How to make better coffee with Breville Barista Express

The BREVILLE BARISTA EXPRESS.

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Kyle Rowsell

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Timecodes:
0:00 - Intro
0:32 - The Price
0:55 - In this Video
1:35 - Who is this for?
2:50 - Cons
4:15 - Features
4:50 - Compares against…
6:04 - Tips and Tricks
11:07 - How to Dial it in
16:16 - Outro

#breville #espresso #kylerowsell

[jakevan]

Kyle, awesome video as always. Most people recommend 20-30.seconds for brew time, but Breville has added an additional 5 seconds of pre-infusion. When reading the owners manual, it should be noted that they have added that 5 second pre-infusuon time to the recommended brew time suggesting the average brew time be pulled in 25 to 35 seconds. I recently bought Espresso Pudding, a blend from our local Vancouver Milano Coffee Roasters, and they recommended a 28 to 32 second brew time. When adding the 5 seconds of pre-infusion, that translates to 33 to 37 seconds. Food for thought. I might also recommend that folks try programming the first shot of the day, by first holding the program button and then hitting the double shot button to start the extraction and again to stop it. The reason for this is that incase you do dial in an amazing shot, ie, the right yield in the right time with the right taste, it is now programmed. I usually experiment on myself for the first shot and then just hit the 2 coffee button for subsequent shots that morning for the family. It means you don't have to time and weigh every single shot that is pulled and takes advantage of the volumetric programming that makes this machine so great. Thanks for the video. Keep up the good work!

[GadgetsGearCoffee]

After watching a few of your videos, I gotta say, you have a strong affinity for sliced bread

[cavinrauch]

It includes a tamp and milk jug. Things that also add up super quickly. It's honestly the best machine to get into espresso period with all the tools and accessories it provides out the box.
You only need to pickup a knock box.

[humlakullen]

Best investment I’ve ever made (after I learned how to actually use it;-)!
I’ve always been a Starbucks guy, (None of their overpriced sugary drinks), just a tall Pike with some Half & Half every morning as my favorite beverage.
Once in awhile I tried to make an espresso on my Breville, but the results always tasted like crude oil, with side notes of tar, and hints of burnt rubber.
Then one day, I faced a “golfer’s” choice. Should I invest some time and effort to learn with the equipment I already have, or should I spend potentially thousands more on fancier clubs to improve my game;-).
I’m glad I spent an afternoon actually learning and experimenting with grind settings and learning the basics of extraction.
Didn’t realize I could make better tasting coffee at home than Starbucks, until I actually tried. This is all the machine I will ever need.

[LumiLunar]

As someone who chose a Gaggia over the Breville, let me tell you that sometimes I wish I started with a Breville. The Gaggia is great but the machine has some flaws mainly the leaky steam valve which even upon replacing can start leaking again within a year. Another thing is the OPV tube which doesn't point directly into the hole in tbe drip tray so sometimes water will get underneath the drip tray. I will find a lot of water accumulates underneath the machine sometimes. Probably just a defect for my particular machine.

The simplicity of having your grinder and tamper built in to one unit saved a lot of space and it seems like a dream compared to my setup which easily takes up koure than twice that space but mainly because I bought a lot of accessories. The Breville is a great option espresso if you're a latte drinker and aren't as fussy with your espresso.

Also as an alternative to the Infuser, if you don't wanna deal with steaming your own milk, the Bambino Plus is compact and has the best automatic milk frothers for consumers.

Great review btw. I found your channel recently and loving your content. You're one of the best consumer reviewers of home coffee equipment.

[vramz]

Have mine for couple weeks no problems, flawless operation, quality built..highly recommend this Breville Barista Express!☕👍

[JuystaFan]

Completely agree. Best value machine in its class. I recommend steaming milk first. Then follow with espresso. Why? Turning on the steamwand warms up the machine faster and builds heat and pressure in the flash container. If you pour your shot right away, you can get a high initial temperature pour. But it does subside after the hottest water pours out. There is little playroom when it comes to temperature control. The steam wand is the only way I know how jerry rig hotter water.

[WTFA]

I got one used for a steal and was originally planning on modding the OPV valve to reduce the pressure. BUT i found out that there's effectively a manual mode if you hold down the brew button that lets you manually preinfuse and then brew at full pressure. But when i used the blind puck to test the pressure of the preinfusion, i found that the preinfusion itself was at the sweet spot of around 9 bars. So now i just hold down a brew button and do the whole brew at the 9 bar preinfusion! The preinfusion will stop automatically around 45-50 seconds or so which means it can't handle like a sprover or something but for just standard ristrettos to lungos it works perfectly!

[ZayasRaymond]

I have the Infuser and paired it with a Smart Grinder Pro. It was alright until I got a 1zpresso JX-Pro hand grinder. Was struggling with sour shots but the grind consistency and quality of the 1zpresso JX-Pro made a huge difference. A better grinder is an absolute must.

[adampoll]

I roast my own beans and having the pressure gauge saves sooo much time and waste dialing in fresh roasts and different beans. It's far more useful than people realize (assuming they're using the non-pressurized baskets).

Pretty sure Breville went with the 54mm basket to A) Save room for the grinder, and B) give people a reason to "upgrade" to a more expensive model. Fortunately the machine's popularity has led to all the after-market upgrades like levelers, tampers, bottomless portafilters etc. in the 54mm size, so that's a good thing!

[Frameshaft]

I own this machine since 2014 and still love it! For consistent doses I weight 17g of beans, dump in grinder and voilà!

[joshcook]

Great video dude! Very insightful for anyone looking to purchase or already owning this machine!

[donnyl]

Best teaching video on this subject I've seen. Well Done

[vagos]

I used to be fixated on how long it took to pour a shot. Point is a bad shot tastes bad even if you are within the “magical” parameters of time and ratio.

Or you might end up going too fine at which point very weird things start to happen. After watching a lot of videos I came across Lance Hedrick and the dude was right when he said “forget about time, just go by taste”.

If you re doing shots that are too acidic go from a 1:2 to 1:3 ratio instead of going finer.

Am now doing turbo-shots and am pretty satisfied taste wise. Plus it’s much easier to be consistent.

[caleschley]

This machine often brews at pressures around 14 bars, which is really high. Each large notch on the gauge is meant to be 2 bar. I wanted a pressure closer to 9 bar for espresso, so I opened up my machine and adjusted the over-pressure valve so that it only gets up to about 10 bar now. Shots are much easier to get right, and less channeling is happening now.

[dutypaidrock]

I've had one of these for a couple of years now, and I know it can pull better shots than the ones I'm getting. I'll be trying these tips for sure. However, there are a few thoughts I've had regarding some of the recommendations here. Not that I think they're wrong, but just not practical.

1) The machine auto-switches off at about 10 minutes, so leaving it to warm up for longer than that isn't possible, unless you keep returning to it to turn it back on again (which I often forget to do).
2) Dialling in every time I change coffees takes me a good portion of the entire bag, so just isn't economical unless I'm sticking with the same coffee for a while. I tend to go with what I have set already, and adjust slightly every time I brew another shot if it's not right. Yes, the first few might not be perfect, but it's better than throwing away £5 of coffee from every new bag!
3) RE the quality of the water - isn't that the job of the filter you have in the water tank?

[ethanlux]

Great video! Another aspect often left out of BBE reviews is the resell value is very high. After a year or two of owning the machine you can still sell it for around $500 which will help in secure a higher quality machine.

[ai-fxst]

Switching to the non pressurized basket after viewing your video. Thanks Kyle.

[ElroyMesselaar]

Great video! Another tip that might be useful: if you need to go grind coarser or finer than the grind size settings allow, you can adjust the internal burrs. Just remove the hopper and you can get to the outer burr where you can adjust the settings.

[carchariasspartania]

"Something like a Baratza Encore won't..."
Ouch I felt that. Just got one for X-mass and it changed my coffee world. Much yet to learn I have... :p