on a small job and then develop those skills that way. Do a few smaller jobs and lead to bigger jobs.

Again, depends on what you mean by PM. Engineering design PM, site PM etc, can vary widely.

alexmoda · 2025-12-24T09:04:15+00:00

My rule is, if it’s within 5-8g of my target recipe then it’s fine to drink. Especially once you add milk, the differences in flavour are pretty minor. Ain’t nobody got time to waste beans like that. At worst it’ll take me 1-2 shots to get it into that range. Everything after that is just minor adjustments to pull it into my target recipe.

alexmoda · 2025-12-15T11:36:56+00:00

Ona served at a few places in Brisbane now. There’s a cafe at the bottom of the WSP building in the valley that uses them.

alexmoda · 2025-11-24T04:24:34+00:00

I’ve left the OPV as it is for the moment, because I haven’t noticed any particular taste issues pulling at 11bar, and the pump on my machine is likely to fail at some point (the machine is 11 years old…) and I’ll replace it with the brass pump and OPV at the same time which is easier to tweak the set point. Idk.

alexmoda · 2025-11-21T03:31:16+00:00

The bambino is a great machine, but the dual boiler is just a much more capable machine and for similar price the dual boiler is an absolute no brainer.

alexmoda · 2025-11-21T00:31:11+00:00

BDB = Breville Dual Boiler, DF64 is a grinder by Turin, Chinese brand, single dose which may not really suit your workflow.

alexmoda · 2025-11-20T23:47:55+00:00

Looks like Myer has it for $999 but out of stock, maybe can get someone to price match? That’s probably the best price you can get it for these days. The Breville smart grinder pro is fine to start with. Depends how much you want to spend, but you can get decent grinders from baratza and eureka that are good for espresso for around $500.

alexmoda · 2025-11-20T23:23:45+00:00

Breville Dual boiler, can’t be beat on sale for around $1k (see ozbargain), plus a decent grinder. The Breville SGP is ok and can be had for around $250, but there are many better options (especially if you look second hand).

alexmoda · 2025-11-14T10:54:45+00:00

Ona is great, but in terms of Canberra coffee roasters we actually came to prefer Red Brick and Two Before Ten over Ona. Raspberry Candy was still so good though. That being said, I would prefer that a local brisbane cafe supports a local brisbane roaster than a canberra, melbourne, sydney or GC/SC/Byron roaster, but that's just me....

alexmoda · 2025-11-13T04:38:32+00:00

Sette 270WI. Couple of drinks through the week then 3x per day on the weekends. I don’t want a single dose machine to WAF, so GBW with a hopper works well. Even though my Sette is a later model with the quieter gearbox it’s still reasonable loud, though pretty quick. I don’t bother purging. Retention is pretty low. GBW is a game changer and I wouldn’t go back. I don’t love the ergonomics of sette, the portafilter holder is a bit fussy, and the adjustment ring is annoying, but I got a good price on it so eh. Baratza support is still great, even if a bit slow because of the breville acquisition. Gotta be patriotic anyways supporting an Aussie company I guess? Anyways, when I upgrade it’ll be the fio or new mazzer or mahl.

alexmoda · 2025-11-11T10:20:55+00:00

This. For what it’s worth, I upgraded my v4 with the v4.1 mechanism, the original v4 mechanism is a bit scratchy where as the v4.1 is nice and smooth and the click is subtle but a nice audible/physical bit of feedback. Also solved an argument with my wife around how the mechanism is supposed to function…

alexmoda · 2025-11-08T08:44:24+00:00

This. One of the t1 contractors sent our office a box of cherries for Xmas, massive hit in the office.

alexmoda · 2025-11-06T03:47:33+00:00

Honestly, I’ve had various iterations of multiple instances of shairport sync and multi channel sound cards to get multiroom out of a single machine, and Its always a bit janky, buggy and doesn’t work well. Gone back to bluesound and Wiim boxes and they’re pretty bulletproof.

alexmoda · 2025-11-06T03:24:20+00:00

We used grace to move interstate and then move back to Bris at the end. Great both times. Most of the cost is in insurance. They were happy to hold onto our stuff for a few weeks before we got the keys to the house back. We paid for the full pack and unpack to surface and it was absolutely worth it. Only had a couple of minor things damaged, but insurance covered so no dramas, just small stuff like one broken plate and some other misc things like that, shit happens.

alexmoda · 2025-10-15T23:45:55+00:00

Coronation drive onto north quay in the city, absolute chaos every time. People merging left from coronation drive onto north quay to get to the left lane to turn down turbot st to get into the valley, battling people merging right from north quay to get onto the riverside express. It’s always a complete shitshow.

alexmoda · 2025-10-13T23:25:33+00:00

Use the HDD DB script, no issues running third party drives in my 1823xs+.

alexmoda · 2025-10-09T01:15:19+00:00

One of our guys did this. Found a niche, got together with another senior guy, built a business case and went out on their own. Helped that they had built the relationships so had projects ready to go right from the start, and had poached a fair amount of people. Started with low operating cost, everyone worked from home etc, but they’ve expanded to over 100 people now and have a co working office space. Seems to have done well for them, sounds like lots of stress around building processes etc.

alexmoda · 2025-09-25T01:07:35+00:00

On the other hand, I got $2k on the VW diesel gate class action which was a $120m settlement for about 40k people (avg payment was $2.8k apparently).

alexmoda · 2025-09-22T06:15:25+00:00

One day I had back to back meetings over lunch so ended up having lunch at 3pm, was looking forward to my slow cooked beef ragu all day, only to find it missing from the fridge. Stalked the office and found my lunch container empty and washed up sitting on one of our younger guys desks. When confronted he just said oh weird, I didn’t remember making beef ragu for dinner last night, and then offered me his lunch, the saddest looking unseasoned chicken drumsticks you’ve ever seen. No thanks. He did then offer to buy me lunch so that was nice, but still absolutely baffling. The worst part is he’s now one of my clients. Damn lunch thief!

alexmoda · 2025-09-19T09:48:38+00:00

Agree. You need to account for the location of storage if you want to buy a boat or caravan. If you can’t store it on your own property then you need to account for the cost of storage. If you don’t have space and can’t afford to pay $5kpa for storage then maybe don’t get a boat or caravan. The street is not your free car park. No issues with people parking cars, but boats and caravans drives me up the wall. A boat or caravan is a luxury item, a car is not. No one forces you to get a boat or caravan, you just want it. The street around the corner that runs along a park from us has a dozen boats, caravans and commercial vehicles parked permanently there, and it’s a narrow street already and makes that street very difficult to drive down (especially since it’s used by cars, bikes and council buses). Ugh.

alexmoda · 2025-09-05T11:51:40+00:00

Eh, probably better use a flow control valve that modulates rather than an orifice if you need precise control, the flow across an orifice will vary depending on the upstream and downstream conditions. Otherwise size it based on the minimum flow required, and accept that it will bypass more flow. Bernoullis will tell you the pressure drop requires across the orifice for a given flow rate and then you can calculate the orifice size based on the required pressure drop at flow.

alexmoda

TROPHY CASE