This really is a deep dive!

Brilliant Kev! Thanks

Great explanation; I came here exactly for these answers. Cheers!

Kev, the videos are great. I never seem to be left with any questions as you have the nack of explaining it all for those who don't know as much. I have spent hours going through your videos and all a huge help. It was you that helped me make the decision to get the Pro as I was about to get the Impress. Pointing things out I would not have know about as a novice. However I do have a question if you have time. I get my coffee from a roaster called Milk & Beanz, I get the same bean each month and then a few smaller bags for fun. When I first dialled in my machine he came over to give me a lesson and show me how to do latte art etc. and the perfect grind size was 10 for this bean. I got the machine for Christmas, and what I am seeing is yes you may have to change the grind to 9 as you get into week two of the bag being used BUT in the last month Ive noticed I need to drop down to a grind size of 7 to get the same yield in the same pour time. Can a machine's burrs do this in such a short amount of time? Do they go blunt this quick or is it not even that? I make 4 cups a day, so it feels normal usage. Just really interested in any wisodm you have. The bean is always roasted to the same standard so I believe it's a machine thing. Thanks so much for any light you can shine!

Forgot to say thanks Kev for all your vids on the Breville/Sage coffee machines, all of which I've watched and was initially converted to that brand sufficiently enough to go out and buy my first Bambino then to mostly understand the complexities (well for me anyway) of dialling in etc. Keep it up Sir.

I had a Sunbeam Cafe Series which has a twin thermoblock system for brewing coffee and steaming milk at the same time. It was a good machine at the time. I was about to get the Breville Barista Pro, but your videos have swung me over to the Dual Boiler. Now I just need to work out how I can fit it in my tiny kitchen! 😬 I guess the wife’s juice machine will have to go!

loved it Kev

Lovely, informative vid

I got a brand new Barista Pro yesterday and immediately noticed it's difference to the one you reviewed. Mine has a single full width drip tray and no movement lifting knob. You still get the accessory tray though. Because of all your tips over the years I quickly sorted out setting it up and this morning produced the best capachino I've tasted outside of Costa or Starbucks. Conclusion is this machine is the best thing since sliced bread😊

Sunbeam has a twin thermoblock system. Though I think outside of Australia sunbeam is called breville?

Hey Kev, I’m getting fidgety with my barrista pro now, can you help… What experiments shall I do about pre-infusion?

In Australia the Breville Double boiler has dramatically come down in price. This week I bought a new machine at a big retail store for Au$935 (£501)

Ascaso steel duo has two thermoblocks, as well as the Quickmill Luna/Sunny

Can you do a video or review of the sage barista touch and perhaps compare it to the oracle touch or dual boiler?

Great video! Ascaso Steel Duo is a dual thermocoil machine, just as an FYI

Pls check out the ascaso steel duo pid for your generalisation about Thermoblocks

Hi Kev, I purchased my Barista Pro just over 4 months ago and it has been a very frustrating experience with lots of sink shots along the way. The Barista Pro actually has a fundamental design flaw being temperature and/or pressure instability. As it doesn't have a pressure gauge (which it should), I can't determine whether or not pressure is an issue however temperature instability is a definite major flaw. Breville should have included an integrated heated group head into the design similar to the BDB and this alone would have made a significant improvement. All the hype with the thermojet marketing is about the 3 second heat up time. What good is that when the rest of the machine is dead cold! Sure you can run a few blank shots through before dosing and puck prep however this only warms up the portafilter and the group head is still virtually cold. Also when you run blank shots through with no puck resistence, the PID automatically lowers the brew temp so now my work flow each day doing 3 back to back espresso's and flat white is to run several blank shots with the Breville dual wall double shot basket (to replicate puck resistence) in the Breville potafilter while my bottomless portafilter with IMS double shot basket and puck screen are heating up in a jug of hot water. I interchange the portafilters between each shot to maintain temperature stability so overall my work flow is very time consuming and I wouldn't have to be doing any of this if the machine was designed correctly for temperature stability. All my puck prep work flow, wdt, rdt and grind consistency is identical from shot to shot and now with my heat up procedure, I achieve a much improved shot to shot consistency although still not to the standard of a good espresso machine. I initially thought that the shot to shot inconsistency was due to the limitations of the inbuilt grinder so I purchased a Niche Zero however this made no difference although espresso taste improved. Also I weigh my shots in & out (espresso scale) and always use good fresh coffee beans. Breville are a good and reputable company here in Australia and I have supported them for approx 50 years however the Barista Pro is under-done and if only they had applied more of the BDB r&d, it could have been a really good machine. I could easily write an essay on my detailed experience with this machine but I thought this summary may be informative enough for some of your readers and there are also plenty of other Barista Pro users experiencing my issues. I was originally very keen on the concept of thermo block type machines for home use and researched the Ascaso Steel Duo V2 and the Quickmill Luna both being dual thermoblock machines but now I'm not so sure, as the dual boilers have really caught up in relation to reduced heat up time and are also potentially more temperature stable? If I had of known what I know now prior to purchasing the Barista Pro, I would have chosen the BDB or possibly one of the more expensive thermoblock machines. I'll soon be approaching Breville for a full refund or maybe they'll offer me a BDB. Let's see what happens. Thanks Kev and you're doing a really good job. Cheers, Stephen.

Isn't the decent a sort of thermocoil machine, albeit very high end with lots of engineering for temperature control by constantly mixing cold and hot water for precise temperature control?

Café Series® Duo Espresso Machine from sunbeam is a due Dual Thermoblock

That’s crazy. I get my pro to steam milk in under 30 seconds flat everytime. To temp 150 degrees. I’ve never taken more then 30 seconds with about 28 seconds being the average.

Sunbeam em6900 and em7000 are twin thermoblock!

The Brista Pro sure dose look like the Oracle ...

This actually annoys me. Breville/Sage machines that use thermoblocks are cheap and they use cheap thermoblock (thermojets to be precise) and they give thermocoil technology a bad name because they are temperature unstable because they are cheap versions of the technology with short lifespans. So we get people making videos like this that make out as if boilers are superiour. Which is complete nonsense. Boilers are 1960's technology. They use a LOT of electricity to run. They are nowhere near as temperature stable as a high quality thermocoil. They take ages to heat up and when it comes to descaling a boiler machine you either need to send it in to be serviced or you have to disassemble the machine yourself to make sure any descaling chemical is removed from the boiler. Most people with boiler machines have to spend extra money on using expensive water that won't scale their machine up. A high quality thermocoil machine is... Temperature stable to within 0.5c. (compared to + or - 2c with a boiler machine) It costs 90% less electricity to run. You can turn it on and be ready to use in a minute or two and you can throw any descaler in it and descale it yourself without any worry of descaler being left in the machine. And the hot water isn't limited to boiler size. They can produce as much hot water and steam as the water tank contains. A high quality thermocoil machines lifespan is as long as any boiler machine. This entire problem is born from commercial machines. In a commercial environment, a boiler machine makes complete sense. It's logistically a better machine to be run all day. The same companies that make those commercial machines then miniaturise those machines for the home market. They obviously know boiler tech so that's what they still use. Boilers are antiquated tech for the home user. A good quality thermocoil machine is superiour in the home in every single way possible. But we are still being led by traditionalists who make videos like this that follow the same old tropes. Almost every home in the UK has switched from having old fashioned immersion tanks to heat our water (also 1960's) to combi boilers. Hot water on demand. Why? because who wants to slowly heat a load of water we don't need. Why is the espresso machine market having such a hard time sticking it's head into 2023 and wants to stay in the 1960's? I do not understand it. Breville/Sage have not helped this and have really given thermoblock technology a bad name with their cheap use of it. Thankfully There are high end machines that use good thermoblocks and those machines are very good indeed. Boiler machines have no place in a home environment in 2023 as far as i'm concerned. They make no sense. That's my rant over.