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Breville BES900XL Dual Boiler

Postby sweaner on Sun May 22, 2011 12:47 pm

The upcoming Breville machine looks quite interesting. It certainly seems to have the specs, but whether Breville can pull this off is another matter. Mark's first look on Coffeegeek is a good read.

http://www.coffeegeek.com/proreviews/fi...er/details
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Postby Arpi on Sun May 22, 2011 6:11 pm

That looks very interesting. Breville prices usually sink for their large quantities deals. It will probably sell under $1K on Costco next year.
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Postby Marshall on Sun May 22, 2011 6:24 pm

Arpi wrote:That looks very interesting. Breville prices usually sink for their large quantities deals. It will probably sell under $1K on Costco next year.

I would assume no such thing. What happens will depend on several factors, not the least of which will be whether they choose to market the machine through mass market or more selective channels and how much post-sale service they expect their dealers to provide.
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Postby dialydose on Sun May 22, 2011 6:43 pm

sweaner wrote:The upcoming Breville machine looks quite interesting. It certainly seems to have the specs, but whether Breville can pull this off is another matter. Mark's first look on Coffeegeek is a good read.

http://www.coffeegeek.com/proreviews/fi...er/details


I also saw the write-up on CG and was pretty intrigued. The (planned) feature set has a lot of appeal in terms of home use. They have certainly put a lot of thought into the machine. If they can pull it all off at the price point they are aiming for, it could make a really nice entry in the prosumer niche. And it is about the best looking machine I have seen in a while. We should be getting some user reports out of Australia later this summer.
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Postby vetallist on Tue May 24, 2011 10:29 am

Very intrigued about this machine's launch as well.

Would it be too much of it to expect to produce in the cup espresso results on par with $1.5K-$2K range machines, such as Expobar Brewtus, Mini Vivaldi, Vibiemme Domobar, Alex Duetto, etc? It's spec sheet is certainly very impressive, especially at this price, but Breville's lack of high end espresso machine reputation leaves a big question mark until production unit reviews become available. I guess group head not being E61 is a question mark as well, but in the cup reviews should answer all these questions.


I believe I've outgrown my PID'd Silvia over the past 18 months, and am ready to upgrade. I already got grinder and roaster bases covered with solid equipment. My budget is ready for almost anything south of GS3 (and I almost bought it recently for $5K brand new).
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Postby aecletec on Tue May 24, 2011 11:07 am

Definitely agree it's a question mark but am pretty interested in it. Not sure why the 'it's not an e61' argument keeps on coming up, it may have had a good run but it hardly seems to be an ideal design. Did the LM, Synesso, etc groupheads get similar criticism?
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Postby Carneiro on Tue May 24, 2011 11:44 am

In fact, if the machine has good/great results in the cup (I think the dispersion screen/block is very important after temperature), I would consider for home use. Great package.

One thing it sould be improved is the pump noise, as far as I hear in this videos:





Of course the possibilty of firmware upgrade and 0.5°C steps would be nice.

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Postby HB on Tue May 24, 2011 11:46 am

aecletec wrote:Definitely agree it's a question mark but am pretty interested in it. Not sure why the 'it's not an e61' argument keeps on coming up, it may have had a good run but it hardly seems to be an ideal design. Did the LM, Synesso, etc groupheads get similar criticism?

I think the "not an E61" comment boils down to "not a known quantity". Or, to put it another way, while brew temperature management is certainly an important consideration and a double boiler simplifies that design goal, repeatable brew temperature control is only a starting point.
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Postby Beezer on Tue May 24, 2011 11:49 am

It certainly looks like an excellent deal for the money, assuming it works as well in the real world as it looks on paper. It seems to offer the same or better features as a Vivaldi, Izzo or VBM for a lot less money. Plus, I think it looks beautiful. It would be a much easier sell to the significant other than many of the other prosumer dual boilers.

The quality and reliability is the big question mark, in my mind. There are a lot of things going on that machine that have the potential to go wrong. Also, will Breville offer the same kind of customer support as Chris or Jim? I doubt it. But the long warranty and obvious amount of testing and thought that went into the design are encouraging.

The electrically heated, PID controlled group is very cool, and may offer better temp control than an e-61 or even a saturated group. If properly tuned, I doubt it would even need a cooling flush. So the lack of an e-61 group is not a bad thing, and actually shows to me that Breville is taking this seriously and designing the machine from the ground up for performance, instead of just reusing parts that have been around for the last 50 years.

I also like the fact that you can control so many parameters from the main computer menu. Not just the brew boiler PID, but the group PID, preinfusion time, preinfusion pressure, shot time, etc. I assume that you can also dial in the brew pressure from the front panel, though it wasn't clear to me from Mark's article.

Anyway, I'm very curious to hear the early reports from people who buy the machine to see if it's as good as it promises to be. If so, it's a real contender for my next machine.
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Postby BruceB on Tue May 24, 2011 4:38 pm

From what I read I found the machine to be an exciting proposition. My greatest concern as already stated is how well supported it will be; esp. given how complicated they have made it in order to achieve what they have.

However, if it performs as well as the specification suggests it can, and the reliability/support is present then this could potentially change the game for the home espresso machine market.

As a newcomer to the scene I'll be watching this machines progress with great interest as a potential upgrade. I doubt that I'm the only one in this position.
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