Hi there

I recently spent a load of money on a Breville Dual Boiler. I'll be honest, I overspent my budget and although I can sort of afford it with some cutting back on spending for a month or so, I'm now wondering whether it's overkill for what I need and whether I should shift it on and cut my losses.

I basically just want to be able to make great espresso! I drink Americano and Long Black mainly, with the occasional milk based drink. I like that I can adjust brew temperature to aid dialling in.

I have a decent grinder - Niche Zero.

Do I really need this expensive (to me) machine to enable me to do what I want, or would I be better off with a lower end machine, like a decent single boiler (given I don't drink loads of milk drinks) and some spare cash. Or is the extra cash on the DB going to give me a better quality espresso and workflow and thus is worth hanging onto?

I definitely don't want to find that the kit I own is stopping me achieving a great result, but at the same time I don't want some costly gadget that is able to do a lot more than I'll ever need.

Sorry for the cryptic message. I hope someone can offer some advice.

Would you keep it?

Thanks so much

It's a lot of machine for the money. I've modified mine for profiling, but I still enjoy it about as much as my DE1Pro.

These are elements one should factor in prior to purchase. If milk drinks are not common in your environment, a dual boiler or heat exchanger is definitely overkill. A Profitec Go or something similar would be a great machine for 'straight' espresso drinks. But it's easy to get caught up in the hoopla and over-buy.

You already own it, so you should think about what it would cost to sell it and then acquire a different, likely single boiler machine. It is ALOT of machine for the money, with the caveats of potential build quality. If you did decide that you want to play around more with preinfusion and temps, the BDB is great for that. I would personally keep it and enjoy it.

If you decide to replace it with something else, buy something that has good temperature control. Among (a lot of) other features, that is one thing that you may miss if you replace the DBD with something else.

I've got the same machine and same preferences. Mainly espresso and Americano with some milk based drinks sprinkled in. For me, the BDB was the perfect machine with it saturated group, quickly adjustable PID and crazy customizable preinfusion settings, and quality of life features like auto on. I also did the slayer mod, which was easy.

The only downside is potentially the build quality, but o-rings are easy enough and the only other things that may go wrong are easily avoidable with good water.

It's a great machine I also stretched my budget to get, but the features it have aren't available on most machines that run for twice the price.