I really wanted a Profitec Pro 700 but now I'm thinking I may just get a BDB or a DE/whatever it's called. I guess I'm just wondering why there's not more press about the Decent. Enough people have it that I figured there would be more of a buzz about it since it's so new and revolutionary. I dunno. Just spouting thoughts.

The Pro 700 is a quality machine. It and the ECM Sychronika should be at the top of anyone's list who wants a solid and simple machine with powerful steam, looks amazing, and will last a lifetime. In fact, I still consider picking one up just to 'have' in the future if we end up with a bigger home where I could fit one in -- partly for the timeless and classy look; partly for the large steam boiler and benefits it provides when you have tons of people over all wanting coffee.

The DE1 design is the future, though. Once you have the ability to profile then it's hard to think about losing that feature, especially if coffee making is special to you and you are truly fascinated by it. And once you have all that information (temperature, flow, pressure, god shot tracking, gravimetric charts in real time, etc) you will feel like you are 'flying blind' without it.

Why isn't there more 'press?' It's part logistics and part politics. I will not comment on the politics other than this: people are passionate and proud of the things they create (As they should be!).

As to logistics: Only several hundred machines are 'in the wild.' That number will double in the coming weeks as v1.1 machines begin to ship. So part of it is the sheer numbers and newness of everything. The other part is the private forum. Most 'activity' is on there. A lot of it is problem solving and development that really doesn't need to be on public forum. Part of this current phase is a beta test, no doubt. Things are being refined and things are being problem solved for better future development. The whole v1.1 grouphead is essentially an overhaul to make the manufacturing scale better. As you can imagine, John is building a company from the ground up whereas companies like ECM, La Marzocco, Lelit, and others have decades upon decades of supply lines, support, brand recognition, etc on their side. It's a very tall mountain to climb but John is doing it at am impressive pace.

I will tell you this: Do not hold back in buying the DE1 out of fear that there is a lack of support with such a new device. There is tons of support, both from the owner personally, his engineers, and the 250+ community on the forum that you can message and chat with on Basecamp (the Private Forum). Few have had major problems and when that has happened John ships them a new machine and they ship theirs back to him. It's that kind of support -- really high level stuff.

Users have already created new software skins and SKALE stands to improve the experience for UX and gravimetric dosing, respectively. I'm very, very excited to see what 2019 holds. Part of why I'm taking the time to write so much about the DE1 is so that the enthusiast community here can stay up to date and informed on how things are progressing. The DE user experience gets better daily and in 2019, with a growing community and more software updates, it's going to continue at a rapid pace of learning and making incredible coffee over and over and over again.

Jay, your posts are always very thorough and informative. Even for those of us who already have a pretty good grip on this stuff, reading different ways of saying it is useful.

The debate that will arise in flow profiling, and is essentially already happening among those of us who already have or are looking at profiling machines is going to be between automation and manual. Do you want to pre-select a profile, lock in, press a button and let it run? Or do you want to have a profile in mind, lock in, and perform your profile live in real time? There will be people in both camps. I have advised my BDB community (at least those of us who have chosen the profiling option), to read the review of the Bianca in the Bench section. In retrospect, EVERYONE should read it, not just profiling BDB'ers, Bianca'ists, or DE'ers. It should be a sticky in the Tips forum. It should be required reading for anybody who wants to make a post about profiling. Because in reality, it's not so much a review of the Bianca (which is a manual profiler), there's very little Bianca-specific stuff in it. Everywhere it says "Bianca", you could just as easily transpose in "profiling BDB". So it's less of a review of the Bianca, and much much more a synopsis of the state and philosophy of profiling in general. And gang, it's only two pages long. Read it. Lelit Bianca Review

-Peter

Peter -- this is a great reminder, thanks for sharing. I've followed closely your work on the BDB forum as well. We can all learn from each other, for sure.

I've also followed Jim's review of the Bianca very closely. I was very close to buying a Bianca (just search my posts in the Marketplace thread for it) before settling on the DE1. I'm very hopeful and optimistic that an adapter for the DE1 is developed in the next 1-2 years that allows users to manually profile. This was part of the original DE1 design but was tabled as it was talking a while to develop and they needed to get machines out the door. I agree with you that a dial / knob is a better mechanism for controlling flow than a paddle. I envision on the DE1's implementation, a dial similar to my Stagg Kettle that I turn clockwise to increase flow and counterclockwise to decrease. I think manually profiling would make for a more enjoyable 'dialing in' experience. Where the DE1 (and Rocket R9) can excel is after manually profiling, being able to save those steps / curves to make it repeatable would be the perfect set up. I think in Jim's cafe analogy, it would be necessary because not all baristas would be able to consistently dial in those 'arm & a leg' priced profiled shots. A lot of cafe's having problems finding barista who can run the 'standard' fare which is why people like Matt Perger are busy developing super automatic machines that make drinks as good as the most expensively equipped shop does now.

I just re-read that thread to stay fresh on what all is in there. Good stuff.

DE1 users will likely always talk about preinfusion differently than other users. The reason for this is simple: The super advanced grouphead is showing them in real time what the flow rate and pressure are. Needle-valve BDBers, Bianca users, and others don't know what their flow rates are in real time; they can only adjust based upon pressure and what they see dropping on their scale.

What I'm VERY excited about is seeing Bianca users start playing with the SEP. Then those shots get downloaded to the DE1 and we see how well it can emulate based on blind taste tests. It would make for an INCREDIBLE thread on this site if Lelit, Decent, and Naked-Espresso could all work together.

I'm an avid runner and cyclist and there's an interesting parallel here between the current state of endurance training and what the DE1+ is offering. And that is significant amounts of data coming in. Anybody who has strapped on a garmin chest strap or pod and has gone for a run will know what I'm talking about. No longer are we just looking at pace. Now there is stride, cadence, verticality, ground contact time, aerobic and anaerobic training effect, heart zones, etc... it's a ton of data that comes in and you can graph it and overlay graphs on top of each other. It's amazing and overwhelming and both a blessing and a curse. We have so much information constantly coming in to analyze, assess, and apply towards our training to become a better athlete. But there is a danger in there too, where you stop paying attention to your body and let the data rule you. Like was mentioned in a previous post about using the DE1, if you go back to running without the data you may feel like you're going in blind. But I think that is a sign that you've forgotten how to listen to what your body is telling you. In athletics the danger of course is that you can easily lead yourself into injury when you are training to change the data rather than letting the data inform your training.

This may seem like a bit of a stretch to compare to making espresso. Of course, you're not in risk of injuring yourself here, the biggest risk is probably just loss of time and money on coffee. But I still see the potential to fall down a pretty deep rabbit hole of chasing data and trying to change the graphs rather than focusing on the taste of the espresso in the cup and letting the graphs inform you. It reminds me of that video of [edit] Matt Perger that was posted where he's yelling and cursing at the DE1+ while a shot is pulling and then tells John that he "beat" the machine. It's all good and well, and I get it, but to me also loses sight of what's important to me about pulling a shot of espresso, which is the espresso itself. It's what I love about the manual lever or about the idea of the Bianca. You don't get the data, but you have a lot of feedback and if you are paying close attention as you manipulate the shot there is actually a fair bit of information to take in and assess after tasting the espresso. This is an advantage, as far as I'm concerned, and is a result of being directly engaged with the shot making process. But as I mentioned, I'm very interested in having a DE1+ because it represents this other end of the profiling gap from fully manual to fully auto that I want to explore. I just hope to avoid data paralysis and not forget to let the data inform me when a shot tastes a certain way rather than focusing on only trying to make the graph look perfect.

RyanP wrote:I'm an avid runner and cyclist and there's an interesting parallel here between the current state of endurance training and what the DE1+ is offering. And that is significant amounts of data coming in. Anybody who has strapped on a garmin chest strap or pod and has gone for a run will know what I'm talking about. No longer are we just looking at pace. Now there is stride, cadence, verticality, ground contact time, aerobic and anaerobic training effect, heart zones, etc... it's a ton of data that comes in and you can graph it and overlay graphs on top of each other. It's amazing and overwhelming and both a blessing and a curse. We have so much information constantly coming in to analyze, asses, and apply towards our training to become a better athlete. But there is a danger in there too, where you stop paying attention to your body and let the data rule you. Like was mentioned in a previous post about using the DE1, if you go back to running without the data you may feel like you're going in blind. But I think that is a sign that you've forgot how to listen to what your body is telling you. In athletics the danger of course is that you can easily lead yourself into injury when you are training to change the data rather than letting the data inform your training.

This may seem like a bit of a stretch to compare to making espresso. Of course, you're not in risk of injuring yourself here, the biggest risk is probably just loss of time and money on coffee. But I still see the potential to fall down a pretty deep rabbit hole of chasing data and trying to change the graphs rather than focusing on the taste of the espresso in the cup and letting the graphs inform you. It reminds me of that video of Scott Rao that was posted where he's yelling and cursing at the DE1+ while a shot is pulling and then tells John that he "beat" the machine. It's all good and well, and I get it, but to me also loses sight of what's important to me about pulling a shot of espresso, which is the espresso itself. It's what I love about the manual lever or about the idea of the Bianca. You don't get the data, but you have a lot of feedback and if you are paying close attention as you manipulate the shot there is actually a fair bit of information to take in and asses after tasting the espresso. This is an advantage, as far as I'm concerned, and is a result of being directly engaged with the shot making process. But as I mentioned, I'm very interested in having a DE1+ because it represents this other end of the profiling gap from fully manual to fully auto that I want to explore. I just hope to avoid data paralysis and not forget to let the data inform me when a shot tastes a certain way rather than focusing on only trying to make the graph look perfect.

Great points and I think it's a very good analogy. The same can be said of all espresso machines and using a refractometer and thinking that higher extraction means a better shot. As Jim Schulman has said before: "Does anyone even taste the espresso anymore?"

Because I find bottomless pours one of the most beautiful things on earth, I'm always looking at either the shot mirror of my shot and don't analyze the graphs until afterward. Another thing I do is try to always taste a shot. You may think you want a 1:2 shot with 10 seconds of preinfusion and 30 second pour but something else may taste better entirely. When using flow profiling I've ended up with 4 bar shots that taste amazing! I try to never sink one unless its a choked shot that only has a few grams in the cup or a total gusher.

PS: It was Matt Perger in the video you are referring to. I laughed so hard at that one when I watched it. He 'beat' the machine by doing a nutated tamp which fixed some channeling the graph was showing.

Thanks for graphs in addition to explanation, Jay - much more informative to me this way

You bet! Let me know if you have any other questions or want me to try any other experiments.

RyanP wrote:I'm an avid runner and cyclist and there's an interesting parallel here between the current state of endurance training and what the DE1+ is offering. And that is significant amounts of data coming in. Anybody who has strapped on a garmin chest strap or pod and has gone for a run will know what I'm talking about. No longer are we just looking at pace. Now there is stride, cadence, verticality, ground contact time, aerobic and anaerobic training effect, heart zones, etc... it's a ton of data that comes in and you can graph it and overlay graphs on top of each other. It's amazing and overwhelming and both a blessing and a curse. We have so much information constantly coming in to analyze, asses, and apply towards our training to become a better athlete. But there is a danger in there too, where you stop paying attention to your body and let the data rule you. Like was mentioned in a previous post about using the DE1, if you go back to running without the data you may feel like you're going in blind. But I think that is a sign that you've forgot how to listen to what your body is telling you. In athletics the danger of course is that you can easily lead yourself into injury when you are training to change the data rather than letting the data inform your training.

This may seem like a bit of a stretch to compare to making espresso. Of course, you're not in risk of injuring yourself here, the biggest risk is probably just loss of time and money on coffee. But I still see the potential to fall down a pretty deep rabbit hole of chasing data and trying to change the graphs rather than focusing on the taste of the espresso in the cup and letting the graphs inform you. It reminds me of that video of [edit] Matt Perger that was posted where he's yelling and cursing at the DE1+ while a shot is pulling and then tells John that he "beat" the machine. It's all good and well, and I get it, but to me also loses sight of what's important to me about pulling a shot of espresso, which is the espresso itself. It's what I love about the manual lever or about the idea of the Bianca. You don't get the data, but you have a lot of feedback and if you are paying close attention as you manipulate the shot there is actually a fair bit of information to take in and assess after tasting the espresso. This is an advantage, as far as I'm concerned, and is a result of being directly engaged with the shot making process. But as I mentioned, I'm very interested in having a DE1+ because it represents this other end of the profiling gap from fully manual to fully auto that I want to explore. I just hope to avoid data paralysis and not forget to let the data inform me when a shot tastes a certain way rather than focusing on only trying to make the graph look perfect.

Great points indeed. Analysis paralysis is a real thing!

That being said, I am saving my pennies for a DE machine.

Kudos again for a great review and thread. I really think the DE1 Pro would be a great fit for me. Bugs me that they charge your card before even having stock, but I can live with that---they seem very very trustworthy.

For me the pluses are:
1. Easy to change profiles. Perfect for my hobby. (more on this below)
2. Logical controls (at least to me, LOL. And I learned to program on punch cards!)
3. Form factor. We have a nice but small kitchen.
4. Quick warmup. I don't want to wait 45 minutes for an e61 to warm up. I also just can't see me having a large boiler warm all day just to have a quick doppio.
5. Hot water temp control for my Americanos! No more steaming hot boiler water.

More on profiles: I can change options on even on my Vivaldi, but it's a project. Most have easy control on temp (the LMLM is perhaps the easiest). Pressure usually gets a little tougher. Pre infusion time and pressure also can be kind of annoying to change.

Hobbiest: I know this really varies between enthusiast. My approach is to have a major grinder (K10 Fresh) for breakfast, where I have an Americano and my wife has a large latte, and also for casual espresso fixes. I keep RedBird Blue Jaguar espresso in the short hopper. But I will order a HG-1 when back in stock and start playing with recommendations from our Coffee Forum. So I see my plan with a DE as finding my favorite profile for RedBird and then trying options for my new coffee finds.

By the way, the Vivaldi hits quite a few of these points. About 15 minute to warm up, Large, logical controls. Easy to shut off steam boiler. Line-level pre infusion with adjustable time. But making changes to most of the brew parameters is neither quick nor convenient. And any type of profiling is, of course, not an option.