Category: Coffee Maker Machines

Another dual boiler espresso coffee maker machine 2020, the Profitec Pro 600 is a very nice machine. I took delivery of this machine (on loan) directly after having used the ACS minima, and it’s really clear to see the difference a few hundred quid spend on build and aesthetics delivers. This is a lovely machine to look at and to use, it just oozes luxury. In my Profitec Pro 600 Review I remark that if this was a car it’d probably be the Audi Q5.

It has an E61 group with a paddle, vs the group on the minima which doesn’t have the mechanical paddle & is simply operated via the switch. It has both a brew pressure gauge and a separate steam boiler gauge. You can choose to have both boilers on, or turn off the steam boiler if you’re just pulling shots & not steaming milk. You can set a back flush reminder after a certain number of shots have been pulled, you can very easily manually adjust the brew pressure, and you can also manually adjust the steam boiler pressure up to about 2 bar. 

The Pro 600 is the slightly lower cost sibling of the Profitec Pro 700, which is about £2100 & features a rotatory pump vs a vibe pump (although the vibe pump on the pro 600 is quiet), a bigger steam boiler, and the ability to be plumbed in.

You can get the Profitec Pro 600 from Bella Barista for £1699, which isn’t cheap, but taking everything into account I think this is a good price for this machine.

For the above machines, talking about the grinders I have experience of, my suggestions would be:

• Eureka Mignon
• Niche Zero
• Eureka Atom

I used the Eureka Mignon Specialita with the MCS Minima, and I was really impressed with this grinder. At around £380, it’s fairly inexpensive when we’re talking about grinders at this kind of level, to pair with heat exchanger or dual boiler machines.

This version of the Mignon has 55cm hardened steel flat burrs, it’s quiet, it has stepless adjustment, and it’s generally regarded as a decent entry level grinder for pairing with heat exchanger and dual boiler machines. For more see my Eureka Mignon review. 

The Niche Zero is a great grinder, I used this grinder a while back for a couple of weeks for my initial Niche Zero review, and then got my hands on one on loan again for this Niche Zero video review, and I’ve managed to keep my hands on it so far (it’ll have to go back soon though, boo!). It’s a single doser grinder, and it features almost zero retention, and even closer to zero exchanged retention.

What this means, is that usually when you’re grinding coffee, some of the coffee from your last grind is retained and then ends up in your portafilter the next time you grind. It depends on the grinder you’re using, but with all grinders you’ll get some exchanged retention. What this means is that you need to purge coffee, meaning grind it and chuck it away, whenever you change the grind size when dialing in, and when you’re using your grinder for the first time each morning. But with the Zero, you don’t need to do that, as the exchanged retention is so minuscule that it really doesn’t do anything.

The De’Longhi Dedica machines have been one of the best selling domestic espresso coffee maker machine 2020 in the UK for quite a while. In fact the current model, the EC865 is the best selling espresso machine on Amazon at the time of writing, and had several thousand amazon reviews.

But this isn’t what I’d call a home barista machine, and it’s not a machine you’ll usually find me reviewing or talking about on coffeeblog. In fact this is of the level of machines I was referring to earlier when I said that I noticed a neighbour had bought an awful espresso machine. It wasn’t this exact one, but a similar type of very low cost domestic espresso machine. 

As a very quick rule of thumb, if an espresso machine retails at less than around £300, I’d be sceptical, simply because the components required to make semi decent espresso would usually make it difficult to produce a machine so cheaply.

When you consider how much the build cost would have to be to retail the machines at this price once various parties have taken their slice, you’re talking about machines that have had very little money spend on the build, and to make proper espresso requires various components which don’t cost pennies.

Another thing that would make me skeptical, by the way, is “15 Bars of Pump Pressure” featuring in the marketing blurb. This is not the sign of a quality machine, it’s the sign of a super cheap machine which probably should be avoided if you’re looking for a home barista setup.

Just see this list of best selling Espresso machines on Amazon, and “15 Bars of Pump Pressure” is something that most of the cheap espresso machines towards the top of the list, boast. But it’s not something to boast about.  We don’t want 15 bars of pressure for espresso, we want 9 bars.

The reason the super cheap domestic machines achieve 15 bars of pressure is that to achieve the lower 9 Bars without causing problems for the machine would lead to higher build costs. To achieve 9 bars without issues, a decent expansion valve is required, and a decent expansion valve doesn’t cost pennies, it costs probably £30-£35 or more,  which in some cases is likely to be way more than the total build cost of the machine. So build cost is lowered either by skipping the expansion valve, or using a cheap one, both which would make 9 bars a no go. 

But instead of being honest (marketing and honesty don’t exactly go hand in hand), brands spin this to make it appear that 15 bars is desirable, which it isn’t.

But I digress. 

Going back to the Delonghi Dedica, I’ve decided to include this cheap espresso machine in this post because I’m aware that there are many home baristas who’ve started out with a Delonghi Dedica such as the EC685 or the previous model the EC680, many of whom appear to have done OK with it if they’ve followed some of the tips I’m about to share.

It’s a very slim machine at just 15cm wide, so that’s a good thing if you don’t have much kitchen worktop space. It has a 1 litre water tank, which is about usual for a domestic espresso machine at this level, and it comes in black, white, red or silver.

It has a 51mm portafilter, and although this isn’t the standard 58mm, there are quite a few aftermarket baskets and portafilters on the market at this size, meaning you can swap out the baskets (as I’ll get to shortly) and the portafilter if required. 

It has a panarello steam wand (which I’ll talk about shortly) and the newer EC685 model has more space under the portafilter, allowing you to use larger cups. 

The Gaggia classic is a machine that home baristas have been using since 1991 when it was first launched. A huge number of home baristas all over the world, started out with the classic. 

The original classic was solid and simple. No control panel, no frills, just three rocker switches, but a proper boiler rather than a thermoblock (most entry level machines have thermoblock boilers) & a full pro sized 58mm portafilter.

It had a panarello steam wand as is the norm with home espresso coffee maker machine 2020, but people quickly discovered that it was really simple to mod the classic with the Rancilio Silvia steam wand. 

The classic proved to be a very reliable machine, which I can vouch for as my Gaggia Classic was made in 2003, and it’s still going strong. 

Gaggia was aquired by another Italian firm called Saeco in 1999. Saeco didn’t try to fix what wasn’t broken, and the classic remained the same, until Philips bought Saeco in 2009. Production of the classic was moved from from Italy to Romania, and they modernised the production of the Classic, which in the opinion of many Gaggia classic fans, lead to the Classic no longer being the classic, for quite some time. 

Over the years they changed just about everything but the looks. They changed the boiler, they removed the mechanical 3 way solanoid valve, and the Classic then became just another domestic espresso machine very similar to the other cheaper machines on the market, but in the body of the classic. 

This came to a head with the 2015 version which was about as far away from the original classic as you could get, you couldn’t even easily mod the wand with this model.

But then, in 2019, things changed. They moved production back to Italy, and re-designed the classic almost exactly back to it’s original specs, but with one big improvement. The same small boiler is back, the 3 way solenoid valve is back, the good old fashioned rocker switches are back – and they added a professional steam wand, meaning that owners of the classic no longer have to mod the classic with the Rancilio Silvia steam wand.

So in my humble opinion, from experience (and I’ve had a lot of experience with the Gaggia Classic) the classic is a very valid choice as a first home Barista machine.

I’ve been really happy with it over the years, and I still have it now. In fact if you watch my YouTube videos, you’ll probably see it on the shelf behind me. It’s not always there, by the way, I do still use it as my home espresso machine when I’m not reviewing other espresso machines.

It doesn’t have a PID, which means the temperature isn’t going to be as stable as with a PID machine – you can mod them with a PID, but how much difference it’s going to make is arguable, the money would probably be better invested in upgrading your grinder. 

If you’re going for a used classic, make sure you get one pre-2009. My first machine was a 2003 Gaggia Classic I bought used on eBay for £100, paired with a Sage smart grinder pro which I managed to get new for around £140 if I remember correctly. More recently, though, the pre-2009 classics really seem to be holding their value, they regularly sell for over £200!

If you’re going to get a new Gaggia Classic Pro,  I’d highly recommend that you get it from Gaggia Direct, the UK distributor. Because you get a 2 year (or 3 years for an extra £20) UK warranty, directly with them, with their own service team – and I can tell you from experience that they know what they’re doing, and their service team are great (they service my classic).

I’m not not going to go in depth into the Gaggia Classic, if you think this may be the machine for you right now and you want to learn more, see my in depth Gaggia Classic Review.

The Rancilio Silvia is a popular single boiler home Barista espresso coffee maker machine 2020. For quite some time there wasn’t a great deal of competition when it comes to single boiler machines, other than the Gaggia Classic.

Silvia has usually been regarded by those with experience of both, as having a bit more potential for espresso quality, if paired with a capable enough grinder. The classic has been regarded, generally speaking, as the more reliable of the two over the long term, and with less potential to element burnout due to the fact that the boiler is externally heated.The main con for the Silvia vs the Classic, though, was cost. For a long time, the Silvia was roughly double the cost of the classic.

This is no longer quite the case, the new Gaggia Classic is available from the UK distributor Gaggia Direct, for £399, and the new version of the Rancilio Silvia (Silvia E V6 2020) is available from Bella Barista for £499, so there’s no longer as much in it. In many ways these machines are similar, same size water tank, same size portafilter, both have brass groups, both have a  3 way solenoid valve, neither have a PID (but both can be modded with a PID) and they’re both operated by simple switches.

They look similar too I think. Silvia is a bit more square, and the steam knob on the Silvia is on the front, and on the Classic it’s on the right hand side of the machine. 

The biggest difference is the boilers. The Classic has a small 80ml externally heated Alu boiler with a 1370W element. The Silvia has a much bigger 300ml Brass/Chrome alloy boiler, internally heated with a 952W element. 

My personal opinion of the Silvia is that it’s a great choice for the beginner home barista, especially if paired with a grinder of the calibre of the Eureka Mignon upwards. You do need to keep on top of descaling with the Silvia though, with the element being inside the boiler, and you need to make sure you keep the steam boiler filled up. 

We’re going from one extreme to the other here from the likes of the Classic & the Silvia to the Bambino Plus. If these were cars, this would be similar to comparing the Land Rover Defender to an ultra hi tech Tesla. Classic & Silvia are closer to other prosumer espresso machines, in that they’re made in a fairly standard way, with similar, easy to replace parts, which anyone with a bit of DIY competency (not me then…) would be able to maintain and repair. Machines like this (including much more expensive Heat Exchanger machines and Dual boiler machines) can be maintained and repaired for several years or even decades.

The Sage Bambino Plus, and the other Sage machines, are about as modern and as high tech as espresso machines get. They’re not made using standard parts, in fact Sage/Breville (they’re designed in Australia by Breville, known as Sage only in Europe) tend to invent quite a lot of the components they use in their espresso coffee maker machine 2020. 

The plus side of this, as with driving a Tesla, is you end up with some really clever and helpful features. The negative side of this is that, as with Tesla cars, Sage machines don’t particularly lend themselves to being tinkered with by the owner to be cheaply maintained and repaired over the years. If there’s a problem with a Sage machine, they have to go back to the manufacturer, and if it’s out of warranty, it may be a problem costly enough to make repairing the machine false economy over replacing it. 

But with that said, Sage really do make some clever machines, and the Bambino Plus is no exception to this. The Bambino Plus from Sage, is a really compact little machine. I think it looks great, and for such a tiny machine they’ve managed to give it a really decent sized 1.9L water tank, which has a filter, and which is very easy to remove and fill. 

It’s heated up in a crazy 3 seconds, and this is real, not the usual exaggerated marketing. OK, you’ll want to pull some hot water through the group head and portafilter to get everything else warmed up, but the machine does really only take 3 seconds to heat up. Steam is ready in about the same number of seconds after pulling the shot, too. 

This little inexpensive machine, had a PID, as to do all of the Sage machines, and this means brew temperature stability. This is something you won’t get with the popular Gaggia Classic or Rancilio Silvia unless you mod them with a PID, which you can do for around £100.

As long as you once again frisbee the pressured (or dual walled, but they basically do the same thing) baskets and use the single wall baskets, this machine is capable of some pretty decent espresso. If you’re buying directly from Sage Appliances, or buying the newest stock from a supplier such as a seller on Amazon UK, you should get the standard baskets as well as dual walled. They used to ship with only dual walled, so if you’re not buying directly from Sage, double check with your supplier that you’re going to get the standard baskets. 

The Bambino features the newer Thermojet system which is why it heats up so quickly, and this is the same system as with the new Barista Pro & Barista Touch.