shadowfax wrote:I'll be curious to see what its temperature stability is...

I'll leave the formal conclusion to the bench-testers, but I have a Scace and from the little I've used it on my DC Mini, the results have been excellent (as one would expect). While my Fluke doesn't have a data-logger (and I'll never be a logger even if it did!), my machine shows a very flat temperature from start to finish with no real need for recovery. The group does idle slightly cold, so a short spritz before locking in is a good idea to bring things up to temperature.

Some have been concerned about the potentiometer knob. From what I've observed, the temperature setting remains stable and repeatable day-to-day if the knob stays in the same position (this tends to be my use, as I set and keep the same temp with each pound of coffee, which lasts me about a week). Since I haven't been doing alot of tweaking to find out, I'm currently testing how repeatable temperatures are when the knob is moved regularly and if one can consistently return to a calibrated point.

Well, as Jim is finally getting his Dalla Corte Mini, my testing is winding down to make room for another machine. More to come

I have to say I really enjoyed using the Mini. It is a great espresso machine for the home enthusiast and I was able to push through a ton (literally) of coffee and enjoyed some super espresso.

On the plus side, you can't find a machine with much better temperature control than this one for the money. A quick warm up shot and you are ready to go with a nice flat profile that keeps up with even the most enthusiastic home barista. Steaming is a piece of cake and you will never run out. The machine is compact, well made and straight forward to work on with solid components throughout. Changing temperature is simple and a real treat when playing around with a variety of coffees. Programming for preinfusion and volumetric dosing is easy. Espresso from this machine is as good as I have had from a variety of home/semi commercial machines. Perhaps, if pushed, I would say it has a little less clarity than some of the high end commercial machines I have used, but they are in a different league. Again I say "if pushed" since I have not done a blind tasting between these machines. Perhaps Jim can dig deeper into this.

On the negative side-- and I'm being picky here --I would still like to see a hot water tap. I realize some people won't miss it but I personally use this for water for my press pots and hot drinks and would miss it on my home machine. I would like to see better articulation in the steam wand. I angle the wand into the milk and the Dalla Corte Mini only allows me a 90 degree attack at best. I also use larger pitchers sometimes for bigger groups. It would be nice if the back plate was a bit further back from the group because the portafilter does scratch the back plate being so close to the group. I would love to see a better way of preinfusion that gets deeper puck diffusion before the pump kicks in. My testing on preinfusion with the La Spaziale definitely showed improvement with deeper saturation.

All in all this is another great double boiler espresso machine to hit the home/semi commercial market. If you are looking for a small compact pour over that can make great espresso with plenty of steam for cappuccinos, then the Dalla Corte Mini should be on your list of considerations.

Cheers

Ian

woodchuck wrote:I was able to push through a ton (literally) of coffee...

Wow! And I thought I was overcaffeinated.

woodchuck wrote:On the negative side-- and I'm being picky here --I would still like to see a hot water tap. I realize some people won't miss it but I personally use this for water for my press pots and hot drinks and would miss it on my home machine. I would like to see better articulation in the steam wand. I angle the wand into the milk and the Dalla Corte Mini only allows me a 90 degree attack at best. I also use larger pitchers sometimes for bigger groups. It would be nice if the back plate was a bit further back from the group because the portafilter does scratch the back plate being so close to the group. I would love to see a better way of preinfusion that gets deeper puck diffusion before the pump kicks in. My testing on preinfusion with the La Spaziale definitely showed improvement with deeper saturation.
Ian

Also there is the lack of a brew pressure gauge, the inability to turn off the steam boiler when it's not needed & its current U.S. pricing which seems hard to justify considering how basic this machine is.

John, the brew gauge would have helped, but I generally only use it once or twice - I tend to set it and forget it. An inexpensive solution is a trip to home depot:



I do like the idea of being able to shut off the steam boiler, especially for someone like myself who pulls more espresso than milk drinks. I do this on my VII. Good suggestion.

Cheers

Ian

Very funny with the photo shop guys, I will make sure Paolo Dalla Corte sees those, he will laugh.
I would be happy to ship you a bottomless portafilter, triple basket, and thin shower head support for evaluation. Just let me know.

Thanks James and welcome! Please contact me offline and I'll provide addresses (we have two evaluation units, one for Ian and I, the other for Jim Schulman).

Yes! I'm certain there's much to be learned from including the thinner shower head support (so that's what you call it!) in your trials. I've been using the thin one and like it--if for no other reason that it makes the clean-out easier. The La Spaziale, if I recall, started shipping with a thinner instead of thicker support. Is that correct?

I've never stayed with triples long enough to get over the feeling that they are just, generally, more difficult to get right. But a few days ago I was inspired again by a sign at 9th Street (Chelsea Mkt) that said, "All our shots are triples."

A final (not really ) thought: There's a level of detail that the Buyer's Guide writers are going to be noticing and recording that does not necessarily make its way into the Guide itself--or it may not be reported routinely in this HB thread. This detail can be really interesting to those of us already using the machine. In particular, I'd like to know the coffees you are using, days of rest, and length of shots. I'd love to order coffees you are using and see if I replicate your findings. As a bonus, it also seems like a good opportunity to refine my cupping.

Wanted to check whether this Buyers Guide is complete, or perhaps just suspended for awhile. I got the impression that Jim was going to provide some "follow-on" but I may have misunderstood.

My test machine arrived at a very inopportune time, while I was buying a new coop, renovating, moving, and going broke. My taste buds have recovered from the shock (can the economy be far behind?), and I'll gather my initial impressions, along with some metrics and taste comparisons, over the next two weeks.

Thanks for the feedback. Looking forward to your insights.

The La San Marco SM_488, 18 gram, Triple basket works fine in the Mini. The fit is a bit loose in the
portafilter. A standard 54mm tamper fits with no issue.

Also, the La San Marco SM_47 blind filter works for cleaning with no issues.

I don't recall which forum that originally mentioned the use of La San Marco baskets with the Dall Corte,
but they do seem to work well.

Bob

I've spent my first day with the DC Mini, and I have some raves, some criticisms and some puzzles.

The raves:

This is a tiny machine on the outside, as small as a Silvia. It fits easily on the 18 inch deep counter I have for my Elektra, and will fit anywhere a standard home machine would fit. But for all that, it's big on the inside. There's a 1.5 liter steam boiler, ample for home use, and a 0.5 brew boiler with enough heat to keep up at a shot a minute. Everything is beautifully laid out, with the service parts easily accessed. Parts and workmanship are fully commercial, rivaling the Cimbali Junior in quality.

The exterior materials are workaday commercial, not spectacular, but certainly not cheap.

In sum, I like the thought and effort that went into this machine. It is well designed and well built.


The criticisms

The pump air locked on the initial fill up, so that the boiler didn't fill and the thermal fuse blew (easy reset fortunately). It then needed to be primed twice again before I could pull a shot. This is due to two mistakes, The waste water from the OPV is fed back in a short loop to the pump intake, and this always creates bubbles. Also there is an inline fliter on the intake hose that tends to jam. My advice: Replace the water bottle with a tank, take the waste hose from the OPV all the way back to the tank, and put a filter on the end of the hose, not the middle. In other words, reinventing the wheel here was a mistake, and DC should go back to doing it like all the other good vibe pump and tank machines. If DC doesn't do this, buyers can make these changes in an hour for a few dollars.


The puzzles

If you are used to pulling shots on an E61 or Elektra, you are in for a surprise. This machine doesn't underextract, it overextracts. My initial shots, dosed at 14.5 grams and done with the dial at around 93C were "pleasant," "nice," "sweet." Or, in other words, insipid and muddy. Small adjustments to the temperature didn't make much difference.

I then tried the Schomer/Sabados special, filling the basket to 17 grams and slamming it up against the shower screen. This produced some of the ugliest naked PF shots I've done in three years, the crema and mouthfeel were poor, but the taste of the DP Yrgs and Sidamos I was pulling was crystal clear and beautiful.

On the same theory that my initial shots at standard doses and temperatures were overextracted, I turned the dial all the way down to 87.5C. Here the shots had a toddy coffee initial taste, sweet and bland, but their finish was superb.

In other words, the taste on this machine is very workable by adjusting the dose and the temperature dial. Is there a corner in its extraction space where the god shots hang out? Stay tuned.



As always on these bench thread judgments, this information is preliminary and subject to almost certain revision. The point of bench threads is to give people a feel for the discovery process, so they can use the process information when they buy the machine for themselves.

My review sequence is to judge the taste of a machine first, before doing any physical measurements; since it's a lot more likely that measurements would bias the taste judgments rather than vice versa. So, I'll be exploring the taste and extraction of the machine this week, and make measurements next week.

another_jim wrote:The criticisms

The pump air locked on the initial fill up, so that the boiler didn't fill and the thermal fuse blew (easy reset fortunately). It then needed to be primed twice again before I could pull a shot. This is due to two mistakes, The waste water from the OPV is fed back in a short loop to the pump intake, and this always creates bubbles. Also there is an inline fliter on the intake hose that tends to jam. My advice: Replace the water bottle with a tank, take the waste hose from the OPV all the way back to the tank, and put a filter on the end of the hose, not the middle. In other words, reinventing the wheel here was a mistake, and DC should go back to doing it like all the other good vibe pump and tank machines. If DC doesn't do this, buyers can make these changes in an hour for a few dollars.

The problem is the inline filter, which is flat-out evil. It deforms from heat and allows air to enter the water line. This was documented and photographed in my earlier review (near bottom of p. 2 of the thread). I have not had a pump jam problem since installing the fix several months ago.

DC USA has been sending out replacement lines with a filter on the end (where it belongs) and a brass barb to connect the two halves of the water line (pictured below). I don't know which filter they are using on new machines from the factory, but hope they have discontinued the inline version.



I would also suggest experimenting with the thinner dispersion disk, which leaves more headroom. I am on my own "clarity" quest and am having promising (but preliminary) results from the thinner disk and lower doses.

It would be good to include some of your comments here and from the mini-review in the final review.

My pump airlocked out of the box, on the first boiler fill up. I'm not sure if it was the in-line filter (which is still undeformed) or the short feedback OPV. The machine Dan has, the Alla Victoria (sp), first came out with the short feedback OPV, and the system was switched out for a hose back to the tank after users reported frequent airlocks. That being said, I checked the DC out during a stalled shot, and the OPV seemed to recirculate just fine.

If you figure out the extraction ABCs, please post them.

another_jim wrote:My pump airlocked out of the box, on the first boiler fill up. I'm not sure if it was the in-line filter (which is still undeformed) or the short feedback OPV. The machine Dan has, the Alla Victoria (sp), first came out with the short feedback OPV, and the system was switched out for a hose back to the tank after users reported frequent airlocks. That being said, I checked the DC out during a stalled shot, and the OPV seemed to recirculate just fine.

When you refill the reservoir, you have to remove the top cover. I suggest leaving it off while re-priming the pump after each refill and watching the water flow. It may take a jiggle of the tube to get it to start flowing properly. Also be sure the plastic ties around the inline filter are secure.

But you should call James Warren at DC USA for the replacement filter. I'm sure he'll send it out ASAP.

Today was for singles.

If you have an Italian espresso machine, and you want to taste what the design engineers tasted; chances are you should be pulling 6 to 8 gram singles using the manufacturer's basket. After all, this is how 90% of all shots in Italy are pulled. Since this is how Italian espresso machines are designed to be used, it is very good practice to spend time reviewing singles. For instance, when I was first learning to use the Elektra, I had an easier time getting great singles than doubles; and it was the singles that suggested the full potential of the machine.

This is also true of the DC Mini. I'm pulling much better singles today than I did doubles yesterday. In fact, the lever crowd would have been dancing in the aisles.

Singles are different from doubles, they taste softer (wimpier to the critics, more nuanced to the fans), closer to brewed coffee. So one can use coffees that are not as balanced as one needs for doubles and still get a good shot. But for most espresso lovers here, singles do not make the cut in terms of power and body. This is a pity, since they'll never get to use their machines in their actual comfort zone.

I was using the past crop Aricha, which is still good, although there's more than a hint of fading nostalgia to the taste. Yesterday, doing doubles, it was hard to identify even the origin, never mind the coffee. The shots were solid, but very generic tasting. Today, it's all shimmering honey and flowers, with touches of green tea tannins depending on temperature.

The DC has an exceptionally well engineered single basket which is a delight to use. Like most singles, there is a cylindrical top section, and a truncated cone at the bottom that holds the dose. In the DC case, the 7 gram dose just clears the cone section and can be leveled and tamped with the 54mm tamper. Also, the 7 gram dose expands to just lightly touch the shower head screw. Finally, it pours like clockwork from the naked PF - 3/8 ounce liquid, 3/8 ounce crema in 30 seconds, over and over.

With the pours running like clockwork, it was easy to check the effect of temperature. This is another area where the DC shines. Double boiler machines with large brew boilers like LMs or the home Brewtus need time to stabilize to the new temperature. The small, integrated DC group/brew boiler combo changes temperature fast enough that one can pull successive shots at different settings. HX machines can be flushed to do this, but the process is a lot trickier and more haphazard.

Interestingly, the temperature range of tasty shots for this coffee ran from 87.5 to 92.5, splitting the difference between the INREI recommendation of 85C to 90C, and everyone else's of 90C to 95C. Shots hotter than 92.5C were distinctly cooked-bitter tasting, and the cooler shots below 87.5 were malty, like toddy coffee with underextracted acids. My favorite was at 90C, which was pure fruit, with none of the tannins of the hotter shots, or maltiness of the cooler ones. Second to that, I liked the combo of malt and fruit at around 88.5C. The shots at 92C was also good, but I'm so used to getting the tannins on Sidamos and Yrgs, that it was neat not tasting them for once.

I'll retest singles in a few days to make sure it wasn't a fluke of using just the right coffee; but so far I certainly can recommend the machine highly for singles lovers.

Tomorrow, I'll go back to doubles, dosing the double and triple baskets so that they replicate, as far as possible the head space and temperature response I got today with the single basket.

I'll be taking pictures and video next week; so till then look at Ian's much better pics or use your imagination.

I'm so suggestible. Single basket experiments will start today. I haven't used it once!

Here's a recent picture of naked single on my 53mm Mini (Mini Vivaldi). Taste was actually very good (and quite different). Could this be a trend? Sure would save me lots on coffee!

Marshall wrote:Single basket experiments will start today.

Look forward to hearing how wrong I am.