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**mcur035** · 25 February 2022, 04:46 AM

Have had my DE1 since Dec (managed to whip it out of the FedEx depot in Brisbane on Xmas eve) and couldn’t be happier with it. I caught up with a friend who was previously a sceptic but was one over by the AFR article so it’s clearly doing something - have you noticed a surge in Australian orders John?

**>decentespresso** · 26 February 2022, 06:26 AM

Originally posted by mcur035 View Post

have you noticed a surge in Australian orders John?

Just checked....
- Australia has been very consistently our #8 most popular country for us
- but in past 30 days, AU shot up to #5

So yeah, likely AFR had an impact.

In general, I'd say that as of the summer of 2021, we shifted from selling almost exclusively to coffee nerds, to just nerds-about-anything.

My big goal for 2022 is having our website, manual, videos, everything we do, much more welcoming to people who know nothing about about espresso. Really beginner questions like "can I buy preground coffee from the grocery store?" are where we need to be starting at, not "what's the best WDT pattern?". 🙄

**tompoland** · 26 February 2022, 02:18 PM

I have this cup warmer from Sheldon ar swork designs for does a after-market accessories

**>decentespresso** · 27 February 2022, 08:26 AM

I’ve got a question, what are the go to solutions for warming cups, or is it even that important?

Traditional boiler machines have waste heat from the boiler (often, it is not insulated at all) but for lots of reasons, we don't do that. It's wasteful of energy, and heats up your room.

Instead, the two ways I heat my cups are:

when I flush the group head, I flush into a cup. It's espresso temperature water, and that works really well. I flush before my first shot the day, to fill the group with water,
the microwave. When it's really cold in my house in the morning (say, 15C) I microwave two cups for 2 minutes, and then use a rag to hold them, as they're really hot.

Also any idea when the next version is due?

We've been making v1.4 for almost two years now, and have parts on hand to build them for 18 more months. So, v1.5 is at least 2 years away, maybe more.

There's nothing in v1.4 that we really want to change, it's a quite mature product now.

v1.5 will likely initially be available in a higher end, more expensive machine, as it will have a few innovations (built in scale, new fancier look) but the drink quality will be the same as v1.4. As people have noticed, our competitors (ie, LMLM) are often more expensive, but prettier.

**>decentespresso** · 27 February 2022, 08:41 AM

I find that a lot of the strengths of the DE1 aren’t really leaned into and presented on YouTube or other mediums with the same gloss as say a LM even though I know now how restrictive a LM is.

That's a fair criticism. I'm been wary of describing yet more features of the Decent, as people already feel we're extremely feature rich, bordering on "too much" for new customers.

as far as overviews go, I think that 3rd party videos do a better job than we do.

For example, this recent video beats anything I could hope to produce:

The LM video:

Looking back, I probably bought a LM based on this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v1WaJsc2aA0

Interesting video, I hadn't seen it before.

Hopefully I can be allowed to comment on the video without seeming to LM bash, because I really do like the LMLM, it's very much our main competitor, and a great expression of a different set of design goals from us. This is just what struck me about the vid:

I really like the light wood handles in this video. I haven't been a fan of the classic LM rubber handles, that have big parting-line seam in them. These look great.

And the lighting of this video is gorgeous.

Double spouted portafilters will often hide a lot of information about how a shot is progressing. However, here, at the start, I can see the shot slow down, speed up, slow down, twice, and a burst of lighter colored liquid, and then darker again. To me, that's evidence of one, maybe two channels opening/closing.

That was a lot of very energetic spinning.

The steam power on the LMLM is impressive, but I'd say she almost lost control here, as the steam is too powerful for her jug. The milk almost comes out of the jug.

This is interesting... super competent latte art, that would not likely be from an amateur. From an advertising perspective, I don't know if it's better to have a gorgeous looking drink at the end, or have the drink-maker in the advert be more relatable, and make mediorce latte art.

The ability to auto stop the shot on weight, to integrate the scale under a drip tray away from anything wet, to auto stop the shot on weight, and the auto purge are some of the most interesting beginner functions (I could probably work out a work-flow for my wife who has no interest apart from getting a good coffee at the end). To find that information though on say YouTube is not easy, and usually not as shiny in terms of production.

**TheBoneRanger** · 27 February 2022, 11:51 PM

I've been doing an awful lot of reading about these machines over the last week or two, and just came across this Scott Rao blog post which is quite the selling point:

https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2018/6...ing-on-the-de1

Whilst I love to play with coffee on the weekend when I have time, during the working week, I need to pound out a couple of flat whites in travel mugs and be on my way. I was a little concerned that I may get lost in a see of variables with this machine, but Scott spells things out nicely here.

Is this what other users are doing, having a simple, forgiving setting most of the time, and maybe getting a little funky when time permits?

Andrew

**luca** · 1 March 2022, 12:42 PM

Originally posted by TheBoneRanger View Post

I've been doing an awful lot of reading about these machines over the last week or two, and just came across this Scott Rao blog post which is quite the selling point:

https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2018/6...ing-on-the-de1

Whilst I love to play with coffee on the weekend when I have time, during the working week, I need to pound out a couple of flat whites in travel mugs and be on my way. I was a little concerned that I may get lost in a see of variables with this machine, but Scott spells things out nicely here.

Is this what other users are doing, having a simple, forgiving setting most of the time, and maybe getting a little funky when time permits?

Andrew

Everyone has the fallacy that because the DE offers all of this information and these features, it's more complicated than other machines. You can put the tablet in a drawer and use it as an on/off brew switch machine. You can put the tablet in a drawer and drag your finger across the group head controller to use it like a paddle machine. You can pull out the tablet and program your own pressure profiles. You can install plugins to help you track notes and compare different profiles. The level of complexity you want is up to you. Complexity is optional.

Remember that you can choose not to use all of the data that the DE gives you if you don't want it. You can't choose to get the data that other machines don't provide you. (Well not without adding all your own data logging stuff.)

What settings you will use and how much you like the results will depend on your own personal tastes and your own usage patterns.

I like light roast coffees and I like to extract them to maximise aroma. For milk drinks, I use a blooming profile into declining pressure. I think this gives me more aroma than flow profiled shots tend to. There's a question that I don't think has properly been answered as to whether it's better to have a shot that speeds up and maintains target pressure or a shot that maintains target flow rate and has pressure drop off. My gut feeling is that I prefer the former because it does a better job at extracting aroma; the latter might do a better job at extracting flavour. In both instances, the option really only applies if your grind is too coarse; if it's too fine, you're going to have higher pressure and slower flow rate that you want, and you're still going to need to adjust the grind to get it right. Obviously you couldn't, for example, use a filter coffee grind and get espresso by restricting the flow rate. Later on in the day, I move onto a filter profile at the moment. I tend to have small amounts of lots of different coffees on hand, and the graphs help me to dial in pretty quickly. If I don't get the grind right on the first shot, I can usually just look at the ending flow rate and the bloom phase drippage and have the second shot dialled in. For some things, I tend to use stop at weight with a bluetooth scale. All of this fits my useage patterns very well.

**>decentespresso** · 1 March 2022, 01:38 PM

Originally posted by luca View Post

There's a question that I don't think has properly been answered as to whether it's better to have a shot that speeds up and maintains target pressure or a shot that maintains target flow rate and has pressure drop off. My gut feeling is that I prefer the former because it does a better job at extracting aroma; the latter might do a better job at extracting flavour. In both instances, the option really only applies if your grind is too coarse; if it's too fine, you're going to have higher pressure and slower flow rate that you want, and you're still going to need to adjust the grind to get it right.

It's not exactly your question, but when I started on the Decent, I thought that a declining flow rate might be desirable, on the assumption that as coffee materials became harder to extract, more water contact time with the solubles would be needed.

I had seen a lot of Manual Lever shots that were pulled like this, ending with drip-drip-drip in order to keep the shot from "blonding"

But after trying "declining flow rate" shots, I find them "muted" in flavor.

In general, regarding the "flat flow vs increasing" I'd answer that with two statements:

- increasing flow seems to do a better job at extracting the harder-to-extract solubles toward the end of the shot. More fruitiness, with lighter roasts, but also gives a bit more acidity.
- but the best espressos seem to happen when Flow and Pressure are in a happy place. Maintaining flow, but having a very slow pressure (say, 2 bar) gives a bad drink. Better to increase flow and get pressure up to 4 bar, in that case.

Does that help at all?

and on that note, I now regret having labelled the 3rd stage of flow profiled shots as "decline" since they don't always decline in flow (unlike Pressure Profiles shots, which usually decline in pressure). I might rename that stage in the future, if someone comes up with a better label.

**>decentespresso** · 1 March 2022, 01:42 PM

The "magic" grinder setting on my Niche

I wanted to ask you guys something, as I find this very confusing.

I sometimes fall on a "magic" grind setting on my Niche, where the coffee just POPS and tastes amazing. Even as the beans age and the shots go from 35 seconds down to 22 seconds (18g in, 36g out), they still taste amazing.

The shot shouldn't be this good: a 22 second shot is, intuitively, too fast a flow rate. Yet, it does.

And... as I weigh my milk for every drink, the extraction tastes like the same EY%, because I'm still putting 140ml of milk in.

When I open my coffee bag, the shots slow down to 35 seconds, sometimes even 40 seconds, and I maybe even lower my dose to 16g. As the beans age, I up the dose to 18g, the shot time eventually (after 10 days) comes down to 22 seconds, but still tastes great.

But here's the weird thing: if I grind finer to get my shot time back to ~30 seconds, the shot tastes much less good. A bit stale, over-extracted. Or if I coarsen the grind with the new beans, to get a 30 second shot with 18g, the shot tastes "simple".

There's just this magic grind setting that seems to make the shot tastes its best.

I should mention that I'm using the "Adaptive" profile on the Decent, which automatically holds the flow rate after the shot pressurizes, at whatever flow rate occurred when the puck pressurized. And the pressurize step "times out" after 5 seconds, so if the shot can't reach 9 bar, reaching (say) only 7 bar, at (say) 3 ml/s, then the shot runs to 36g in cup, at 3 ml/s.

That's why this profile is called "Adaptive" -- it adapts to whatever flow rate was achievable, in a reasonable amount of time, during the pressurize step.

I'm wondering if others have experienced something similar?

As an aside, ever since I've thought of the idea, I've wanted a T-shirt that says "Zero Retention" on the front of the shirt, and "Niche Grinders" on the back. It's just such a funny in-joke. I was going to ask Niche if they'd mind if I made such a tshirt. Would you be into it?

-john

**luca** · 1 March 2022, 02:29 PM

Originally posted by decentespresso View Post

It's not exactly your question, but when I started on the Decent, I thought that a declining flow rate might be desirable, on the assumption that as coffee materials became harder to extract, more water contact time with the solubles would be needed.

I had seen a lot of Manual Lever shots that were pulled like this, ending with drip-drip-drip in order to keep the shot from "blonding"

But after trying "declining flow rate" shots, I find them "muted" in flavor.

In general, regarding the "flat flow vs increasing" I'd answer that with two statements:

- increasing flow seems to do a better job at extracting the harder-to-extract solubles toward the end of the shot. More fruitiness, with lighter roasts, but also gives a bit more acidity.
- but the best espressos seem to happen when Flow and Pressure are in a happy place. Maintaining flow, but having a very slow pressure (say, 2 bar) gives a bad drink. Better to increase flow and get pressure up to 4 bar, in that case.

Does that help at all?

I think we are saying the same thing, but you are expressing it in terms of flow rather than pressure. Increasing flow will try to maintain higher pressure as the puck degrades. But the question is whether it's better to do this via a flow profile or a pressure profile, in case the grind is too coarse. I suppose part of the problem with the adaptive profile is the one that I've already pointed out - for it to extract properly, you need to adjust the volume extracted on the fly, too, so someone ought to make that graph or table so that people can print it out and stick it next to the machine to cut it off at a glance, or when we get FROTH we'll need to be able to program SAV/SAW to adapt, too, based on the initial target flow rate.

For what it's worth, I just have a declining pressure profile that always keeps above the threshhold at which we identified that the early flow-based blooming shots were bland. Pressure can't go too high, nor can it go too low. No need to use the limiters. If you're too coarse, the shot flows faster.

**Ajakx** · 1 March 2022, 03:51 PM

Hi, is there anybody in Perth who has a Decent and would be interested in discussing their experience and/or showing me their workflow?
I’m considering purchasing multiple decent machines instead of a traditional 2/3 group head machine.
Any information or personal experiences on using these in a commercial setting would be very much appreciated!
I have spent a lot of time reading the various forums and YouTube overviews, however personal experiences are always so great to hear.
Cheers!

**JT1** · 3 March 2022, 10:54 PM

Hey John, do you have any further information on the pump flip pulsar mod? It was on a recent video from Brian Quan and it seems to quieten down the pump quite a bit. I’ve tried to search for what’s involved but it seems to be only on your forum.

**tompoland** · 4 March 2022, 10:32 AM

The Decent pump seems to annoy the heck out of a tiny percentage of owners but honestly, I noticed it when I first go it and rarely since. Not one of my many coffee loving guests have ever commented on it when I invited them to use the Decent for making their espresso. Go figure. It's really quite a gentle sound, IMHO. For some reason if you hear the pump of a video it sounds intrusively loud compared to "in the flesh".

**level3ninja** · 9 March 2022, 02:25 PM

Just going to leave this here:

**>Casa Espresso** · 10 March 2022, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by decentespresso View Post

Buckman article in "The Lever" Magazine

I wasn't aware of The Lever Magazine before Claudio and Simone, the editors, approached me. I took the opportunity to read, cover-to-cover, the 3 previous issues, and I was floored at how similar their view of espresso was to Decent's. They are actually scientific about it, with talk of basket diameters, temperature profiles, preinfusion times and pressures, all being a constant throughout their issues.

Surprisingly, I found nothing that is "incorrect" in my opinion. I don't mean that to sound as arrogant as it likely does. What I mean is that most writing about espresso is half speculation presented as certainty or science, when it's really just a guess. When people write something like "fines migration is causing...." it's a theory, not a certainty, and not well backed up by espresso-specific research.

The Lever presents an impressive amount of deep coffee knowledge across its 4 issues, and when they write something with certainty, you can trust it.

My favorite article in Issue 4 is not mentioned (yet) in the Table of Contents, and it's about an interesting way of making perfect water for coffee. The "gold standard" is to remineralize purified water https://www.baristahustle.com/blog/d...recipes-redux/ but this has many cost-and-time downsides. In their article, they suggest prefiltering tap water with something cheap (such as a Brita) to get rid of chlorine and other easy-to-remove things. Then, measure your water, and make a custom remineralizing concentrate the brings your existing water to a happy place. This is certainly cheaper, easier, and more scalable than the purified-water approach, and deserves serious consideration. Thank you for introducing me to this idea!

I wrote an article in this issue https://thelevermag.com/pages/issue-4 where I:

discuss some important insights I gleaned from Lever machine discoveries
looked at why Pour Overs are so universally popular with the Coffee Intelligentsia, and how to apply those lessons to Espresso
How Scott Rao's Blooming Espresso works, and detailed instructions how to make it on a direct lever machine
The remaining Big Problems and Questions we in the Decent community are still very much grappling with

It's a "dead tree" magazine, not available online, so let me point you to this URL https://thelevermag.com/pages/issue-4 and please see if you can find it.

The magazine is published Italian and Chinese translated versions, though the translated versions are not yet in print.

My article went through 3 extensive rewrites, thanks to Simone and Claudio's feedback and editing, and is much, much better for it.

I hope those of you with Lever machines will give it a read, and let me know what you think.

-john

Any one interested we still have a few hard copies of this issue available.

A great read for any lever fan and also those Decent owners.
https://www.casaespresso.com.au/the-lever-issue-4.html

Cheers

Antony
www.casaespresso.com.au

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Decent Espresso Machines (DE1) - Any thoughts?

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