Got a chance to goto the La Marzocco release event for the KB90 last night in LA. Kent was there to talk about the machine and the background of it. Was a fun little gathering complete with a Proseco toast to Kent. I went with a friend who owns an espresso shop and he asked a lot of good questions about the machine, here are some of the details for those interested (I think I got all this right, correct me if I'm wrong).

First off, it looks really nice in person. We both had thought it looked a little bulky in pics/videos, but in person it was a really sharp looking machine.

Dual boilers for each group adds an extra $4-6k (depending on your sales account) to the price of a PB. Jury's out if really splitting the duty between the two groups will really affect much. As an every day user of a PB in a commercial setting, my friend said he never worries about temp fluxes.

The steam valves can be rebuilt by removing the knob and pulling the entire valve out from the front of the machine. While they fiddled a bit with getting the small last screws back IN, over all the removal process was super fast.

The ABR scales use the ones from the Strada and are more durable in how they are attached from underneath. Also change how the tray is removed.

After each shot, the machine performs an automatic 2 second steam-then-water flush of the group. The steam blasts out residual grinds, and the water brings the screen back down to 200F. My friend has concern that while he uses the auto 3 second purge on the PB (manually) that the automatic flush might be an interference with production. He recommended there be a manual push button option available, the rep took note and agreed it would be a good addition.

The PF goes in and out of the machine nicely, but not many people were doing it like you might in a production fast environment. It does require getting the PF in at the right angle and not hitting any of the metal encasement otherwise you're going to affect your puck. I watched some of the LaM staff even bang the PF when putting it into the slot. But I'm sure it's just something you need to get to used to. For shops that might have two machines, it could be confusing to be working between the two.

There are a lot of moving parts to make the straight in work. Once the PF is in and locked, when you brew, a hydraulic pump brings the gasket down on the PF to secure it. This opens the door to more maintenance issues, and not just that, they recommend the gaskets are replaced every three months b/c if it starts to leak, you're now out a group, and it will leak upwards in the machine.

There are also plastic bumpers for the PF, so it doesn't hit metal when interesting. Which are also wear and tear items.

The wands are now cool touch insulated. There appears to be no issue with condensation - they steam beautiful whispy steam.

The auto intelli drip prediction is essentially an automatic offset that will stop the shot in time so your desired output hits correctly. But we couldn't see how that was THAT much of a feature, when on the ABR version of the Pb, you can just add that offset manually to get the same results.

I think that's all I can remember. Overall, sounds like the big pain point is paying for a dual boiler group when/if that is even really needed. The mechanics of the straight in PF are nice, but are all the extra parts, and double maintenance worth it? Are barista's really having adverse health issues locking in a PF? I only do two shots a day, so I'm not one to comment on that It's def a nice machine to look at with the angles and color sections.

Was a fun event. Got to meet some coffee legends, like Christopher "Nicely" Alameda, and Chris Baca (who of course was filming).

I love it when I'm wrong; guess there's a home machine for every idea, good, bad or or weird.

There are a lot of moving parts to make the straight in work. Once the PF is in and locked, when you brew, a hydraulic pump brings the gasket down on the PF to secure it. This opens the door to more maintenance issues, and not just that, they recommend the gaskets are replaced every three months b/c if it starts to leak, you're now out a group, and it will leak upwards in the machine.

Err... sounds like expensive repairs in the future for sure. For all this, why not use steam lever knobs instead? It would be cheaper in maintenance issues. I haven't read where baristas get carpel tunnel from the PF but I have read they do from steam knobs.

I'm a "get off your lawn old fart" and definitely agree this type of language has no place anywhere. It is disgusting and actually an embarrassment to the author of these words. But I guess he just thought he was being cool and hip.

As for the machine. I love the lock in portafilter mechanism. For those who think improving- modernizing an espresso machine is bad because it is not old school, classical, or even needed only have to look at other industries to see improvements that people thought were not necessary. Disc brakes on autos and bicycles for one (You should see some of the arguments on the bicycle forums). There are so many more examples of improvements that we all take for granted now that initially were thought unneeded.

chipman wrote:I'm a "get off your lawn old fart" and definitely agree this type of language has no place anywhere. It is disgusting and actually an embarresment to the author of these words. But I guess he just thought he was being cool and hip.

As for the machine. I love the lock in portafilter mechanism. For those who think improving- modernizing an espresso machine is bad because it is not old school, classical, or even needed only have to look at other industries to see improvements that people thought were not necessary. Disc brakes on autos and bicycles for one (You should see some of the arguments on the bicycle forums). There are so many more examples of improvements that we all take for granted now that initially were thought unneeded.

I don't think there's complaints about modernizing anything but just question whether or not anything needed fixing to begin with. It opens a whole other set of breakable parts. Quarterly preventive maintenance and a big expense (new groups plus the extra boiler).

Modernizing is a great thing. But typically only when there's a real need for it.

I would be curious how many baristas suffer from locking in a PF over and over. Talking to a few I know, it's not top of the list.

I 100% agree. I've also never heard of anybody suffering or complaining about locking in the portafilter. If they are, well they shouldn't be locking it in THAT hard to begin with =P. I definitely like their forward thinking, but as you mentioned, was it necessary?

If there was one thing that I was really excited to see, was the anti-burn steam wands. I figured they might go this route eventually, seeing how they partnered with Modbar.

The real issue has always been baristas hurting their wrists from tamping. At least until we realized that not everybody's 30lbs tamp are the same, instead we should tamp to a consistent depth. The introduction of palm tampers and the Puqpress have been very well received among baristas to make their workflows that much easier.