Decent 1+ year on - Page 4

Need help with equipment usage or want to share your latest discovery?
JonF
Posts: 240
Joined: 15 years ago

#31: Post by JonF »

Pour_Slow wrote:Seriously considering getting one. For folks answering questions in this thread, what are your thoughts of a relative espresso newbie (with more book knowledge than practical experience at this point) getting one? Too much machine to learn on? Secondary caveat is a spouse who is willing to humor me, but doesn't really care about quality/flavor and would prefer to have a superauto (but has said she's willing to learn how to pull shots if it's "easy").

From all I've read, once you get a profile dialed-in for specific beans, this machine might actually be "easier" than other machines to get ongoing consistent shots with?

*edit to add, currently use a Niche Zero.
A couple thoughts:
From a brewing perspective, I had no problems adapting. My biggest adjustment, which I am still making, is from 20+ years of iOS to Android. Actually, the 1.3 would have helped as you can brew from simple buttons even if you are having tablet concerns. That being said, I have been able to muddle thru and learn just enough to keep things running for the last year. I still feel the other home benefits I mentioned earlier outweigh the learning curve issues.

Regarding Superauto: I did consider one of these years ago for my office. My suggestion is to look into the cleaning needed to keep these running. Scared me off for sure!

billt
Posts: 128
Joined: 17 years ago

#32: Post by billt »

If you resist the temptation to fiddle with all the parameters it is a very easy machine to use.

Initially choose one preset - gentle and sweet is quite forgiving - and don't fiddle with anything on the machine. Then adjust grind and dose for your coffee, as you would with any other machine and just use it.

It now has a stop at volume function, which means you don't have to watch the pour. (It can also stop at weight if you have a skale, but that's a bit fiddly and not needed now.)

Milk frothing is timed so if you measure the milk, you can leave that to do its' thing.

It might dispense measured volumes of hot water for Americanos, but I'm not sure about that.

The procedure I use is, wake up the machine by tapping the screen, wait 5 minutes for warm up, grind coffee, lock portafilter, touch espresso button, shot made in 30 seconds or so with no further intervention. Switch to steam mode, touch steam button and put jug with 150ml of milk under the steam arm, position to get whirlpool and leave. 40 seconds later you have micro-foamed milk. That's it, I don't think it gets any easier.

Once you're happy with the basics, you can start fiddling with all the options if that's what interests you - it doesn't interest me, I just want consistently good espresso as easily as possible and that's what I get with the Decent machine.

Davidm
Posts: 149
Joined: 6 years ago

#33: Post by Davidm »

Responding to pour-slow.

Agreeing with billit.

I purchased my DE1+ in July of 2018. So probably unit number 130...

Anyway, this was my first espresso machine, so I was a total newbie. I purchased the barista kit and also a Kinu Grinder. At that time the recommendation was to use the basic flow profile. That is all I used. I was pouring good shots on day 1. Since flow profiling is difficult if you don't have a precise grinder, I believe now the recommendation is to use gentle and sweet. Anyway, 19 months later, I am still going strong and enjoying my espresso habit.

So my recommendations to a total newbie would be:
1. Order the skale at the same time you order the machine.
2 Order 8 AAA batteries for the skale (BLE chews through batteries)
3 Buy a good grinder. Pour-slow, you already have a niche so you are in good shape.
4 Buy a good tamper. Many to choose from. I use the decent self-leveling tamper, but many others
5 Watch the Decent getting started videos
6 Stay with the recommended setting on the getting started videos and don't try anything else for a week
7 Join the Decent Diaspora private portal. Introduce yourself (introduce yourself thread) and then ask questions - anything. Also, you get a high level of support if anything goes wrong or if you are struggling to get good shots.
8 Branch out and try some other profiles.

These recommendations are probably not that much different than being a newbie with another machine. The big difference is that the Decent is highly configurable, so you have to resist the urge to try every setting during the first week.

Pour_Slow
Posts: 8
Joined: 4 years ago

#34: Post by Pour_Slow »

Cool. That's right in line with what my impression was from reading other threads. Nice to hear from first-hand experiences. If I can put the finances together, I'm gonna do it.

Sorry to OP for hijacking your thread momentarily!

smite (original poster)
Posts: 479
Joined: 13 years ago

#35: Post by smite (original poster) »

No worries. You had great questions and the responses will help anyone else in the same boat. One thing I will add, is while its a great machine that is as user friendly as you want it to be, if you choose to you can still develop profiles that have varying levels of flow, pressure, temps etc. beyond many other machines. It really can satisfy that tinkerer itch if you get it.

5280grindz
Posts: 93
Joined: 5 years ago

#36: Post by 5280grindz »

Question for those who have units now. Does extraction duration and or roaster recommended extraction parameters get tossed out the window with profiling?

Also, has anyone played around with spacers?

Davidm
Posts: 149
Joined: 6 years ago

#37: Post by Davidm replying to 5280grindz »

I use a spacer on my v1.0 machine. Can't definitely say that it improves taste, but gives me solid pucks...

I always ask for a roasters recipe as a starting point and used to try and replicate exactly using a straight 9bar profile. Now I just use their recommendation to understand in/out ratio and higher or lower temp.

JayBeck
Posts: 1216
Joined: 7 years ago

#38: Post by JayBeck »

5280grindz wrote:Question for those who have units now. Does extraction duration and or roaster recommended extraction parameters get tossed out the window with profiling?

Also, has anyone played around with spacers?
I have a v1.0 and spacer. The spacer creates drier puck and usually less channeling for me. I think it was a bigger deal for v1.0 than the v1.1 and later machines.

I think roaster recipies do go out the window. I am yet to try one that tastes better than a lever style, 45 second or so shot.

Most roaster recipies are generic, 25-35 second shot, 1.5-2.0 ratio, 201F temp. I use DE1 temps of 88-96, sometimes intentionally dropping temp throughout shot. If you can pressure / flow profile, you unlock the ability to grind finer and pull longer since you can prevent over extraction.

There is a lot of rabbit holes here but to keep it simple, I only pull flat 9 bar shots with very traditional roasts and general do either a Londinium lever style shot or some form of the trendy 6-7.5 bar stuff to tame acidity.

5280grindz
Posts: 93
Joined: 5 years ago

#39: Post by 5280grindz replying to JayBeck »


Thx Jay. Can you point me in the right direction re: spacer? Also is there a verdict on stainless or brass? I think most of that info is in the Decent forums and my 1.3 projected to ship in a couple weeks.

thefisch6
Posts: 45
Joined: 7 years ago

#40: Post by thefisch6 »

billt wrote:But you don't have to upgrade if you don't want to, the machine will still work as well as it did originally. (I don't see it as planned obsolescence, just a very keen team trying to make the machine better.)

Most of the changes are software and firmware which, so far, have been backward compatible with the first machines. Although there have been hardware changes, the only significant one (IMO) is the hardware group head controller.

USB is only used to charge the tablet, so the machine isn't going to be affected by changes to USB specs. Can't see that tablet changes affect the machine - it will work with the supplied tablet, if that fails you can replace it with virtually any cheap Android tablet. If you get V1.3 with the group head controller you don't need a tablet at all to control the machine.

Yes, if you feel the need to have the latest version it's going to cost you a lot; to change my machine to one with the group head controller (which I would very much like to do) would cost me the best part of £2500 so it's not going to happen, but the existing machine will continue to work and make coffee as good as the latest versions.

If you're the sort of person who feels the need to continually change it's going to be expensive, but judging by many posts in this forum, that's likely to be true whatever machine you buy.
Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression that the existing machines were upgradable with the group head controller for $300? I'm obviously missing something, but why would it cost you over ten times that to get the group head controller?