An Open-Source Espresso
hackaday.com
hackaday.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKA2COJRt6M
For what it's worth, i've had a Decent DE1+ for about 2 years, and while it's very unlikely i'll change, i am excited to see what other options crop up in the coming years. for me personally, there is no competition, mainly from a quick-to-heat and pressure/flow profiling perspective, both of which are quite important to me.
my understanding is the hardware side for accurate flow-profiling really is quite hard with off-the-shelf components, so the open source espresso machine is unlikely to become a widely available commodity, unlike say 3d printers which can easily be homebrewed and work amazingly well.
I can't really justify the cost. The next competitor will beat them on price.
The downside is no steam wand but tbh if I didn't already have a Decent DE1Pro I'd probably get a Meticulous or a Flair 58 and that new nanofoamer pro for milk.
It's kind of a sad thing, but after 30 years in software I have come away with a strong bias that is best stated as "Stop putting software in things that don't need software." I'll cop to the fact that my R58 has a touchscreen controller hanging of the side, which is somewhat inelegant, but its job is limited and thus acceptable to me. (It keeps time, and has the machine ready for me in the two windows I know I like coffee while letting it sleep the rest of the time; it's also apparently the home of the smarts for the PID.)
Do you mean single boiler machines? Many home machines have no problem switching because they just use two boilers, one for brewing and one for steaming.
Our machine has a 300ml boiler for brewing the shot, and a 1 liter boiler for the steam wand and hot water wand, and it's great.
I can pull shots quickly after turning the machine on because the 300ml boiler heats up fast. Steaming takes a few minutes to heat up, but once there it'll keep going for a long time, and I can keep pulling shots at the right temp in the mean time.
Way happier with the double boiler machine than I was with the single boiler we used to use. Much less planning required for my own use and I can actually serve several guests a nice espresso/latte/cappuccino from the machine in a reasonable time.
Dual boilers are more common but the same concept applies to machines with dual thermocoils, like the one I picked.
That's >4,000 shots and counting... A very solid piece of kit.
Decent's offering is good but vastly overcomplicated for the majority of people who don't want a tablet on their coffee machine in their kitchen. I much prefer the tactile experience of using a traditional espresso machine.
some prominent community members have rewritten a lot of the front end using python and JS.
when disagreements and call outs arose between this group and the owner, well, access to the company Basecamp is controlled by the owners. there are big personalities all around.
as somebody who enjoys a bit of the popcorn but is uninvested in the outcome, it's not a big deal as a consumer of the machine. if you want to hack on the software, his personality is probably going to affect you a little more.
of course, somebody else may step in to give a different historical account.
A fine, but expensive and mechanically complex solution. Dual boiler machines generally cost thousands even for small home machines. Commercial dual boiler machines will set you back at least $10-30k, easily.
Besides that, there's the warm up time. Often 30+ minutes on a commercial machine, then the electricity cost of keeping several litres of water and heavy blocks of metal at boiling point too.
It's high time espresso machines got a mechanicals simpler, cheaper, more environmentally friendly update. On the home front, Breville and Decent are doing this, while commercially I think some Ascaso machines use the same tech as Decent (not 100% sure on that though and when I reached out to them about it when considering one of their machines they just told me "work with your local dealer". There's exactly one Ascaso dealer in the country and they don't speak English so that wasn't much help).
Not to dismiss dual boilers or even good heat exchangers. Both of them are beautiful technological designs. But they basically haven't changed since the sixties.
I'm not sure I agree that they're mechanically complex. They're engineering 101. A pump, a heater and a thermostat. They're rather mechanically simple.
> Dual boiler machines generally cost thousands even for small home machines.
The _cheapest_ Decent is $3500.
> Commercial dual boiler machines will set you back at least $10-30k, easily.
You don't need a $10k-$30k machine to get a competent dual boiler. If you look at something like a Lelit Bianca, a dual boiler with preinfusion and flow control while $500 cheaper than the cheapest Decent, you can pull your first shot in 10 minutes. A home brewer making espresso on a Bianca isn't going to notice the difference on a $10k or $30k machine because at that price point what you're paying for isn't the ability to pull a shot, it's the ability to pull thousands of them every day of the year.
> But they basically haven't changed since the sixties.
That's true but I argue they don't need to. We don't need to iterate on everything. Technology doesn't always make things better.
Commercially, you do (I own a small cafe chain so I can claim some knowledge here). The Lelit Bianca is a beautiful home machine but you can't use it commercially - first of all, due to safety certs (not sure about the Bianca specifically but most small home machines don't have commercial certs). But also because it just isn't built to handle a morning rush of customers. I don't think you could make more than 10 or so lattes in a row before it would lose steam.
> I'm not sure I agree that they're mechanically complex. They're engineering 101. A pump, a heater and a thermostat. They're rather mechanically simple
I think that list is missing a few of the components that make up an espresso machine :)
https://66.media.tumblr.com/2a1cfb37655e5ddc1dfa820b15eefca9...
But nonetheless I agree, there are far more complex machines in regular use. My complaints are more about warm up time, hard limits on how many coffees you can serve in a row, and electricity use.
> That's true but I argue they don't need to. We don't need to iterate on everything. Technology doesn't always make things better.
I partially agree with this but again, from a commercial perspective I guess I have different goals. Actually at home I use a Flair 58 manual lever machine and a hand grinder. Beautifully simple and I could heat water using a wood fire and make it work.
But commercially, I want the tech I use to improve. I want better efficiency, better reliability, and lower energy use. I don't have the numbers for our yearly electric bill just from the coffee machine, but it's a lot and a good chunk of the day it just sits there reheating water over and over.
It's the same as saying you should never need to upgrade your work laptop. Wasn't the 720p screen you had in 2005 perfectly adequate? Why do you need more than 1gb RAM?
That said, boilers are pretty niche for home use. In order to maintain good thermal regulation you need a decent sized mass of water. That means a long time to preheat and a lot of wasted energy.
This isn't a dealbreaker for some, but for a casual consumer who pulls one or two shots per day, it's pretty lacking in convenience.
I will hasard that most espresso machine owners are like me, just like espresso and never steam. I can count on one hand the number of time I used my Silvia steam wand in the past five years.
I think regular milk drinks are mostly an American thing.
While _I_ mostly drink espressos when making coffee for myself, I think overall I made more flat whites for my wife and any friends that come over, then I did shots just for myself on my machine.
Zero marginal cost features have some very unusual economics.
This is a commonly held belief, I'm Italian and I would like to clarify a bit.
- I have worked at a bar (1) in Italy and more than 90% of the coffee drinks ordered during any given day were single shot espressos. Cappuccino orders however were not uncommon in the morning.
- Cappuccino was invented in Austria, however it was popularised in Italy and it still is very popular to this day. It is consumed only in the first half of the morning, for the rest of the day Italians prefer to drink exclusively espresso shots.
- The drink that is known in the Anglosphere as "latte" doesn't really exist in Italy except in some touristy areas, normally, if you ask for a "latte" in an Italian bar, they'll give you a glass of milk.
We have however two drinks that are similar to what you call "latte":
- Caffè latte, which is similar to the French café au lait but the coffee is made in a moka pot. This is usually consumed at home.
- In bars you can order a "latte macchiato" which is similar to what you call "latte" but the coffee is added at the end, on top of the milk, and it is much weaker than a latte (this is reflected by the name "latte macchiato" which means "stained milk" i.e. all milk with just a dash of coffee).
PS Latte macchiato is not to be confused with caffè macchiato which is what is known internationally simply as "macchiato" i.e. almost all coffee with just a dash of milk.
(1) An Italian "bar" roughly corresponds to what English speaking people refer to as "cafe" although it will also serve alcoholic drinks. Actual cafes are not popular in Italy and they are only found in touristy spots.
One thing I’m curious about:
Is ristretto and lungo popular in Italy? Or is that also mostly for tourist spots?
The lungo is not to be confused with an Americano, it's just a slightly bigger espresso shot (I used to make a 1:3 or 1:4 ratio - in other words, I used a single shot portafilter but the amount of coffee coming out is like a double shot) - note that in Italy, shots are smaller than overseas because we mostly use single shot baskets (7-9 grams of ground coffee) whereas in "third wave coffee" the default is to use a double shot basket (around 18 gram of ground coffee). So the Italian lungo would be just as much liquid as you would get by ordering an espresso in USA or Australia (but much weaker due to being made with less ground coffee)
Personally, I actually prefer the American style latte to the Italian style latte macchiato! Italian Latte Macchiato is quite weak while Third Wave style Latte has more punch and you can taste the coffee more.
We will fight Melbourne, Australia to the death on that one.
I now don’t drink milk at all and have black coffee at home and out and I am not the norm.
Cappuccinos are quite popular at breakfast in Italy, which is where espresso is from. I don't know what makes you think it has anything to do with America.
I'm not sure I agree with you about 'most espresso machine owners', but if you do only care about the spro, I can highly recommend the manual approach.
Reading the rest of this thread it seems like I should look into moving to Australia for broader coffee compatibility with my peers.
I think this is an example of part of the future of manufacturing.
Some things will be built from COTS parts. Others will be built as custom one offs. Obviously there will be products made with a hybrid of methods of building things.
But increasing there will be an industry of people taking products and modding or rebuilding them. From people who upgrade cars, to modding watches for a unique look. Or taking a common product like an expresso maker and make it open like this, which could end up creating a market for COTS parts instead of modding old products.
As much as people are excited about 3D printing and high end technology for manufacturing, rebuilding and upgrading old junk has huge potential, as companies converting old cars into EVs have found.
I don't think this is true. I think what you may mean is that SINGLE boiler machines are not great for people who want to make drinks that involve steaming.
Many people make only espresso, and don't use milk at all. A single boiler is going to be fine for them.
Many people who like milk drinks use double-boiler machines, which work beautifully (e.g., my Rocket R58).
And, you need to flip the switch back to coffee right after steaming and then run the brew switch to refill the boiler, which pulls the temp down.
I’d still like a PID control with a readout, though.
It's mechanically extremely simple, there are no electronics that can fail, it takes 10 minutes to heat up, and I can pull shots and steam continuously without switching between the modes.
Granted, it doesn't have precise temperature or pressure control, so the only way to control the extraction process is by changing the amount of coffee, or how fine you grind it. If you want to do barista competitions, this is not the machine for you. But if you just want to enjoy good espressos and cappucinos at home, then tech from the 1960s is good enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKA2COJRt6M
The world of atoms is so much harder than the world of bits.
To be clear, I think the original ZPM gang got in waaaay over their heads - one of the biggest problems is that the kickstarter was just far too successful: the ZPM team had to go from building a prototype to actually worrying about how they were going to manufacture these at a sizable scale. I think it's totally fair to say they handled things quite poorly as it became clear they were struggling, and if I were a backer left with very little to show for it I'd probably be mad, too, but to say "they more or less took the money and called it quits" is not, at all, what happened.
https://github.com/ndipatri/RoboGaggia
I added lots of features which didn't require high-end components... (e.g. dual PID, auto-fill, auto-cool-down, integrated scale, auto-brew, etc. etc.). With basic components, I was able to achieve a constant flow rate and pre-infusion.
Sometimes I use my moka pot which isn't the same but still produces very nice coffee when used right.
I was actually surprised how well it worked, even with a cheap palm grinder.
The Wacoco products also make a solid shot, but they are even more inconvenient for home use.
Sure, it is a bit of work to pump out the coffee, but it makes for a decent morning wake-up ritual.
It's just right for home use where you're not making lots of espresso. It's simple, has basically nothing to break, wastes extremely little energy, takes up very little space on the counter, etc..
And once you get good at using it you can do lots of things that require very very expensive boiler machines to do and make very good espresso.
I got a Bambino Plus, which I'm generally happy with. There are some flaws, but for "only" $500 it's a pretty competitive machine for my use-case. Unfortunately that's where the costs begin, not end. Generally "necessary" upgrades include a non-pressurized filter basket ($20), a bottomless portafilter so you can observe your pulls and make adjustments ($50), and a coffee distributor which will help significantly with consistent pulls on a consumer-grade machine ($50). You'll also need a scale ($50).
And now you need an espresso-capable grinder. A lot of people use a Baratza Encore ($150), but the stepped grind-size adjustments can render it impossible to dial in correctly. For a continuous-adjustment grinder you're talking at least $500. There are very good hand grinders you could use instead for $100–$200, but grinding espresso shots by hand every time gets old fast.
All in all with taxes, you're talking a minimum of around $750 for a bare-bones setup that will have a lot of frustration and difficultly with consistency to about $1,250 for a more recommended setup that will have you repeatedly pulling decent shots.
Obviously I'm being a bit loose with the definition of "bare-bones", as plenty of people are happy with a Bambino ($350) and a cheap grinder ($50). But this is what I think would be the definition someone who prefers third-wave specialty coffee would use as a competitive alternative to going to their local coffee shop.
In any case, I think all of the extra equipment definitely helps with consistency, but I think one can get good results with practice without all of the extras. At the very least, one could work their way up to that point.
The extraction amount can be estimated by eye, or you can also just look at the color of the crema to determine when to stop extracting.
A scale is nice to follow instructions if you've never used an espresso machine before, but I don't think it is necessary. Or maybe my taste buds just aren't discerning enough :)
Espresso is a pursuit that rewards precision. Eyeballing your shots and trusting the timer are things that will produce wild variance in experience.
Shot scales are tremendous assets. It's a category of thing I didn't even know existed before I got my machine. A pal sent me one as a "welcome to the crazy coffee club" gift, and if it broke tomorrow I'd order a replacement from my phone before I left the kitchen.
With it, I can track my extraction precisely. I go in with 20g of grounds, and look for a 40g shot ideally extracted in 23-25 seconds.
I manage to get a very good shot 9 times out of 10 just by eyeballing things. A scale might help, but I feel like my biggest variable is the state of the beans I'm using. I'll generally grind older beans a little finer, and fresher beans a little less fine to get the nice "fluffy" output. Based on that, I'll level and tamp, and adjust tamp pressure with older beans needing a bit more pressure. When pulling the shot, I also look at the flow and crema color to know when to stop.
I started with timers and scales and rarely got a good shot, thanks to the varying quality of my beans. Learning to read the beans and adjust accordingly is what worked for me. For those with better quality beans, scales and measures can definitely help create reliably reproducible results.
They might not have quite the kudos of the fancier models though, and are more of a dependable workhorse.
https://www.faema.com/int-en/product/E61-MONOFASE-ANNIVERSAR...
The pinnacle for good looks has to be the Faema Urania.
https://www.home-barista.com/levers/1962-faema-urania-refurb...
Both of those are very very expensive.
At the other end of the scale, and making coffee that I’m not sure I could tell apart, is the cult classic, the Rancilio Silvia. You’ll pick a second hand one up quite cheap, and they are very good. Mine made approximately 15k coffees with one cheap service 10 years in. It’s still going well.
It’s working quite well. I think the SD card based installation flow could really help a lot of people who would otherwise need to flash an MCU.
Currently it’s only doing PID temperature control. I’d like to benchmark model predictive control. I’d also like to do some of the more advanced features like pressure control, wire up a scale, and make a nice web UI.
An aeropress doesn't actually generate any pressure. It just moves a column of water through a puck of coffee like a percolator. You can buy some special add-ons for the aeropress that cause it to build pressure but it's really just for generating more foamy/crema brew and not getting a proper espresso shot out of it. All that said the aeropress is still awesome and a great way to brew coffee, it's just not going to replicate espresso shots.
Their point was simply that the high pressure attachment only creates the superficial appearance of crema, not actual espresso.
Your EK43's, Mythos Ones, EG-1s etc have steel burrs.
Source: I own and repair espresso machines as my hobby and for my daily coffee habit.
That’s certainly what I do. In the geek world though, they are going a lot lower. I’ve seen 6 mentioned and 7 or 8 is common.
There is also the effect of the pre-infusion which is a lot lower.
I haven’t explored this world, but there are plenty of die hard proponents of it.
Also, this project is about sophisticated temperature and pressure/flow control, something even many/most professional machines simply can't do. So I really don't think the person who built this machine lacks experience in brewing coffee.
Not very much pressure, but there is pressure
Given the notoriously grainy mouth feel of aeropress coffee, and the sheer joy I've had out of proper espresso made with even less-expensive home machines (e.g. a Rancillo Silvia, to say nothing of nicer home machines like Rockets), I'm utterly stunned by the weirdness of this assertion.
I wouldn't be more puzzled if you'd said the best you can do at home is a Mr Coffee. Dead serious.
Hats off to you if you feel comfortable with that, but I wouldn't want to be in the same _room_ as that thing.
Air or steam, on the other hand, is a different story - steam boilers obviously can fail explosively. The pictures of the machine makes it look like it has a steam wand but I think that's just because he salvaged an old boiler - I don't think he's actually bringing up the temperature in the boiler high enough to make it a steam boiler.
Please invent a drink that is like it but not as toxic.
Depending on the variety and if it comes from male plants it can have almost as much as coffee.
I got it after using one in Italy for several days, and couldn't go back to drip.
The result, to me at least, is that espresso has a much "thicker" mouth feel, but much less bitterness, than moka pot coffee.
The flavor and texture of low-pressure Moka pot coffee is entirely different from what we get out of higher pressure modern espresso machines.
Italian word or not, it's just not the same thing. That some ill-informed people CALL it the same thing doesn't make it so.