Rocket Espresso is well known for its attractive home espresso machines where no detail is left untouched. The stainless steel casing with perforations that reveal either copper or white side panels beneath adds an interesting visual element to the Rocket Espresso Appartamento that no other home espresso machine has!
In addition to the unique side panels and stainless steel casing, the Rocket Appartamento saves on height. It does this with large circular feet that give the Appartamento a real presence on your counter without taking up the whole thing!
Don’t let its apt name fool you into thinking that the Appartamento is a great small start machine. While it might be that to some regard - it packs all of the power that you’d expect out of a quality Italian made home espresso machine.
E61 Group Head
The professional-grade E61 group head is one of the most popular group configurations on the market. There is a reason why so many manufacturers utilize this tried and tested group head. It’s easy to repair, the parts are readily available, and repairs are generally cheap.
With any E61 brew head, you’ll get pre-infusion of water that helps settle the grounds within the bed of coffee. This is a mechanical pre-infusion and should not be confused with other more controllable methods of achieving pre-infusion. To add control of pre-infusion and flow you might consider installing an E61 flow control device.
Gauges
Right underneath the brew lever, there is a black boiler pressure gauge that jumps off the front of the machine. It’s not only great looking but it also helps you monitor machine vitals in a really convenient spot on the front of the machine.
No-Burn Wands
Stainless steel hot water and steam wands come with teflon tubing inside which replaces the previously used silicone (effective 2020)
Steaming Milk
The Rocket Appartamento espresso machine is a surprisingly powerful latte and cappuccino machine! As we said, don’t be fooled by the small corpus. The steam and hot water wands are fully articulating to make steaming incredibly easy.
What about the steam power though? The steam wand will have you asking it to go maybe a little slower at first! If this is your first prosumer home espresso machine, you might need a little bit more time and less power.
With a 1.8 liter boiler, there is plenty of steam power to go around. You can easily feather the steam off a bit with the steam knob to give yourself a bit more time to make that perfect micro foam!
Water Tank
The Rocket Appartamento is a tank only, sometimes called a reservoir, home espresso machine. It’s a large over two-liter bottom-fed reservoir. The reservoir is accessed from underneath the cup warmer on the top of the machine towards the back. With the water level dipping, you will have easy access to remove and refill extremely easily without the need to push aside any silicone tubing.
Vibratory Pump
The Rocket Appartamento espresso machine has a 52-watt vibratory pump. This is one of the most common pumps across the lines of home espresso machines for its reliability and power. With additional measures to quiet the vibrations of the vibratory pump, Rocket has produced a generally “won’t wake the wife up” sound.
Eco Mode
Now equipped with an Economy (ECO) Mode the Rocket Appartamento espresso machine is even better than ever! Make sure your machine is at the ready with just a lift of a lever. To enable ECO Mode on the Appartamento, there is a simple on and off button on the right bottom-front of the machine toward the front foot nearest to the brew (cam) lever.
When the button is pressed in, your Rocket Appartamento will automatically shut down after 90-minutes or 1.50-hours. To re-engage the heating element i.e. start the machine back up, just lift the brew (cam) lever, and the Appartamento will start right back up!
During bench testing, we will not automatically turn on the ECO Mode. For more information read here or the supplemental manual included with your machine.
