i will admit, I am a newbie but eager and willing to learn. I will be purchasing a Decent De1 white xl as soon as I receive notification the the Niche grinder I ordered shipped. I have a Saeco Xelsis Superauto which I used for number of years but I want great coffee and have the time and desire for the hobby now that I am retiring. I have never been able to pull a good shot on the Saeco and it is used mostly for Americano's and Lungos. I have never been able to pull the different flavors out of different beans so I typically just use KoffeKult beans. Given this, here is the advice I would like from Decent Owners:

1) What two beans do you recommend I start out with? (One should be a chocolatey comfort blend like full cycle or GMC. The other should be something with a different taste profile or a different comfort blend)
2) What two profiles would you suggest what are the suggested starting variables (e.g. dosage, temperature yield .. etc)

I will stick with just these two beans and profiles until I get consistent and fully understand the machine. My goal will to get a consistent "normalized shot" nailed down using the two profile then tweak the variables (one at a time) to understand how each variable affects taste. I will be testing the shots straight, as an americano and in milk drinks.

I really just want to minimize frustrations at the beginning. Anything will probably be better than what I can make with my existing machine.

Stick with what you have been drinking to be able to get a better feel for the machine. Then instead of aiming at some specific flavor profile the sky's the limit. Without searching out some specific flavor, explore!

Yeah, stick to a bean you know and like. And I'd just start with the standard starting place: the Gentle and Sweet profile. Take your time making a consistent shot before you start exploring and changing parameters (the graph can definitely help show how consistent you are). I'd really avoid the various adaptive-style profiles for several months until you really get the ins and outs of what's happening because you read different parameters to dial it in - I guess it's the basic pressure profiles that are more straightforward in dialing in (It never reached the desired pressure? Must mean I need to loosen the grind).

Enjoy it! It's fun!

My recommendation is to get a 5lb bag of a good quality comfort blends that you like - Lusso GMC sounds like a good option - freeze it in 1/2lb portions so that is consistently fresh. You'll probably waste a lot it at first, but this will get better quickly.

I don't think that there is much need for the xxl in a home environment though, i drink a lot of milk drinks, and the xl is plenty powerful enough streaming for me. I don't recall anyone with an xl wanting more steam power either. The xxl requires 220v, which is a pretty big constraint in my opinion.

I'd highly recommend getting a WDT tool, dosing funnel and leveling tamper. Learning how to use these tools are key to consistent puck prep, and therefore consistent espresso on my opinion.

ShotClock wrote:My recommendation is to get a 5lb bag of a good quality comfort blends that you like - Lusso GMC sounds like a good option - freeze it in 1/2lb portions so that is consistently fresh. You'll probably waste a lot it at first, but this will get better quickly.

I don't think that there is much need for the xxl in a home environment though, i drink a lot of milk drinks, and the xl is plenty powerful enough streaming for me. I don't recall anyone with an xl wanting more steam power either. The xxl requires 220v, which is a pretty big constraint in my opinion.
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Yup. And I agree there is no need for xxl. I really like the ghost steaming ability. I weigh 100g of milk as the espresso is brewing. When it finishes I put the wand so it is just gracing the top of the milk, hit steam, and clean out the portafilter. 24 seconds later the milk finishes automatically as I'm putting the cleaned portafilter back. Clean the wand, pour great art and enjoy. Any faster and I wouldn't have time to clean the portafilter, haha!

I'd agree that the XXL, or anything more than the PRO, for that matter is needed for home use. DE seems to have a never-ending marketing campaign to convince someone that the DE1 really is appropriate for a commercial environment. The steam is adequate, though slow, on DE1s.

The Skale II is your best bet for a Bluetooth scale. I think most DE1 owners would consider a scale an "essential" accessory. Most Acaia scales work as well. None of the DE accessories impress me at their price. VST baskets (or the Pullman, as it fits 2.25" paper better) are considered superior to the DE baskets. The Force or Bravo tampers are popular among those that want a functional, force-indicating tamper (the DE tamper has some bizarre design choices). The funnel is nothing special, is reported to leak grinds under the rim due to improperly set magnets. I far prefer the MATLOW funnel, especially as I can see the grinds. The puck rake is nowhere near as effective as the LeverCraft or JKim Makes tool.

Starting with a well-known blend and roast is probably a good idea. Don't expect the end result to match what your previous machine was able to achieve on a comfort blend. The Gentle and Sweet profile is either loved or hated. Count me among the haters. Your puck prep will likely have to improve over what you are already doing, All G&S does is waste time and coffee. For a comfort blend, try the nearly identical Default and Best overall pressure profiles, with the peak dropped down to 8 bar or even a bit lower.

Sorry for the fat finger ... ordering the XL

Congrats, you'll love the flexibility! I usually prefer levers so I started with Default for a few days, then switched to either my own declining pressure profile with a long preinfusion, or an adaptive one if I'm feeling lazy that week. There's plenty of light to medium light natural Ethiopian bags for sale on sites like Go Coffee Go to experiment with fruit forward coffees with strong flavors of blueberry, toffee, lemon, etc for the second kind of coffee you mentioned... after you lower the temperature to 185F or so.

As others have described, puck prep is a bit more important on the Decent to avoid tiny channeling streams from escaping. A clean basket that shows all the holes when held up to the light, then thoroughly dried is a good start. Then any WDT rake, leveler, and tamper you're comfortable with... I use a normcore leveler and normcore tamper. Anything equivalent in a perfectly vertical calibrated tamper will do to keep the flow very uniform. The Niche doesnt really leave much in the way of clumps, so you can experiment to see if WDT raking makes any difference for you.

But what we all love is the ease of changing temperature and pressure profiles to bring out different tasting notes. I've had a dozen or more machines, and nothing has let me quickly bring out different flavors like the Decent.

The main quirk on my white XL is if you turn it on, quickly grind, rake, level, tamp, the machine is ready for easpresso already in under two minutes. Not sure what the benefit of waiting ten minutes might be on a calibrated machine. But if you pull that espresso, and switch over to steam a cup of milk, the DE1 XL will often say it is ready to steam, and may even steam for a few seconds, but then quit. It's really not ready, even if it thinks it is. Solution is just to wait at least five minutes after turning it on to steam... then it always just works.

Another quirk over time is the pressure touch zones seem to spread out on the inexpensive tablet used. After six months or so you may be changing preinfusion time on a profile, and it changes the nearby fields like flow rate. Maybe I've been stabbing at it too hard at five in the morning when I first wake up? Decent sells replacement tablets if you find you're wearing yours out quickly. And some folks have just used a premium tablet in place of the default one.

It should not take 10 minutes to be warmed up for steaming. There were some changes made in recent to help it warm up faster for espresso, i.e., prioritize the group and hot water side before the steam side, but I would check the Machine->Calibrations page to see that it makes sense.