decent_espresso wrote:My work on the mouthfeel issue has led to believe that these are the things one can do to increase mouthfeel:

- use a smaller diameter basket. This is a BIG one. Levers tend to use much smaller diameter baskets, and this really increases espresso body. There are companies making 58mm baskets that have a much smaller exit diameter. We're testing about 20 of them right now, and will be selling our favorite. Bottom basket sizes around 44m to 48mm seem to work really well to make lever like shots

ps: here are some examples of 58mm compatible baskets with smaller diameter bottoms. These will give you a huge amount of body, and more consistent extractions, at the price of less taste complexity.

image

John, can you confirm those 44-48mm measurements are for the hole coverage area/width?

When I checked my VST 18g basket with my calipers it measured 50mm
E&B Superfine (made by IMS) measured 41mm
EPHQ 14 ridged/tapered basket 42mm

Yes, I know I have too many baskets. What's worse is I rarely use any of them other than the VST 18g.

I have a problem:
Basket Comparison (EPHQ, VST and OEM) - Added E&B Superfine

The nice thing about HB is that I can always count on someone obsessive about any obscure topic, to pop in with superior knowledge

You're absolutely right, I was referring to this dimension, which is what I measured with digital calipers, and not the diameter between the holes (which does matter a lot).

Since the Decent Espresso Machine has a tablet on it, and the machine is sitting in your kitchen, I always felt that it should display nice artwork, that complements your home and tastes. When the Decent is not being used, it cools down, the tablet dims to a settable brightness, and displays Decent-themed artwork I'd commissioned.

I'd always planned on revisiting the artwork that's on there, and made the process of replacing my artwork, very clear (it's a /saver/ directory on the tablet). Some people have gone further and written app extensions that make it easier.

But I'd like to take this idea waaaay further.

Years ago, I had a (non money making) side project called "Pixcycler.com", whose goal was to upcycle lower LED screens most of us own, into art displayers for your home. I hired a retired Dutch art publisher (she had a background in legal clearance issues) living in the UK to find and organize, a vast collection of open license art, from museums around the world. It all had to be "open license", high resolution (3000 pixels or greater). She added metadata on every file indicating the source, license, artist, photo name, and more. All images have been tidily categorized. Over several years, the archive grew to tens of thousands of images, about 1TB large. I believe it's one of the largest curated open license images in the world, verifying and aggregating as it does, all the museum collections we could find.

On the Diaspora owner's group, there's a renewed interest in the screen saver, and a lot of Decent owners are programmers. So... I've announced that I'm opening up the archive to all, sharing my google drive of the archive https://tinyurl.com/decentart and encouraging people to make use of the archive, however they like.

I'd love for:
1) the tablet on the Decent to display your favorite art
2) to make use of this currently-unused massive collection of Open Access art.

And a big callout of thanks to Annemieke Dolfing, who did all this collection work for me, over years. I know she'd really love to see it come to something.

-john

A recent post popped up on Reddit regarding the DE1. As it's a pretty public post, I thought it'd be a good idea to link here so that John has a chance to maybe reply. I suspect a lot of the issues may be overblown.

Having just received a Decent a few weeks back, I'd have to agree almost completely with his opinion. It's a lovely machine, but the software seems alpha at best, the drip tray and supply trays are lovely but really weird. I purchased the plumbed in drain, but you can't take the drip tray out without disconnecting the hose and you need to do that every time you add water or use the Pour Over Basket. And I would agree about the scale even though some of my complaints are different, it's seemingly still not thought out at all. I've had a Pearl since the first day KS scales arrived and a Lunar from before their public release and while the app is bunky and upgrades are slow or nonexistent, it just works, first time, every time.
Dispora was a horribly depressing discovery, all that promise of Decent secrets and you show up and it's another really badly implemented and essentially unmoderated coffee forum. And he's right, I believe I can delete and edit other peoples posts. It's a platform for collaboration between folks on a common mission, like the Decent staff and beta testers, it fails at what it's become.

And, it's a bloody amazing espresso machine and the 6 minute warm up time is just the best.

But in all, a somewhat disappointing experience. A lot having to do with the rather absurd lack of information about how it all works together and what pieces make no sense to purchase, like the drain kit without buying the fill kit to go with it. Having to disconnect the right angle rubber hose from the drip tray to use the pour over basket which I purchased or to fill the water supply is at best really annoying. Having previously had 2 machines with properly designed plumbed drip trays I designed and 3D printed a part the separate the tank from the hose so I could just remove the tray and fill the supply, that's an improvement, but not perfect.

I'm not said I bought the machine, but I am disappointed in the company.

Ira

To me this only reinforces the importance of having places like H-B, being a neutral space for people who just care about making great coffee. Herding customers to a non-public venue gives me a really bad feeling. Also, for what it's worth, the name "Diaspora", which has a strong historical connotation associated with exodus of discriminated groups, does not really scream transparency.

Interesting review. Personally, I've had over a dozen of E61 and lever machines over the decades and couldn't be happier with my DE1XL. It's ready by the time I finish grinding and puck prep. It's consistent, and I can tweak dozens of parameters and visually see the change at the basket, on the tablet, and taste it in the cup. I tend to create lever like profiles, and the machine lets me create profiles for each bag of beans I get once dialed in, so when I reorder a particular Looking Homeward for example, the recipe I like is waiting for me. With the vagaries inevitable in any bag, I can tweak the pressure or flow on the fly to save a shot from going bad, and there's even flow limits to not have to toss as many shots ground too coarsely. Best of all, it's compact enough to fit in a small RV, with a transport process and very protective case, for each time I'm back on the road. I guess I understand wanting consistent perfection in something you spend $3-5k on, but as espresso fanatics we all know that it's a journey of creating something sumptuous out of chaos. So I can ignore things like the tiny buttons on the default steaming duration, or other quirks that are somewhat at odds with UX/UI standards

Not perfect, but getting closer...

additional1 wrote:A recent post popped up on Reddit regarding the DE1. As it's a pretty public post, I thought it'd be a good idea to link here so that John has a chance to maybe reply. I suspect a lot of the issues may be overblown.

I commented on reddit itself, in quite a few places. I think it's better if people interested in the topic, read it on reddit itself.

Also, I recommend that you look for the word "owner" in the thread to see the many comments by other owners. A few agree with the OP, most do not. Note that I did not prompt any of those comments -- they discovered the reddit thread on their own.

-john

interseismic wrote:To me this only reinforces the importance of having places like H-B, being a neutral space for people who just care about making great coffee. Herding customers to a non-public venue gives me a really bad feeling. .

I don't herd customers to Diaspora, they're welcome to participate in any of the 20+ forums that I'm on, all but one of which are public. I invite people to Diaspora because it's the only forum I have rights to do so.

I find it odd that people have such a problem with one forum being private. A private forum means no trolls, no spam, no flaming, no need for moderation, all things which public forums have to constantly battle. Why can't people let us have our own one-off discussion space for Decent owners?

And yes, I totally agree with you about it being important to have neutral spaces like H-B. If you go to the Decent home page https://decentespresso.com/ you'll find that we're on quite a few of these neutral spaces.

interseismic wrote:Also, for what it's worth, the name "Diaspora", which has a strong historical connotation associated with exodus of discriminated groups, does not really scream transparency.

I called the forum "Diaspora" because I envisioned a close knit community, where members eventually leave that community, and venture out into the world.

I consider the various Diasporas in history to have had a very positive impact, as they spread interesting-and-intense viewpoints worldwide.

I've been told that in Israel, the term has a quite negative meaning, which is not my intention. I do understand that Diasporas often happen because of discrimination, but historically, that's not always the case. The French Diaspora has brought their food culture worldwide, for instance. I happen to be both Jewish and French-native-speaker, so that's why I'm using those examples.

I play the Lute, which is a result of the Islamic Diaspora bringing the Oud to Spain in the Middle Ages, and from there, to all of Europe during the Renaissance.

I think it's fair to say also that Decent is a product of 2 Diasporas: the food culture of France, and the entrepreneurialism of the Jews. Good thing it wasn't the other way around!

-john

Erik Lenaerts continues with his coffee cart at a local farmer's market, and discussion with others on the Diaspora owner's forum continues.

One thing we're trying to figure out, is how to draw people toward his stand. The most eco-friendly (and a good project for his kids) was to make a coffee candle, so that lighting it spreads coffee smell around. Erik sent in this photo today, of his first try with it.

If nothing else it's quite pretty. Would be great at a night market!

-john