Brewing espresso at home is an art and a science. Using a scale for home espresso is essential for consistency and precision, which leads to a better understanding of your own preferences! But of course, if you’re reading a blog about the Bagail EK2912R, hopefully you’re already acquainted with the need for a scale in your espresso workflow. If you’re on the fence about using a scale at all in your espresso, please read THIS BLOG by our Head of Coffee, Phil, to convince you why it’s one of the best investments you’ll make into your home espresso set-up!
Review: The Bagail EK2912R Scales - Convenience and expansive versatility
The Bagail EK2912R is a budget scale with a big heart. From the outset, the design and size of this scale is better suited to filter style brews. While it may not be perfect for espresso, it can help you dial in your morning brew, and then bake some cookies or scones to go with it!
Accommodating form factor
This beast comes in at 170mm x 130mm x 27mm, so if you’re lucky, this will balance and fit under the spout of your portafilter, but even if it doesn’t, you can still tare off your cups and portafilter independently to better know your brew.
The look and feel of this scale is way better suited to a pour-over or other filter brewing method of coffee extraction. So if you do both espresso and filter regularly, this might be the scale for you.
With a 3kg capacity, and the surface area to suit larger vessels, the Bagail will easily accommodate larger mixing bowls if you’re into home baking or other precision kitchen tasks. This is far from a uni-tasker in your kitchen space.
Accuracy and responsiveness
At first glance, this scale does its job as well as it needs to. It was initially quite slow to power on and tare itself, but once it’s running, the taring and normal operation was serviceable.
The Bagail is sensitive to 0.1g and seems accurate out of the box. The static reading did drift by 1.5g over 30 mins. If you’re working quickly and only using the Bagail, this could be okay especially as an entry point to measuring your espresso. If high accuracy is your goal, it might be worth a larger investment into a quality scale.
We haven’t run any long term testing on the Bagail, so I can’t advise on the build quality nor the longevity of this scale.
The buttons are responsive to input and the screen is very clear. The dimensions allow for the large scale surface to steer clear of the display. On some of the smaller scales, larger cups or pour-over carafes can obscure the view of the screen.
Key features and workflow
These scales are simple. They’ll tell you how much something weighs and run a timer for 100 minutes. That’s all you get, but honestly that’s all you NEED. Nothing fancy, but nothing distracting either.
The large weighing surface does come with a silicone cover, which will help defend against minor spills and more importantly it’s a thermal barrier between your coffee and the load cell. This would be an essential component if you're using this for pour-over brewing, but it also comes in handy to insulate espresso cups and warm portafilters.
The 600mAh lithium battery is USB-C rechargeable, which is nice and universal. It’ll take about 3 hours to charge, so it’s worth keeping on top if you’re using the scale every day.
The Autotimer has a 3 second countdown and pauses to show final weight and time once the cup is removed. This would be very useful for espresso if you’re lucky enough to fit the scale under your machine's spout. Also seemingly very practical for pour-over brewing.
Read more about other essential equipment for your home coffee setup.
Final thoughts
As echoed through this blog, this isn’t an espresso scale. While it can work, it’s not built or ideal as a daily espresso scale. If you’re easing into fitting an espresso scale into your workflow, the appeal is the price and versatility of this device. I would recommend pursuing a more espresso-focused scale, as the Bagail won’t be the best experience to start with. There’s little value for $49.99 from Amazon. Even if you can find it on sale for $30.59, it’s still difficult to recommend this scale for home espresso.
P&R’s score:
- Price/Value - 8/10
- Form Factor - 3/10
- Features - 5/10
- Overall - 5.3/10
