I went to the La Marzocco / Blue Bottle open house for the Linea Mini today in Palo Alto, CA. It was a nice chance to be hands-on and try the machine.

One thing I noticed is that it seems to radiate a fair amount of heat. It wasn't too bad, but when I went home I noticed it was much more than my Quick Mill QM67. Given the QM67's smaller boilers, I am not surprised, but a question for the new Linea Mini owners (or those who've spent time with it), do you find it radiates a lot of heat? The early reports on the GS3 noted it would increase the heat of the room and I am wondering if the same is true of the Mini.

I am very interested in the Mini, but wondering if there is any cause for concern, particularly if I were to put the machine under kitchen cabinets.

I haven't noticed it radiating all that much heat, certainly not enough to affect room temperature.

But the steam boiler is 3.5 liters which is quite large compared to an E61 DB. The Linea Mini boiler is insulated, which should make it fairly efficient and limit excess heat transfer to the surrounding air. The top has four larger holes in it to vent heat out to the cup warmer, so perhaps that is what you are noticing?

keno wrote: But the steam boiler is 3.5 liters which is quite large compared to an E61 DB. The Linea Mini boiler is insulated, which should make it fairly efficient and limit excess heat transfer to the surrounding air. The top has four larger holes in it to vent heat out to the cup warmer, so perhaps that is what you are noticing?

Yes, I was mostly noticing the heat from the top. As you note, I would expect the higher heat with the larger boiler (1L vs 3.5L). While it may be my imagination, it seemed much hotter than my machine, hence my concern. It is good to hear that it isn't too bad when actually living with it.

csepulv wrote:I went to the La Marzocco / Blue Bottle open house for the Linea Mini today in Palo Alto, CA. It was a nice chance to be hands-on and try the machine.

One thing I noticed is that it seems to radiate a fair amount of heat. It wasn't too bad, but when I went home I noticed it was much more than my Quick Mill QM67. Given the QM67's smaller boilers, I am not surprised, but a question for the new Linea Mini owners (or those who've spent time with it), do you find it radiates a lot of heat? The early reports on the GS3 noted it would increase the heat of the room and I am wondering if the same is true of the Mini.

I am very interested in the Mini, but wondering if there is any cause for concern, particularly if I were to put the machine under kitchen cabinets.

Pretty sure I spoke with you briefly while there (lots of tattoos, handlebar moustache). The Mini was cool but I didn't want to hog it. Assuming you dialed in the grind and nailed a shot if you're up for buying one!

Anywho, nice chatting it up for a few!

-Nick

The mini definitely radiates some warmth, particularly topside. This makes it a superb cup warmer. It's not enough to noticeably increase the kitchen temp, but it can be felt in the cabinet above mine. The shelf closest to the machine gets warm but not hot.

@ nicholasnumbers, I remember you. I sent a PM.
To clarify, are you saying you can feel warmth from the inside of the cabinet above the machine? That would seem like a lot of heat (though it might be fine; I don't really know.)

Bennin106 wrote:It's not enough to noticeably increase the kitchen temp, but it can be felt in the cabinet above mine. The shelf closest to the machine gets warm but not hot.

This can be a long term problem, and it's not just the LM - even my Lelit and my Oscar will warm the bottom of the cabinets above them in the kitchen in our house (15 1/2" counter-to-cabinet) if left on for a few hours. It's not a problem in our apartment, where the clearance is 18+", but a large boiler machine like the LM would probably do it there. "Fortunately", Oscar's in great shape and I won't be replacing him anytime soon......

If the cabinets are veneered, the heat can cause the glue to soften and let the veneer peel over years. Both solid and composite board cabinets can warp from the same level of heat, although ply will probably not do so unless it's really thin and really low-end. I used thin automotive heat shield sheets on the bottom of the cabinets - they're sufficiently unobtrusive so that my wife was OK with them, and they work great. With our house now on the market, I took it all off so the excellent condition of the cabinets is evident. We built the house 35 years ago, and I'm sure the cabinet doors would have warped and/or the glue joints come loose had I not insulated the bottoms.

The same thing can happen to cabinets over a stove on which you boil pasta frequently for some years. We have a Jenn-Air with central exhaust fan, so the cabinets run all the way over the cooktop. At about 5 years, the plastic cover over the under-cabinet light had warped enough from the heat of cooking to fall off and land on a hot burner. That's the last time my wife gave me trouble about having fire extinguishers visibly placed in kitchen, laundry room and basement. Fortunately, the cabinets were not yet damaged and I realized what was going on.

csepulv wrote:To clarify, are you saying you can feel warmth from the inside of the cabinet above the machine?

This is somewhat unavoidable. Heat rises, after all.

If you want to minimize these effects, you could put some sort light-colored/reflective non-conductive material under the cabinet-ideally with a small air gap between this material and the cabinet. You can reduce heat transfer via radiation in this manner, and reduce conductive heat transfer, as well.

I suspect this concern is simply needless.

A larger insulated boiler might well have less heat loss than a much smaller uninsulated one, and heat loss is your concern, not heat storage capacity.

The power consumption of the Mini is not much different than many common prosumer machines, and while you can easily notice that the cabinets above such machines pick up heat, in my experience it's far from anything so intense as to degrade a finish or do other damage in any significant way, unless perhaps you measure in decades.

I've used the Mini and in spite of very active use, the case wasn't particularly warmer than other machines for the home, indicating to me no concern for excessive heat loss.