Hi everyone,

I am currently looking for my first proper machine. I have no experience in espresso brewing, but I would love to finally get the hang of it (so I am less reliant on coffee shops). My budget would be max. 1100 euros.

I cannot decide between the lelit Elizabeth and the Bellezza Chiara (both around 1100 euros). Both offer steaming and brewing at the same time, pre infusion and a pid. However I often read about lelits bad quality control (everything is a little bit whacky) on the other side the Chiara has a E61, which I read takes ages to heat up (30-45 mins).

Anyone has some experience with any of these machines?

I would never own a machine that takes 40 minutes to warm up, it doesn't suit the way I make espresso. But other people use their machines differently and that may be fine for them. I have a Lelit Anna, it has been perfectly reliable for 2 years. So I can confidently say that given a sample size of 1, Lelit makes reliable machines. Seriously, getting any sort of accurate statistics for reliability is extremely difficult.

I actually havnt looked into this one. I was kinda focused on the 'traditional' (mostly Italian) brands. I will give sage a look

It's often discussed here as BDB or Breville Dual Boiler.

Bellezza is as far from a traditional italian machine as the Breville Dual Boiler. It is manufactured in China as well.

There's défi something intriguing about that Bellezza Chiara...

Looks much better than the Elizabeth IMO. The PID, shot timer, preinfusion time adjustabilty in an entry HX is quite appealing. They seem to claim the E61 group is stainless steel... although it's possible, it could be wrong. E61 groups are chromed brass usually. Only the mushroom can sometimes be SS.

What is unknown abouy this machine, at least here in North America is the ease of controlling the brew temperature. Usually, a PID in a HX systeme isn't enough to keep the group at a cool enough temperature at idle or for consecutive shot. A E61 thermometer can greatly help.

I don't know how much more the Mara X is but that's the machine I would consider vs the Chiara.

Just a thought.

My personal preferences in this price range (and up to around the 2000€ range) would be with the Sage "BDB". It has excellent stability and repeatability, making learning a lot easier. Its variable preinfusion and, with simple mods, extraction profiling can improve your espresso over the other machines in this price range. You usually don't get that much stability, repeatability, and flexibility until into the 2500€ range or so.

As I enjoy medium and lighter roasts, the variable preinfusion of the Lelit Elizabeth would draw me to it as my distant second choice.

HX machines, with one notable exception that I know of, require some to a lot of manual management of temperature. A PID on the steam boiler doesn't help this much, if at all. You still need to flush before most every shot. There have been attempts to twist the E61 HX system, developed for busy cafes in the 1960s, into something more home friendly. Many of them have significant usability issues. The one exception is the Lelit MaraX with its unique temperature management system. If you absolutely insist on an E61-style machine, this would be a good one to look at, especially without significant experience working with an E61 HX. For any other E61 HX, you should budget for a group-head thermometer. The EricS one that I have used runs a little over US$100 right now.

The "stainless steel" rings a bell like ECM, who use a German word to describe the mushroom. which sometimes gets translated as "bell", which sometimes gets interpreted as E61 group head.

https://bellezza-espresso.de/?lang=en indicates established in 2017, and gives as an address

Bellezza Espresso Machines GmbH
Hertzstrasse 10
69126 Heidelberg

https://www.ecm.de/en/contact/ gives

Espresso Coffee Machines Manufacture GmbH
Dilsberger Straße 68
D-69151 Neckargemünd/Heidelberg

Certainly an interesting coincidence, previously noted at Bellezza espresso machines

A site like https://www.kaffee-netz.de/threads/bell ... en.132291/ may have more insight, especially with patience in translation.

A connection to ECM may be intended, but while ECM produces its machines in Italy and Germany, Bellezza is a company which imports Chinese made machines and disguises their origin by the label "progettato in Heidelberg".

Because of this Bellezza is not well respected on the German kaffee-netz though their products seem to offer many features for their price point.

Slow_Scale wrote:Hi everyone,

I am currently looking for my first proper Maschine. I have no experience in espresso brewing, but I would love to finally get the hang of it (so I am less reliant on coffee shops). My budget would be max. 1100 euros.

I cannot decide between the lelit Elizabeth and the Bellezza Chiara (both around 1100 euros). Both offer steaming and brewing at the same time, pre infusion and a pid. However I often read about lelits bad quality control (everything is a little bit whacky) on the other side the Chiara has a E61, which I read takes ages to heat up (30-45 mins).

Anyone has some experience with any of these mashines?

Edit:
I posted a reply, but somehow the message got lost and only the quote-unquote part remained, not sure what I did, but my take was essentially the same as Jeff's.
A Hx with E61 group typically requires thermal management by cooling flushes, PID or not and I wouldn't expect the Chiara to be any different.

The Elizabeth is a dual boiler with a very clever preinfusion that uses the steam boiler as the pressure source. You can set both the brew temp and the steam temp individually.

I feel that the Elizabeth and the Sage DB both can't be beaten for the features that actually make a difference vs the money spent.