CincyWes wrote:Currently the "Low Cost Model" is the DEpro. Is the DE+ no longer offered or is it temporarily not offered due to capacity and inventory choices.

Right, the DE1PRO is our lowest priced model.

The DE1+ was discontinued some years ago, because I didn't want to intentionally make a machine that had lower quality, less long lived components in it, to justify lowering the price. I'd rather make the best machine we can.

There are lower priced refurbished and used machines available on the Bazaar https://decentespresso.com/bazaar and I prefer that approach (never leave a machine behind) as a way to provide Decents at a lower price.

Thank you for clarifying and responding so quickly.

For years now, we've taken a 4k quality 360º video of every DE1 we build.

Every customer's purchases is live at https://decentespresso.com/support/orders and each DE1 has a play-video icon next to it. Why? Because: like in a fine dining restaurant, we need a Sous Chef who checks (in detail) every machine before it "passes out of our kitchen" and gets shipped to a customer.

Yes, I really did copy the French "Brigade de cuisine" system for our factory, because it works. Someone needs to be responsible for keeping quality high. Everyone that works in the factory, knows that if they make a mistake, it'll be noticed by the "sous chef", and it'll be embarrassing to have one's mistake called out.

From https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/kitchen- ... k-ladiver/
"During service, the sous chefs are on the pass. The pass is the table where we finish the plates, clean the plates, call the orders, double check that the orders go to the right station, and test the food before it goes out to the dining room. It's a very important job!"

We've always given this job to someone who never worked in the factory, so that they didn't have close friends to cover for. It's Alan, the former head of the boxing team, who now does this job.

As of today, we're using Youtube to store these videos, and you can see the most recent 100 machines here: http://www.youtube.com/@decentespresso360/videos






Previously, the 4k videos were stored on our server. It turns out that doing video over the internet is difficult. You need to have 3 different encoded versions of each video, to support all the major browsers. This takes about 10 minutes of full CPU time per video, a lot of disk space. Also, streaming a video to you that starts quickly is not simple, and we never really nailed it. Youtube solves these issues, so let's use them.

It's kind of an unknown proposition how Youtube will feel about this. They do put daily limits on our uploading (50 per day) but we can work with this. I've written an app that uses the Youtube API to link videos to serial numbers automatically, though at the moment it's "Daily quota exceeded" <sigh> so I'll finish the sync tomorrow (hopefully).

-john

That's a 60 second teaser from a 30 minute video released today "All About Espresso Body". The full 30 minute video is here: In the discussion of espresso clarity of flavor vs body, the Decent Espresso Machine has always been strong at clarity, but less good at body.

I tasked my coffee master Paul Chan with understanding why. He spent months with different profiles and baskets, and presented me his results live in this video.

We discuss how preinfusion speed, headspace above the puck, puck spacers, the spacer kits, lever machines, portafilter basket widths, dose sizes, and waisted baskets all affect body.

We dive into using our waisted baskets, along with espresso profiles that maximize espresso body.

We found that a low temperature (84ºC descending to 78ºC) was very helpful in controlling acidity with lower dosed (12g to 14g), thick shots. We discussed how 7g and 10g baskets are very difficult to pull without channeling, and resulting sourness.

Our best taste result was with our standard 15g basket. It was very quickly pulled shots (in just 16 second), with close to a 1:1 ratio (14g in, 15g out). With this approach, we had great body, but without the espresso being over-concentrated (too high a TDS).

With our slightly-waisted 14g basket we got significantly more body, at the cost of a bit less clarity, no flavor defects, a bit less aroma.

The very waisted 14g basket gave us about the same amount of body, but sweetness and almost no acidity. This would be best for someone chassing a very easy to drink, classic Italian espresso.

We show how to create these recipes yourself on the Decent: adjusting preinfusion flow rates, and temperature profiling.

NEW $300 warranty extension: keep your DE1 working forever

We've been shipping Decent Espresso Machines for 5 years, and now we've decided to radically rethink how we handle repairs after their included 2 year warranty.

• We're now offering $300 two year warranty extensions. You can keep your machine in warranty, forever.
  • We're well known for having extraordinary support during your warranty period. But after two years, then what? We wanted a simple system that owners could rely on.
• Being in warranty means we cover all repair costs: shipping to/from, any duty/taxes, as well as parts and labor.
• To sweeten the deal, a free Goodie Pack is included with the two-year warranty extension.
  • It gives you $100 worth of parts, accessories, and consumables that you get to pick.
  • Items include: new design group head parts, silicone gasket and removal tool, black wood handles, mirror lip, water intake filter, screws and screwdrivers, battery-free tablet modification kit.
• The $300 warranty extension is only valid if you do not currently need a repair.
  • Out-of-warranty repairs are charged at a flat fee of $600.
  • If you buy the extension now (when you don't have a problem), you avoid potentially being hit with an out-of-warranty repair fee, should you later have a problem.
• We are offering this to all countries we ship directly to.
  • This includes Germany, the Middle East, and Israel: places where previously we had a rather complicated policy. One price, worldwide.

Read more about the new offering here:
https://decentespresso.com/warranty

If you own a Decent, we highly recommend that you buy your warranty extension now. If you're still under warranty, we'll simply extend it by two years.

Here is a shopping cart link:
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=995+1

Any questions? Please ask!

-john

When a DE1XL is on a tabletop (not countersunk), customers can still see some tubes and cables, like this photo from Hazard Coffee shows:




I asked my engineer Alex to see if we could make a small panel to cover that, and mount it with magnets, like we do with the top panel.

It does need two magnets on the underside, to work, as one magnet isn't strong enough. We put a drop of glue on the magnets to hold them in place. Double sided tape didn't stick well to our black paint.





The prototype looks fairly good.




Naturally, the plastics don't match: we'd need to match the color and texture if we did offer this.

But... is there any interest in this? That's what I'd like to know.

Most DE1XL owners don't countersink it, but I don't know how much the visible wires bothers them. Plus, this idea only works for people who have a hole in their countertop, for the tubes and power cables. We'd like charge $40 for this, as it needs 8 fairly expensive magnets, as well as a bit of labor to put it all together.

-john

Hi John,
How does ordering the Goodie Pack work - do we buy the extended warranty and get credit for the Goodie pack or do we order the Goodie pack at the same time as the warranty?

DE1XL Overview

"What makes the DE1XL espresso machine different from the DE1PRO? We discuss the steam wand, size, countersink, plumbing, back panel, refill kit and more.What makes the DE1XL espresso machine different from the DE1PRO? We discuss the steam wand, size, countersink, plumbing, back panel, refill kit and more."

Today's video replaces one I made on my own, 3 years ago. There's nothing really wrong with that older video, except that .... it's a bit ugly. Bad lighting, not great camera angles, not nicely staged set. I had spent a good amount of time on the script, however, so it rolls along fairly well.

In case you're curious, here's a link to the older video (basically, same material):
We're slowly replacing all the old (and embarassing) videos on our website, with new ones. This video is now on the web page for the DE1XL espresso machine, though I've kept the older video in the playlist, in case people want to see it too. https://decentespresso.com/de1xl

Allen wrote:Hi John,
How does ordering the Goodie Pack work - do we buy the extended warranty and get credit for the Goodie pack or do we order the Goodie pack at the same time as the warranty?

Anytime in the next two years, you'll be able to "Get my Goodie Pack Now" from a page at https://decentespresso.com/support/

You'll be able to check box what you want, up to $100 in value, and it'll get posted to you.

Or, if you want more than $100 worth, or you want to add some items to this free-shipping order, you'll be able to "add This Goodie Pack to Shopping Cart" and just check out normally, mixing items that were part of the free Goodie Pack, with other items we sell.

Note that the redeeming of the Goodie Pack is not yet available. I still have to program it. I'll send an email out when it's ready.

Here's the current list of items we're going to include as things you be able to choose from for your Goodie Pack:

• Fuses
• rubber feet
• Steam wand holder
• Puck sim baskets
• Flush tube extender
• Orings
• Clip connector
• Steelie stand
• Double-sided tablet tape
• v2 intake filter
• silicone gasket and gasket removal tool
• (new design) v2 group head head parts
• black wood handles
• glue-on mirror lip
• T10 and T20 torx screw drivers and replacement screws
• battery-free modification kit

Ben and I have been talking to Andreas at the Berlin-based company Roxxlyn https://roxxlyn.com/

They decorate things with very, very thin slivers of beautiful stone.

They're known for the phone covers out of slate (bottom left of the photo), for instance.

They made a sample DE1XL back cover, which you can see in the photo above. They could make back panels for all our machines (DE1PRO and DE1XL). But is there interest?

It'd be helpful to me if you looked at the Roxxlyn Shop https://roxxlyn.com/shop/ to see samples of the kinds of stone work they do, and expressed your opinion as to whether this would be interesting or not for you.

-john