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Permalink Reply by Shadow on December 5, 2009 at 3:16pm

I'm not familiar with Bezzera machines. In commercial settings you usually see Cimbali, Rancilio, LaMarzocco, Nuova Simonelli, etc. I'd recommend you take a good look at each of the machines in your price range, see which has the best build quality, best features for you, proper size and go from there.

I am looking at the Bezzera site now at their commercial line of machines. I'm comparing their 2 group/230v machine to my Nuova Simonelli Aurelia. The 2 group Bezzera has an 11 liter boiler with a 3000 watt heating element. My Aurelia 2 group has a 14 liter boiler with a 4500 watt heating element. 3 liters isn't alot of difference size wise, but 1500 watts difference in heating power is. Sounds like the Bezzera will take a fair amount of time to recover. You need to take things like this into consideration. Just a bit of info for you to check out. Here it is..... http://www.bezzera.it/home_ing.html

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Tafili on December 6, 2009 at 12:30pm

That's what I say!

Dr. Joseph John said:

Most new comers spend most of their budget on an espresso machine and then buy the cheapest grinder they can find.

When it comes to producing high quality espresso, the grinder is far more important than the espresso machine. It is the grinder that shaves the beans across the cell walls and exposes the coffee in the cells for extraction. Get a very high quality grinder that can keep its shaft alignment for the longest time. When the shafts are no longer in perfect alignment, the burrs are no longer parallel, placing limits on how fine a grind can be achieved.

Also look for a grinder with continuous adjsutments permitting small variations in grind settings.

All espresso machines do three things: they heat water; deliver a pre-measured amount of water when a particular button is pressed; and, pressurize the water for delivery to the portafilter. All of them can make mediocre espresso in the hands of a poorly trained barista. A highly capable barista can coax exceptional espresso using any of these machines.

Machines vary in quality depending on how well they do these functions regardless of how many shots are made in a given time.

There are lots of issues to consider when selecting an espresso machine to provide high quality espresso. Of all the issues such as, pre-infusion, ease of programming, ergonomics, access to service,......, the most critical is temperature stability in a shop environment where production rates vary widely from time to time.

This is where the multiple boiler machines have a definite edge over the single boiler machines.

Good Luck.

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