Decent Experience and Poll

HarveyMushman

JammyDodger I’d be interested in how many people’s partners/non-coffee nerds use their coffee machine and what that machine is.

Mine will happily do a low-effort pourover but not espresso. I don’t think it’s the machine though rather just a lack of interest in learning.

She’s an interior designer and interestingly the Decent and the LM are the only ones she actually likes the look of rather than the ‘chrome boxes’ as she calls them.

I’ve always thought the Decent is nicely designed enough to appeal to ‘non coffee’ people given its smaller size and inoffensive looks.

Cuprajake

LMSC

Cuprajake Have you tried brewing ?

Cuprajake

LMSC not with that basket, ive used the old style filter brew with a larger basket,

the basket above is £40 plus post so im tempted to get one

LMSC

Cuprajake the basket above is £40 plus post so im tempted to get one

Not too bad, if that does what it says to your satisfaction.

Yorkie_Al

I got one of the Filter 3 baskets and a spare bag of filter papers I’ve used it several times with a decaf bean - Foundry Popacayan - and it’s made a very pleasant brew. You do need to play with the profile settings to get the water volumes and flow rates correct but once adjusted it’s then a matter of changing the grind for different beans. The Popacayan is being ground at 85 on the Niche Zero. Once the settings are right I can just press a button and go do something else while the machine does its magic.

james65477564

I have had the filter 3 basket for a while and use it almost daily because it makes the process so simple when looking for filter type results.

delta76

Decent is running a 15% off discount on the XL pink version, to support battling breast cancer.
That is a noble cause, but also making the price attractive to me. I’m seriously considering it given I can sell my Bianca for what I’ve got it for. Going through a midlife crisis and I want to experience more things before my time is up.
@Cuprajake are you still happy with your decent? any upgradetitis just yet?

Emc2

delta76 I was thinking of getting the pink one too. But having considered the potential issues, I have decided against buying one.

I suspect we are chasing incremental gains and it’s unlikely there would be a massive difference in the quality of the espresso. I am fairly happy with what I can achieve using flow control on the Bianca. Although Decent is well established, it’s still a cottage industry and there’s no guarantee it will continue to flourish. At least with the E61 machines, parts are readily available. Not sure if this matters, but the Decent has a vibratory pump as opposed to a rotary in the Bianca. Also I like the aesthetics of the Bianca. Decent seems somewhat plasticky to me.

I am putting the funds towards a high end grinder instead!

Cuprajake

yeah saw that, and tbh down the line you could always change the colour lol

ive been super happy with it, no upgrades planned, it just works, they are such an easy company to deal with,

mines the de1pro and when i asked around re the steam most said the xl was over kill and i agree, but if you can get that model cheap then why not

you will need a good scale to go with, but if you buy 3 or more accessories you get discount too, so win win

order now get it for weekend lol

delta76

Emc2 I am having a problem with Bianca - even though it’s E61 but not the standard E61, so the gicleur is 1.5mm not the “standard” 0.8/0.6mm, and it’s extremely hard to find because Lelit only sells the complete flow regulator set to retailers, which costs around 200 GBP. In my 2 years with Bianca I had to send it back to repairs twice (each time around 4-5 weeks), and small other issues. Now it’s out of warranty and I have to fix the problems myself, and, sadly, when you replace small items, the shipping cost could add up a lot. With Decent you can just keep buying life time warranty, every accessory is available and I think you get free shipping if buy 3 items or more which really means a lot.
One of the reasons I bought Bianca was exactly what you said, because it’s well understood, and it can last a life time with proper care. I might be unlucky one and got a sour lemon but well, that’s enough for me
if you want to stay with Bianca or with any other “built like a tank” machines (LMLM comes to mind), that’s good too. I’m just trying to think what to do next and Decent becomes an interesting option. Maybe I’ll pull the trigger :)

Emc2

delta76 Are you based in the UK? It’s available on ebay for £7.50 https://ebay.us/m/fAVoKU

delta76

Emc2 yes exactly where I buy it from. But the seller does not ship to where I live so I needed to make a private arrangement with him. Hopefully I will get it soon.

As your post no I did not expect significantly better espressos. More about have something to play with. As always, the idea of doing something might be more interesting than actually doing it. like with the flow control of bianca I stopped doing it quite soon after I bought it, and then only used to save a short when the flow is too quick. But maybe with the automated repeatability of Decent it will be better used.

Cuprajake

Most of the decent is powder coated metal just an fyi

delta76

Cuprajake how do you refill the water? I assume Decent has no water softener built in, so you are supposed to provide only softened water to it, right?

JammyDodger

delta76 how do you refill the water?

There are a number of options, the most basic is you take the water tank out and top it up. It’s ceramic and just slides out, so it’s pretty straightforward.

There is also a refill kit, which pumps water into the reservoir when it gets low. There’s a fairly involved video on how this works on the Decent website, where John shows how he made his coffee cart, I’ll see if I can find a link.

Lastly, if you’re a heathen like me, you can buy a perspex case for your DE1 and mod it with a funnel and some silicone tubing so you can refill the reservoir without needing to take the reservoir out.

JammyDodger

It depends where you live really. All espresso machines should be used with soft water. Soft water is typically defined as <100ppm CaCO3 (this info should be readily available from your water supplier’s website). Decent is no different, the softer the water you use, the less issues you will have with scale, which is what eventually kills espresso machines or necessitates the majority of repairs. I use reverse osmosis water with mine which works really well, but I would do this with any espresso machine I wanted to keep for the long term.

delta76

Yeah I was more interested in “what water do you refill with” - should have worded better :D. I know the basics of Decent operations (have been reading on it like crazy). With my current Bianca I just take the tap water (high quality, relatively soft water from Nordics) to the water tank which has a water softener. I assume there isn’t a water softener inside Decent so one should fill it will “pre-softened” water, like you said osmosis water. Maybe I’ll go with Britax?

JammyDodger

delta76 high quality, relatively soft water from Nordics… Maybe I’ll go with Britax?

It really depends how soft your water is. If you can find your water supplier, they should be able to easily provide you with this information. Depending on where you are, it may not need softening at all.

Cuprajake

I use rodi water its the same as distilled and then use the pavliss method.

Never had scale issues in any of my machines

I bought thr optinal water tank cover

Imo that should be stock

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