Comparison of Breville Espresso Machines

Transcript

I'm Ryan from Prima and today we're giving you a bird's eye view of prima's Breville catalog. Let's do it

For our entry into the Breville catalog, we're going to talk about the Bambino. This is one of our favorite espresso machines in the Breville line. At heart, this is a vibratory pump machine with a boilerless thermogen, and what you get with those two is super fast heating times in only about 3 to 5 seconds from a cold start. You also get a low introduction of pressure and a slow ramp to nine bars with that vibratory pump. Inside of these is a PID temperature controller that maintains 200° brewing temperature, it has volumetric single and double buttons and it also has a hot water and steaming function here on the side which heat milk in about 1 minute, it's fairly slow. On the back, you have a removable water tank as well that holds 47 oz of water. Really the idea with the Bambino is to offer a minimalistic option for those who aren't brewing multiple drinks in a row and want something that can just get the job done of making espresso and maybe a little bit of milk. A couple considerations with the Bambino: it does not have a three-way solenoid so there is going to be a little bit of pressure release unless you have your grind right when you're brewing espresso. So the other thing is it takes a while to make a milk-based drink so this isn't the machine that you would get if you're brewing multiple drinks in a row, but for one person, maybe two people in the morning, this is an awesome pick under $300.

Let's talk about the Bambino plus which adds just a couple of features onto the Bambino. You do get a three-way solenoid valve in this machine, you get a stainless steel portafilter instead of an aluminum one, you get a larger water tank on the back which hold holds approximately 20 oz more, and the biggest extra features in the Bambino plus are automatic milk steaming, so not only can we choose our level of froth, we can also choose our milk temperature with just the touch of these two buttons. Once I have that selected I can put the milk pitcher onto the drip tray and the Bambino plus will completely texture the milk for you. The Bambino plus sits at $499.95.

Next up, we have the Barista Express, probably my personal favorite in the Breville lineup. What you get in this machine is a larger platform, right? A bigger drip tray, a wider control panel ,a little bit easier, more comfortable space to work in, but the biggest change is that there is a grinder integrated into this machine. This has 16 grind settings which is just enough to dial in properly for espresso. On the control panel we get similar controls to the Bambino with one and two shot control, each programmable volumetrically, and then we also have a dose control here which allows you to grind by time and then program a single and double shot by grind time for an approximate dose volume, which is nice to have. So to activate the grinder, all you need to do is pop the funnel onto the portafilter, load it into these forks, and then push the actuator switch in. From there I can tamp. I'm going to select my shot and within just a few seconds, here it's ready to brew, and when I'm ready to steam milk there is a switch on the side that I can switch between hot water or steam. Compared to the Bambino, this does have a dedicated hot water spout instead of the hot water being dispensed through the steam wand. Finally, on the back, we have a 67 oz water reservoir which is plenty of water to get you through most of the week. All right, that is the Barista Express.

Alright, moving right along. Next, we have the Barista Touch and the Barista Touch Impress. So building on the Barista Express design, there are some more automated features in this machine as well as a programmable touchscreen. Let's take a closer look at the inside of this machine. Again, vibratory pump and the thermojet heating system from the Bambino, so you get heating times that are around 3.5 seconds from a cold start for both steaming and brewing. Again, low pressure introduction building up to nine bars with preinfusion pretty nice as a PID maintaining temperature in these around 200° Fahrenheit, as well. Inside of this machine is a programmable touchcreen which allows you to save up to eight of your own presets, and within those presets you can set the amount of milk froth, the milk temperature, you can also set brew time you can also set a grind time as well, and then grind size is manually adjusted universally on the side here. This does have Baratza’s M2 cone burr which is what's found in the Baratza Encore ESP or the Baratza Virtuoso+ Grinders. You get 30 steps of adjustment which is double what you get in the Barista Express, so a little bit more granularity as you're dialing in your grind size. This also features automatic milk steaming and you can add really as much foam as you want, dialing it up to eight. Let's take a closer look at the screen, I've opened up the flat white preset within the menu so we have grind, brew, and our milk here. Each of these buttons activates that function. When you get into profiles like the Americano uh there is a hot water function here where you can program the amount of hot water that's dispensed into the drink after you make your espresso. That is the Barista Touch.

Let's move on to the Barista Touch Impress which adds a couple new features. So the Barista Touch Impress is one of the newer additions to the Breville line. It adds a few improvements to this machine that I think are really nice to have. The first thing you get is just an upgraded touchscreen. We still have the same five factory presets as well as room for eight of your own presets within this menu. You now get alternative milk steaming options so it's oat almond or soy whatever you have. The last Improvement on the Impress is intelligent volumetric dosing and assisted lever operated tamping. So, there is a sensor inside of this that is sensing the level of the grounds in the basket determining when to stop when it reaches that set point, so you're essentially getting the same volume of coffee in the basket every time regardless of the grind size. So once you've dosed, all you need to do is pull the lever down to give it a tamp and at that point it'll tell you if you need to regrind a little bit more or if you have reached the capacity of the basket. All right, that was the Barista Touch and the Barista Touch Impress

For those who want the most precision and control in the drink making process, Breville's Dual Boiler espresso machine is certainly one to consider. Around $1,600, it is some of the best value you can get in a dual boiler platform. So, with dual boilers, what you get is the ability to steam milk and brew coffee simultaneously, so that allows a machine like this to make multiple drinks very quickly in a row while maintaining temperature stability in both boilers. What it also has is a thermally compensated group head. So, this group head is staying very hot and keeping your portafilter hot which is not something that other Breville’s, have the potential for higher extraction, also comes with this technology. The Dual Boiler has the same volumetric programmability as other Breville’s we've discussed today, it also has a manual mode for just semi-automatic operation, we also get programmable pre-infusion on this which allows us to begin with a low pressure introduction for as long as we want before launching into nine bars of pressure. Okay, we can also track shots by time on this machine if we don't want to use volumetric, so you can switch between those two in the menu. One of my favorite features of the Dual Boiler is this front loaded water reservoir. There also is a drawer on the back where you can load water in but it makes it so easy to load water from the front. There is a manual milk steamer on this which is very powerful and steams much more quickly than the boilerless designs. When you're ready to refill the reservoir or pull the machine out, simply pull the drip tray and turn this wheel lock, which puts the machine on wheels and allows you to move it forward and backward for easy refilling from underneath a cabinet. So this guy holds 84 oz of water in the reservoir which is plenty for one or two people for the week and especially if you like to make drinks for dinner parties or family. With a Dual Boiler you also get 58 mm portafilters and baskets and also gives you access to more commercial accessories. Alright, so if you're looking for complete control over temperature and textures, the entire drink making process, or you want to brew coffee for a lot of people in a row, the Breville Dual Boiler is a great machine for that.

Last but certainly not least, we have the Breville Oracle Touch. Now, this machine combines the best of the Dual Boiler and the Barista Touch Impress so what you get is exceptional thermal stability and precision in the programmed temperature, the ability for multiple simultaneous drinks without temperature recovery, but you also get all of those automated features that you get in the Barista Touch, like volumetric dosing, automatic tamping, automatic milk steaming with texture and temperature settings, five factory presets for different types of drinks, and up to eight of your own. That is all built into the Oracle Touch, the only thing the user controls on this machine really is the grind size. This removes every other variable and we'll even let you know when it's time to change the grind size. Let's talk a little bit about the grinder this does include Baratza M2 cone burr which we've already talked a little bit about, but this has 45 steps of adjustments, more than any other machine in the Breville lineup. We also have the front loading water reservoir and it is accessible on the back if you want. Of course this machine is also elevated on wheels so you can slide it back and forth very easily instead of eight frothing settings like in the Barista Touch. We get nine in this machine as well as alternative milk options, of course. So here's the control panel of the Oracle Touch. I'm going to select the cappuccino preset here, you can just see it's nice and crisp this is the updated screen that comes with the Barista Touch Impress as well, so from this screen we have control over our grind, we have control over our brew time, for single and double shots, we can add hot water to drinks, and then we get control over milk temperature and the amount of froth. Now to grind coffee. We're going to remove the portafilter and dry it off real quick and then lock it into the grinder over here which works a lot like the group head. Now to grind, all I need to do is press this over. The machine will volumetrically dose the right amount of grounds to a specific height in my basket and then it will also tamp it for me completely automatically, leaving me to just stand here and wait for it to be done. The machine has the ability to tell me if my shot is too fast or too slow based on the amount of volume passing through over a specified time, so that is the very appropriately named Oracle touch from Breville, a really remarkable machine.

Thank you so much for joining us for this Breville catalog overview. You can check out all of these machines on prima-coffee.com, and if you have any questions about these ask me in the comments. I have spent dozens and dozens of hours with all of these and I would love to engage with your questions. Thanks for watching.