Yes, I read Mark's preview early on, but I'd forgotten about that one picture that explained one major point. Still, that was a pre-production model so I'm curious to see if anything changed since then. That did answer my question about the boilers though...that's an interesting configuration with the brew boiler tucked over the group head. It makes me wonder why they needed a group heater at all, though...I'd think the brew boiler being right in the group like that would have heated it all by itself! It may just be to accelerate startup....a useful home feature. Breville's website REALLY needs to work on how they explain features. They have a picture of "dual boiler technology" and show one boiler. Either they changed the design to use an integrated boiler since Mark's pre-production version, or whoever does the marketing needs to be given a spec pamphlet....
I'm still interested in seeing what someone comes up with opening it up on their own. This is CoffeeGeek after all! ;)
IB Senior Member Joined: 24 Jan 2011 Posts: 50 Location: pittsburgh Expertise: I like coffee
Espresso: Kim Lever, Bezzera BZ07 Grinder: Vario
Posted Wed Oct 5, 2011, 5:09pm Subject: Re: It has arrived - Breville Dual Boiler BES900XL!
I looked carefully through the down-loadable owners manual, and I don't see anything about the second PID to control the GH temp. I'm looking forward to hearing about the steam power from this machine - Irodrig, did you r pals at work who own anita and vivaldi machines have anything to say about the Breville's steam?
adan0327 Senior Member Joined: 6 Sep 2011 Posts: 45 Location: Toronto Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: la cimbali m32 dosatron 3... Grinder: Astoria Super Jolly Vac Pot: hario tc2 Drip: chemex, v60,kalitta... Roaster: Lol.... Pan :D
Posted Wed Oct 5, 2011, 7:31pm Subject: Re: It has arrived - Breville Dual Boiler BES900XL!
Kind of skeptical about it. Breville has been known for shiny parts and the modern look but they can't perform and do real work. I'll let you guys do the testing b/c 1200 for a dual boiler seems too good 2 be true. That's my 2 cents.
lowellw2 Senior Member Joined: 4 Apr 2010 Posts: 32 Location: Austin TX Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Breville BES900XL Grinder: Baratza Vario
Posted Wed Oct 5, 2011, 8:13pm Subject: Re: It has arrived - Breville Dual Boiler BES900XL!
I think this machine is well worth doing some testing. I once had a Breville and will admit it was barely usable, but then I once owned a Chevette, I think it was called. I got from point A to B most of the time until the timing gear rolled down the highway in front of me. I won't cross off all Chevy or GM because of that poor engineered car. As I believe was pointed out in the Prince pre-review cited above a lot of forethought has gone into this machine and the early results from our coffee friends from OZ seem quite favorable. It will be interesting whether the steam output can match or get near the Vivaldi. I doubt it will, but a little less steam is manageable. There' a lot of attractive features especially for the price point. Not having to pay close to $200 for a timer to get a little more sleep in the am equals 1/6 of the price and the pre infusion for my Vivaldi Mini is not exactly an included item. As always, time will tell and the proof will be in the cup. I think a trip to Sur La Table for a fully refundable test unit is in order. I'll get back with my experience and opinion for what it's worth.
Posted Wed Oct 5, 2011, 10:40pm Subject: Re: It has arrived - Breville Dual Boiler BES900XL!
Just because it is made by company X does not make it automatically bad. On the other hand, with the history of Breville machines in the US I would take a wait and see attitude here. On the coffeesnobs website there was MONTHS of hyperbole spread, a good part by the folks who would be selling them and with relationships with the factory reps, etc. If we lump Krups, Braun, and Breville together in that they all sell/market a wide range of appliances and other products, their combined track record in teh field of espresso is less than stellar.
Most recently it seems that the first batch that went out in Australia had a number of them with the OPV regulation set at around 12 bar. The folks as CS seemed to make it sound like a feature. One person said to cover the gauge. The factory published a humble apology and finally stated that they would readjust all the machines that needed it if the customer brought them in.. no charge of course. Not a good beginning. One person stated that it was because they used a Scace device to adjust them all... OK. And someone there actually said that Seattle had the preinfusion mode set incorrectly.
But the statement that the user cannot descale the machine? What's that about? It's so advanced you can't maintain it? That's one way for them to keep selling their proprietary plug-in softener cartridge.
It has some amazingly well thought out features. If you can get through the Seattle video it can be impressive.. all but the taste test at the end. How does having someone who doesn't drink straight espresso help sales? Not exactly an expert opinion...
If it turns out to be a great machine, kudos to Breville. There's a huge investment in R+D in this thing and a lot of technology as well. Yet the price point puts it in the low-end HX range. Back in the late 80's BMW raised the price on their cars to keep the price of their motorcycles down, but Breville ain't no BMW. I am not sure it is even a Krups... But the questionable ability of the machine's owner to service it combined with Breville's track record, the real story will hit in a year or two.
If it works, it will be a challenge to the market in general. I don't think anyone's scared yet.
calblacksmith Moderator Joined: 25 Nov 2007 Posts: 5,772 Location: Riverside, Ca, U.S.A. Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: ECM Veneziano A1 Grinder: Many different commercial Vac Pot: 40s era Silex Drip: Milita, Bunn&Curtis... Roaster: Cast iron pan, gas burner
Posted Thu Oct 6, 2011, 6:07am Subject: Re: It has arrived - Breville Dual Boiler BES900XL!
lowellw2 Said:
There' a lot of attractive features especially for the price point. Not having to pay close to $200 for a timer to get a little more sleep in the am equals 1/6 of the price and the pre infusion for my Vivaldi Mini is not exactly an included item.
Where do you shop? $200 for a timer?????? Try looking at places like Home Depot, Lowes, Amazon.com, google search. They start at about 1/10 the price you state.
In real life, my name is Wayne P.
Feed the newbs, starve the trolls and above all enjoy what you drink!
germantownrob Senior Member Joined: 2 Dec 2007 Posts: 2,041 Location: Philadelphia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Duetto 3, A Dead Oscar Grinder: Vario-W, Preciso w/Esatto,... Drip: Brazen Roaster: Diedrich IR-1, HT B
Posted Thu Oct 6, 2011, 6:36am Subject: Re: It has arrived - Breville Dual Boiler BES900XL!
calblacksmith Said:
Where do you shop? $200 for a timer?????? Try looking at places like Home Depot, Lowes, Amazon.com, google search. They start at about 1/10 the price you state.
SCG definitely has "brand image" going. Their videos are memorable, and sometimes even useful even when not buying the item they're showing :) My favorite though is when she's demoing a machine, sets up a double shot with spouts and there's this horrific blond gusher that sort of blows through the spouts with force in a few seconds, and they keep going on as though everything's fine, including gulping it down as though it's a great shot :)
No descaling, soft steam......pass.
A 1l steam boiler is a 1l steam boiler....so I imagine it won't perform terribly better or worse there than what the specs say...but at least the specs say exactly what you get, and that's good enough for the occasional latte or capp drinker.
As for descaling, that's a dealer-based decision even for prosumer machines. Chris, for example officially doesn't allow descaling either anymore and won't supply official instructions. Even on your Vivaldi :) "Send it in for descaling" is the official stance be it a Vivaldi or a Breville. Yet we all know the Vivaldi CAN be descaled, and I imagine so can the Breville. So long as it's "unofficially done' :) I wouldn't ignore the machine just because of that, in fact I'm impressed that it CAN be descaled by a tech. I wouldn't have expected that much.
Posted Thu Oct 6, 2011, 8:23am Subject: Re: It has arrived - Breville Dual Boiler BES900XL!
adan0327 Said:
Kind of skeptical about it. Breville has been known for shiny parts and the modern look but they can't perform and do real work. I'll let you guys do the testing b/c 1200 for a dual boiler seems too good 2 be true. That's my 2 cents.
Breville coffee gear has been lousy, true, but as I said before, I have a Breville juicer that I like a lot. It works very well, very reliably, and is built well for consumer gear. If their juicer people worked on the BES900XL it may have a chance :) I do agree that at $1200, something had to give, some cut down part had to be used. But the shell is not heavy stainless, the group is not 9lb of brass (E61), the boilers are not copper, etc...so we can see where some of the price cuts came in. Also the boilers are micro-bilers.... .3l brew boiler, 1l steam boiler. So it makes sense that they can offer it much cheaper than, say, $2000 for the mini-vivaldi based on some of that lone. My fear would be how much they did (or didn't) cut down on other parts. To use lowellw2's car analogy, Ford had huge recalls a while back for potentially exploding fuel tanks on some models. The cause was because they intentionally omitted a $0.68 bushing that would have cost "millions of dollars" to implement on every vehicle. Manufactures do ridiculously stupid things sometimes in order to save a penny here or there to keep overall costs down, and usually the scale of the stupidity doesn't become apparent for several years, so time is the ONLY thing that will provide a useful evaluation of the machine. In the case of this machine I suspect it can perform and do real work given its design....the bigger question mark is for what duration can it (MTBF) No one can know that yet.
lowellw2 Said:
It will be interesting whether the steam output can match or get near the Vivaldi. I doubt it will, but a little less steam is manageable.
That's almost a guaranteed "no" unless they're running the steam boiler at insane pressures. This has a 1l steam boiler (vertical), Mini Vivaldi = 1.2L (vertical), Vivaldi = 2.5l (vertical), Duetto = 1.8l (vertical). No doubt you can squeeze out different levels of performance by design (the Breville seems to have a tall thin boiler with a low-height heater giving a little more steam headroom), but generally boiler size says a lot about steaming capacity. The Breville runs close to the mini-viv so if they squeezed enough headroom out of it it could....but otherwise that .2l should make a noticeable difference. But it seems unlikely to be close to the regular vivaldi's 2.5l boiler or even the Duetto's 1.8l or the average 2l HX's 1.8-2l. Good design can squeeze some performance out of things but it can't change the laws of physics. I'd be impressed if it came close to the Mini Vivaldi though.
frcn Said:
Most recently it seems that the first batch that went out in Australia had a number of them with the OPV regulation set at around 12 bar. The folks as CS seemed to make it sound like a feature. One person said to cover the gauge. The factory published a humble apology and finally stated that they would readjust all the machines that needed it if the customer brought them in.. no charge of course. Not a good beginning. One person stated that it was because they used a Scace device to adjust them all... OK. And someone there actually said that Seattle had the preinfusion mode set incorrectly.
Ouch... Just...ouch :) I was slightly inconvenienced at my Duetto being set to 10 bar. Still acceptable but not preferred. But that ain't no 12 bar! It took 8 minutes to take the case off and set the pump, and the manual came with photo instructions for doing it (in case you couldn't figure out how to use a screwdriver or pliers.) With all the R&D in the Breville, I'm amazed it has no "easy set dial" to set your brew pressure let alone having to send it in to get adjusted from a factory calibration failure. That really isn't a good start.
But the statement that the user cannot descale the machine? What's that about? It's so advanced you can't maintain it? That's one way for them to keep selling their proprietary plug-in softener cartridge.
I thought that cartridge was just a carbon filter, not an ion exchange softener? (And again, for the record, you "can't" descale a machine from Chris's either (officially, with warranty), be it an Anita or a GS/3.) Just because the mfr/dealer says "can't" doesn't mean it really can't. If it can be done at the shop, it can be done. Though I don't expect it to be as easy as the hand-made screw-together type machines we're used to.
I am not sure it is even a Krups...
Surely no Breville espresso machine can be even WORSE than the Krups I used to have?? It is odd though, the Aussies seem to fawn over Breville in a way that the Germans don't over Krups, the Italians don't over DeLonghi, and the Americans don't over Jarden. All four are just made-in-China run of the mill consumer goods companies with above average design departments.
If it works, it will be a challenge to the market in general. I don't think anyone's scared yet.
That echoes the one thing I've been wondering about it. Who are they trying to sell it to? Who is the target customer? Are they trying to sell it to the enthusiast crowd? They're touting tech that would be known mostly by the enthusiast or aspiring enthusiast to try to push it. They obviously researched what's important to the coffeesnobs crowd. Yet that group has other desires as well in a machine and is already well supplied by favored dealers and known companies building things a little more robust than these. Are they trying to sell to the upscale kitchen crowd? Williams-Sonoma, Kitchen Kapers? But that crowd doesn't tend to understand the internals of the machine enough to understand it. And it's still expensive even for that group. Would someone who would have otherwise bought an Oscar, BZ02, BZ07, Expobar Office, Silvano, CC1 flock to this? Would someone who wouldn't have bought one of those machines flock to this?
There's two sides to any product, the one is designing it to be a good product. The other is actually selling it. It seems they're trying to forge a new demographic with this. Someone above kitchen stores and super autos, but below the "geekosphere" that is looking for semi-commercial build quality too. A bold and commendable move. But in the middle of a global recession....I wonder if their timing will end up doing harm. At the price point they'll definitely get some business....an amount of sales that would do well for smaller ships like Expobar and Quickmill who has to hand make them. But the remaining question is will it be enough to justify mass production? It's definitely a wait and see and depends probably equally much on factors outside Breville as anything else. It would be a shame to see it become a market flop if it was otherwise an excellent machine.
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