Decent Espresso Machines (DE1) - Any thoughts?

[>decentespresso]

I'm curious how countersinking affects the skale under the drip tray trick, and how the 3D printed adaptor works with the XL drip tray. Am I right in thinking you can no longer see he skale but it still talks with the tablet? Would the adaptor need to be modified or are the drip trays the same?

You could still put the scale underneath the drip tray, but you'd have to forgo plumbing in the drip tray if you did that. The problem is not so much the countersinking as much as the plumbing that connects to the bottom of the drip tray. If you plumb your drip tray, you can no longer connect the scale underneath it. But yes, even if you did but the scale underneath an un-plumbed tray, it would be a bit inconvenient as you would need to make sure that you have USB power to that scale and that it remains paired with the tablet. Not a great setup.

What I did at mice was use the decent scale prototype I have on top of the drip tray.



However, on the third day I was having Bluetooth hell (50 bluetooth TVs announcing themselves at full power) and was unable to pair with the scale on this DE1XL (oddly, the other machine was fine), and so just used "shot time" to automatically end the shot. This actually worked fine, since the blooming espresso clocked in at 61 seconds consistently. In a production setting, that's probably what I would recommend as it's nice to have full clear access to the drip tray and be able to flush without needing to worry about wiping down the scale afterwards.

Regarding the Bluetooth hell, that was a good learning experience, and I'm working on a solution. It appears that if you use android settings to manually pair to a device, that locks it so that it appears to your program before anything else which is broadcasting in competition. That's probably a good workaround for people who are planning on being in Bluetooth hell situations. To test this solution, I've temporarily removed the "unpair" which my app was doing automatically, that had been suggested by the scale manufacturer.

– John

[>decentespresso]

"Smart Espresso Profiler's" Gabor is also a film-maker (and a lever machine maker), and his "Roasted" movies are some of my favorite short films about coffee:

He's recently bought a Decent, and is making short movies about it. The first will give you a bit of insight into how we put everything together right before shipping.

and the 2nd video is unboxing.

[steve7]

Is your web shop turned off while you are away? I was checking out your double-wall cups, but no prices and no option to buy appears.

Unless there is a glitch in my internet connection.

[MrJack]

"Smart Espresso Profiler's" Gabor is also a film-maker (and a lever machine maker), and his "Roasted" movies are some of my favorite short films about coffee:

Loving that roasting video, thanks for sharing that John!

[andreavillani]

Very nice!

[>decentespresso]

Is your web shop turned off while you are away? I was checking out your double-wall cups, but no prices and no option to buy appears.
Unless there is a glitch in my internet connection.

<sigh> technology prefers humans who work seven days a week.

I was making some changes to the website on Friday, in preparation of our new DE1XL model, and broke something in the process.

I just arrived to the office on Monday morning and it should be fine now.

There's a big database file, in JSON format, of every product and everything about it.
https://decentespresso.com/js/data/decent_products.js

If there's anything invalid in that data file, JavaScript chokes.

PS: the reason I gave the link to the file above is that it's very much meant to be used by other people who might want to tap into our parts database.

– John

[>decentespresso]

Tying God shots to profiles

I’ve been giving some thought about how God shots and profile should be tied together. I frequently make several gunshot references of the same profile, as I’m dialing-in the grind and dose each one named like this:

• Gentle and Sweet
• Gentle and Sweet 2
• Gentle and Sweet 3
• Gentle and Sweet 4
• etc…

What I’m thinking of doing, is making it so that if a God shot exists with exactly the same name as a profile, that when you load the profile, the corresponding god shot reference is automatically loaded.

The thinking behind this is:

• the current three color line on the chart, shows what the machine will do (ie the profile)
• the god shot reference shows what the puck should do

in an ideal world, they should be the same, we all know that the coffee puck calls the shots. :-)

The upside of my doing this feature is that the god shot reference would give you a real reference line to follow, in trying to dialing in this new profile you just loaded.

The downside is that you would have more lines on the page, and that can cause confusion. You need to be able to understand or ignore all those lines.

The eventual goal I have is to ship the decent espresso machine with god shot references for all of the Factory included profiles. I think that would greatly assist people in changing t grind and dose as appropriate for each recipe.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this idea.…

– John

[level3ninja]

Sounds like a good idea, though like you say extra lines can be confusing. I suggest a master on/off toggle, as well as an additional toggle in each profile OR god shot. So either every profile or every god shot would have a toggle to turn an individual good shot loading automatically. Gives people options to have a particular shot they want to chase and maybe another profile they just want to run and not worry too much, or have it "blank" so they can see what they want to see on its own.

Out of curiosity what would the overlay look like?

[>decentespresso]

Out of curiosity what would the overlay look like?

Here's an example of what the screen looks like before you pull a shot, if you have a God shot loaded.



On the top chart, which shows pressure, the pale thick green line shows the pressure curve of the previous shot which I decided was a God shot reference.

Note how the three color (even thicker) line behind it, which is the profile definition, is a bit different. The reason is that preinfusion is set to timeout at a maximum of 20 seconds *or* a four bar threshold. In practice, that 20 second timeout never happens, and the four bar threshold causes preinfusion to end around 12 seconds.

Also note, that the profile decline to six bar (the reddish colored component of the line), doesn't happen for long on my reference shots. There is only a slight decline for a few seconds, because my reference shot was pulled to only 28 seconds when it reached the shot weight (2:1) I desired, and then stopped by weight.

The middle chart is showing water in (blue line) and espresso coffee out (brown line) as flow rates in mL/s. Slowly rising flow indicates a little bit of acidity in the cup, whereas greatly accelerating flow indicates a lot of acidity, probably unpleasant. If you want to reduce acidity, you want flow to remain at the same rate throughout the main extraction. You could do that by lowering the pressure faster and sooner on this shot.

Finally, the bottom chart shows what temperature the puck was that for this shot. The declining temperature probably indicates that I had just previously made a 98º blooming espresso, and not waited long enough for the group had to cool, So the beginning of the shot was a bit warmer than it should've been. I should've flushed the group head for a few seconds when changing between radically different temperature profiles.

One last note: the X axis for the Pressure chart doesn't match the other 2, because the Profile is much time-longer. It has almost 55s of potential run-time, whereas the actual reference shot ran to 28s, which you can see as the X axis for Flow and Temperature. I probably should lock all X axis to the same range to help readability.

-john

[>decentespresso]

&quot;Flow delta&quot; experimental feature



Yesterday I enabled a new experimental feature in the Decent tablet software, showing you the change in flow rate. In other words, the Delta or the first derivative of the flow rate. At the moment, you need to be technical enough to edit the config text file, to enable this feature.

A new line, thin and blue, will now appear on the bottom of your chart.

If a channel opens up in your puck, and gets repaired, you should see this as a spike on this thin blue line.

This is a feature I had about two years ago in the software, but I disabled it because our flow measurements became too slow and smooth as part of Algorithmic changes, to notice fast changes in flow.

However, since Ray has revisited and completely reconceived how we measure flow, I believe the measurements are now fast and responsive enough to track flow changes meaningfully.

Note that this line does not appear:
- when flow changes are negative, such as when you transition from preinfusion to infusion and the puck is compressed.
- During preinfusion at all, since the puck is absorbing all water, flow changes would be meaningless.
- That's why in the chart above the line only starts at around 15 seconds.
- If this turns out to be a useful feature, I can certainly enable as a checkbox for people, so you don't have to be technical to turn it on.

-john

[>decentespresso]

Our backlog, new models, explained



Over on Coffeeforums.co.uk I was asked to explain when the DE1+ is going to be available, what our backlog looks like, why we say we have "300" machines available, etc...

Unfortunately, we are a strange company that actually builds things ourselves, so we don't suddenly have 300 machines in stock arriving in a container from some far away factory.

We make 20 machines ourselves each week, and those go out to people who have paid.

When the website announced that we had 500 DE1PRO machines "available" this meant that we had purchased parts to be able to build 500 machines. We then went about building them, shipping them to people who had bought DE1PRO machines already. We have sold 170 DE1PRO machine so far, and shipped 140 of them. Thus, our backlog is only 30 machines and I expect that we will be having inventory of DE1PRO machines in about two weeks, so that people who order a DE1PRO get one right away.

Next week, I will be offering a lower cost DE1PRO (A$4467 vs A$5084 [vs A$3850 for the DE1+] ), for those who do not need the refill kit. That it is basically a DE1+ but with improved internals, IMS filter screen, and a mirrored backsplash panel.

I will also be offering the DE1XL model (A$5583) at that time.
People who buy a DE1XL will immediately receive a DE1PRO from us. Then, in about 10 weeks, they'll receive a "refit kit" to convert their PRO model into an XL. It's a 30 minute job, and we'll provide the tools (wrench and screwdrivers) to do it. You'll also be able to convert the XL back into a PRO, if you want to travel with it, in the suitcase we provide.

Depending on how successful (or not) this lower-priced DE1PRO model is (and the DE1XL), the DE1+ will go up for sale as soon as possible if we are keeping up with orders as they come in.

The good news is that once the DE1+ is available for buying on our website, it will ship immediately. You won't have to wait like everyone else has had to before you.

To the people who bought (or will buy) a DE1CAFE, we will ship a DE1PRO immediately to them, and then swap it for a DE1CAFE, at no cost, when the café model is available. We're still working on the R&D for the café model, so I don't have a ship date for that yet.

– John

[TampIt]

... and having received my DE1Pro a short time ago - preliminary impression - well engineered / superb build - worth the wait for the V1.1 group (drier pucks with a little low pressure water "on the top" to keep the machine cleaner). Still the only "out of the box" machine I know of where the water tastes the same direct from my rainwater tank or via the Pro. Still awaiting the catering & plumbing kit so it is still a standalone machine at present.

Having had more than a few family and close friend medical emergencies recently (much more and Fiona Stanley Hospital will have a camping stretcher in the waiting room of their cardio unit with my name on it) at present I have not had the time to put the beast through its paces in any serious fashion yet (sigh).

Having said that, the first shot (using the Pro's shipped default and the setup from my Vario for that light roast in my other machine) was spectacularly good - I expected a sink shot and would have been quite happy with "just drinkable". So far the Pro is very responsive to variations on dose and grind (more precise than the four Stradas I know first hand), not to mention tinkering with the temperature and pressure settings. Short term I am effectively treating it as a Strada in the sense that I spent 4 1/2 months "way back when" getting a Strada to dance so I am rediscovering old pressure / temp settings anew. Time will tell if the Pro can equal my beloved Electra / friend's Cremina manual levers - IMO neither my 220V GS3 or the "friend's cafe Stradas" can, even after a couple of years experience with them.

One welcome feature - the Pro keeps itself very clean if you pre and post flush (which I always do anyway). It actually has a "hot water flush" menu tab along with espresso etc which makes that so simple. In fact the Pro is a very simple machine to use in general, especially if you wish to just repeat your last setting - well done John on the interface.

I will do a far more thorough review (probably a new thread - this one is lengthy) once I have a chance to do some serious playing.

TampIt
PS: The case is a really good idea if you wish to transport the Pro (or 1+, cafe) around. It only takes a couple of minutes to pack it up / unpack it after the first move. 4 moves and only about 20 shots so far - and only one sink shot when I pushed the pressure too far for the grind and did a gusher (i.e. when testing the limit, I found it).

[gc]

Looking forward to reading your experiences TampIt

[>decentespresso]

Still the only "out of the box" machine I know of where the water tastes the same direct from my rainwater tank or via the Pro. Still awaiting the catering & plumbing kit so it is still a standalone machine at present.

I don't think anybody has done this test before, nor made this comment. It pleases me immensely to see you write that.

One reason we totally blew our budget for making a low-cost machine is that I was unwilling to go with lower-cost materials that might color the water flavor.

At one point in the machine's design, we absolutely needed something like plastic that could be molded into shapes, but I was very uneasy with this from a water taste standpoint.

After testing many different materials, we ended up using an exotic resin called "Ultem" which is often used in human body implants. Here is more information about it:
https://www.sabic.com/en/products/sp...ns/ultem-resin

Ultem is amazing and expensive stuff, and I'm glad to hear that you can taste the difference. I don't know of any other espresso machine that uses it.

Here's a photo of our "main manifold", where many of the sensors and valves come together. The amber colored material is Ultem.



-john

[TampIt]

I don't think anybody has done this test before, nor made this comment. It pleases me immensely to see you write that.

One reason we totally blew our budget for making a low-cost machine is that I was unwilling to go with lower-cost materials that might color the water flavor.

At one point in the machine's design, we absolutely needed something like plastic that could be molded into shapes, but I was very uneasy with this from a water taste standpoint.

After testing many different materials, we ended up using an exotic resin called "Ultem" which is often used in human body implants. Here is more information about it:
https://www.sabic.com/en/products/sp...ns/ultem-resin

Ultem is amazing and expensive stuff, and I'm glad to hear that you can taste the difference. I don't know of any other espresso machine that uses it.

Here's a photo of our "main manifold", where many of the sensors and valves come together. The amber colored material is Ultem.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21406[/ATTACH]

-john

G'day John

"It pleases me immensely to see you write that."

As I pointed out to you quite a while back I merely call it as I see it. BTW, I am surprised that no one bothered to do that test at your end. FWIW, I expected at the very least a little metallic taste (most new stainless has that as a "bonus" unless it is really high grade).

That water "direct / via machine" test is the first thing I do with any new machine and repeat later when setting up any cafe. Tells you instantly if cleaning is merely desirable or, more often, utterly essential. A number of new machines seriously taint the water until they bed in (and some never manage to get it close) - the Decent didn't seem to do anything at all to the water.

Then I got curious (i.e. as usual for me) and poured a whole espresso glass worth of water through the group, covered it, let it come down to room temp and did a direct comparison with the water from the container I used to fill the machine - no difference I could detect. Impressive - especially as that is doubly filtered rainwater which reveals any taste aberration with excruciating clarity.

Take a well earned bow (shared with "Ultem"?).

A quick update as to the (limited) coffee progress:

Finally I had some guests around and, as I fully expected, the Decent can do a dozen "widely varying espresso variants" (from 7g singles through to 20g doubles) on the trot without noticing the workload*. To me that puts it above any manual lever (and a lot of domestic machines) I know in terms of "guest usability / availability". Two of them are "manual coffee fanatics" who cannot abide the kind of "tablet technology" the Decent represents. All were suitably impressed with their cuppas - or being polite - although I made quite a few second cuppas later.

This is not a machine which will take a few days to tame fully. The depth & quality of any given roast combined with the Decent's ability to tinker in order get the best out of whatever it may be is extraordinary. It reminds me of Tim Wendleboe's comment about the Strada. I cannot remember his exact words, however he stated that is very easy to lose your frame of reference and become lost amidst the options. Add flow profiling to the Strada's already huge range of options and I can see that I will need to have a standard machine around as a returning / starting point for a while (just as I did with the Strada all those years ago).

To me that makes the Decent an intriguing toy to live with.

Sleep deprived and in a "give me coffee now and no one gets hurt" frame of mind? Simply one preset away from instant gratification.

Then there is the "how far do you want to push what today?" feeling. The Decent accommodates that with aplomb.

TampIt
*Disclaimer / confession - I used my other machine as a milk frother, just as I have for years when I had my manual lever Electra for the coffee plus a variety of other machines (2 group La Pavoni, Silvia, 220V GS3) - mostly purchased in a vain attempt to match the Electra's coffee quality plus success in handling "multiple guest workload".
Three reasons
a) the Pro cannot "shoot and froth" at the same time (yet). That is the main reason I hesitated before buying the toy - eventually "coffee curiosity" trumped my "wait for it to do both at once" patience. I prefer to be able to combine the milk & shot within 5 seconds (hopefully under a second).
b) this micro kitchen means that the only place the Decent fits makes the "right handed steam wand" virtually inaccessible anyway.
c) I have only used the Decent milk wand once just after unpacking it. It damn near blew a hole in my 300ml jug. Lack of steam power is not an issue! When things calm down here I may temporarily move the machine to the main workbench and have another attempt using a 600ml jug and get a feel for how it froths. Not a priority at all for now.