What’s on your coffee bench?

[schwa86]

Hilarious, I sent this to my son this AM from HB forum!

[echappist]

Originally Posted by schwa86

Hilarious, I sent this to my son this AM from HB forum!

Thanks for spreading the word.

Of course, this naturally leads to the question, what is your set-up?

[schwa86]

Quickmill Silvano, Niche Zero, and roast on a quest M3s…

[BeRad]

We’ve been using a Breville Barista Express for a couple years now for mostly milk based drinks. I’ve finally started diving deeper and realizing the limitations of the machine. It’s been great but I’m thinking the Breville Dual Boiler may be our next purchase. It seems super easy to maintain, modify and hack this machine for future experimentation.

Has anyone here been toying with the Breville Dual boiler?

[oldguy00]

Originally Posted by BeRad

We’ve been using a Breville Barista Express for a couple years now for mostly milk based drinks. I’ve finally started diving deeper and realizing the limitations of the machine. It’s been great but I’m thinking the Breville Dual Boiler may be our next purchase. It seems super easy to maintain, modify and hack this machine for future experimentation.

Has anyone here been toying with the Breville Dual boiler?

What limitations are you trying to overcome?

Strictly my opinion, for similar price, I'd take a Profitec 500 or Rocket Apartemento over any Breville product. Do you truly need a dual boiler?

[BeRad]

Originally Posted by oldguy00

What limitations are you trying to overcome?

Strictly my opinion, for similar price, I'd take a Profitec 500 or Rocket Apartemento over any Breville product. Do you truly need a dual boiler?

Need? Probably not but I don’t need most of the items I own 😁.

The big reason is temperature consistency. It would be nice to have more steaming power than we currently have too. I’ve looked at machines with e61 groups because temp stability is supposed to be the best there and they don’t seem to have better, sometimes worse, than the Breville Dual Boiler. There is a community who have created easy mods and detailed repairs for the BDB so the learning there is done (RA and RS have the same so this isn’t really a counterpoint, just a point). Also, my wife wants to turn the machine on and make coffee in the morning. The BDB heats up fast and has an auto on controller built in.

Pros: flow profiling, pid, temp sensor at group, low pressure extraction, adjustable OPV, serviceable at home for most common failure points.

Cons: Breville is the Trek of the espresso world, plastic case

I’m also looking at Lelit, Rancilio, Rocket Appartmento and a few others. I’ll dig into the Profitec tonight. Just curious, why would you take the RA or Profitec over Breville? Also, thanks for the advice!

FWIW, most of my information is coming from Home-Barista.com and Lance Hedrik (possibly biased source but he seems to know his trade).

[echappist]

Originally Posted by BeRad

Need? Probably not but I don’t need most of the items I own 😁.

The big reason is temperature consistency. It would be nice to have more steaming power than we currently have too. I’ve looked at machines with e61 groups because temp stability is supposed to be the best there and they don’t seem to have better, sometimes worse, than the Breville Dual Boiler. There is a community who have created easy mods and detailed repairs for the BDB so the learning there is done (RA and RS have the same so this isn’t really a counterpoint, just a point). Also, my wife wants to turn the machine on and make coffee in the morning. The BDB heats up fast and has an auto on controller built in.

Pros: flow profiling, pid, temp sensor at group, low pressure extraction, adjustable OPV, serviceable at home for most common failure points.

Cons: Breville is the Trek of the espresso world, plastic case

I’m also looking at Lelit, Rancilio, Rocket Appartmento and a few others. I’ll dig into the Profitec tonight. Just curious, why would you take the RA or Profitec over Breville? Also, thanks for the advice!

FWIW, most of my information is coming from Home-Barista.com and Lance Hedrik (possibly biased source but he seems to know his trade).

Temperature consistency can be addressed by a PID (assuming one could be retrofitted).

The Brevilled DB can be purchased on sale for a reasonable price. It's comparable to the smaller DBs such as Profitec 300, Lelit Elizabeth, and Rancilio Silvia Pro X. I personally would stay away from Rocket, but that's just me.

[kytyree]

My ten cents that’s probably worth significantly less.

I did a PID mod on my Gaggia and it made a big difference for me because it wasn’t a powerful machine.

I have PID on my Rocket but I haven’t touched it in years. I don’t even know where the control is anymore. Whatever it was set at years ago is fine. If the machine is on and warm it’s ready, after I pull a shot it’s ready to pull another one before I am and I use it every day.

It’s a double boiler, if I have company over I guess it helps but I don’t feel that much I normally do really takes advantage of it. And even if I’m making lots of drinks I like taking my time and not racing through the process.

My brother has a Breville, it works well, but I’d personally, much rather use a Profitec, Rocket, ECM or something like that, especially if we’re talking similar pricing.

[glepore]

Originally Posted by echappist

Temperature consistency can be addressed by a PID (assuming one could be retrofitted).

The Brevilled DB can be purchased on sale for a reasonable price. It's comparable to the smaller DBs such as Profitec 300, Lelit Elizabeth, and Rancilio Silvia Pro X. I personally would stay away from Rocket, but that's just me.

I just posted on a Porsche forum pretty much what I'll say here.
I had a BDB. It was f'in awesome for 3-4 years or so. Then, all the little o rings and silicone hoses and c clips started to seep and blow water under pressure. Breville doesn't sell an of this stuff. Yeah, for $300 you can send it back, not have it for 2 months and get it back and rinse, repeat.
An E61 at the same price makes the same coffee with maybe more effort, but everything inside is user servicable, in 15 yrs when it needs it.
I want to love Breville. Its a Slayer at a normal person price. But its a) built in Asia -no, I'm not adverse, I shop ali all the time; but b) the parts are proprietary and some unobtanium. I gave mine to Spaghetti Legs for free, he 3d printed some parts, but eventually gave up.
Izzo Vivi Pid. Nuf' said.
One other thing-are you making milk drinks every day? If not, dual boiler is overkill. My Izzo runs the boiler at 234 to get a 190 group temp and it will steam fine at that temp.

[farmerjosh]

Originally Posted by mjf

I've been looking into this a lot lately, especially on their discord. The gaggiuino mod seems to be a great way to give an otherwise inexpensive machine some better features that really improves the machines capabilities and resulting espresso.

As far as the pump life, I wouldn't really worry about it. If anything, the pump is being used less since it's being switched on/off to maintain the targeted pressure. Worst case, you have to replace the pump. They're sub $30, so it's not exactly going to break the bank if you need to replace it.

I'm currently thinking about adding the same gaggiuino components to my Rancilio Silvia, aided by a few people on the discord who've made the same modifications.

I ended up going for it. After a wait, the kit showed up and it was all pretty easy to install - no programming needed which was nice. No more temperature surfing, much more consistent shots, and some fun profiling to play around with. I'd recommend it to folks with gaggias/silvias.

[BeRad]

Originally Posted by glepore

I just posted on a Porsche forum pretty much what I'll say here.
I had a BDB. It was f'in awesome for 3-4 years or so. Then, all the little o rings and silicone hoses and c clips started to seep and blow water under pressure.

From what I’ve read, these are all standard sizes. I’m not sure about the rules on linking to other sites but a search on HomeBarista has the parts and tutorials.

I would definitely take this machine off someone’s hands for s&h if they still have it

[JMT3]

My 2 cnets. I have a drip that has a strong feature. Grind my beans daily with a Baratza Encore grinder. I like my coffee hot, strong and black. The bean I’m currently using is a French Roast organic bought from our local Co-op. Sipping on a cup right now getting ready for a ride with some friends.

[kytyree]

Originally Posted by JMT3

My 2 cnets. I have a drip that has a strong feature. Grind my beans daily with a Baratza Encore grinder. I like my coffee hot, strong and black. The bean I’m currently using is a French Roast organic bought from our local Co-op. Sipping on a cup right now getting ready for a ride with some friends.

I’m drinking Hampton Inn dark roast in the middle of nowhere before I go to work on a Saturday 😅

[flying]

Originally Posted by BeRad

Has anyone here been toying with the Breville Dual boiler?

I never have but my daughter did & liked it before going full auto "Jura"

I had a Profitec 300 Dual Boiler which I thought was great but eventually sold as we were moving

[robertbb]

I use a French Press with pre-ground beans from the supermarket. I usually just shake the beans out of the packet into the vessel, just eyeball the quantity. I fill a stainless steel pot with some filtered water, throw it on the stove and pour when I see little bubbles start to appear, but before boiling temp. Then I pour, stir, and let it sit for anywhere between 3-6 minutes, at random just depending on what else I'm doing, before finally pressing and transferring to cup.

Sorry not sorry. I'm so far down the rabbit hole of bikes and other hobbies and know myself well enough to know this whole coffee thing will just tip things over the edge. It's better this way.