Which Dual Boiler

A decent would be no good for steaming

Ive personally steamed 450mls of milk with my bianca for hot chocolate and it did that in about 40seconds.

I favour the bianca because i own one. But its a machine i settled on after going through 5 others.

For your needs dual boiler is a must.

Cuprajake A decent would be no good for steaming

Why?

I know it’s a bit slower than some, and doesn’t work in parallel, but it can produce it almost instantly, so from a workflow perspective you can churn out drinks pretty quickly. This is for home use after all.

Because it takes nearly a minute to steam milk for one drink

Its just slow and if the op is going to be making 5 to 6 milk drinks one after the other its just a faff.
That vid shows the new wand, iirc that comes ln 4k machine now.

Thanks for clarifying your reasoning @Cuprajake.

I’m not sure a decent is on the list, but at least 250ml of milk in 60s will help people assess whether this is ok or not for their situation. I tend to do flat whites [130ml], so two drinks worth of milk in 60s, especially with the auto feature so that you can be prepping the next shots, would be fine. That’s the beauty of this hobby though, plenty of options for everyone’s use cases.

Decent would be like buying the latest gaming PC, you know in 6-12 months time you would need another upgrade, new CPU, new generation GPU, faster memory, SSD, etc.
Buying something that has relatively (to HX machines) new technologies in it, e.g. PID, double boiler, ability to program start up, etc. is more modest technology-wise but bullet proof and is going to last.

John_Yossarian Don’t know if I fully agree with the PC analogy - my PC is over 2 years old and can still comfortably play the latest games at 2560×1440 60FPS, mostly on the highest quality settings and 4k with a mix of settings. I doubt I will need to upgrade anytime soon…for at least another year or 2.

Beverast I was talking about the game enthusiasts that populate forums such as overclockers.co.uk

Rarely a “self respected” gamer would stay with the same rig for longer than 12 months. And I do not mean to undermine your gamer’s skills at all. 🙂

John_Yossarian Ah ok, fair enough. I would not consider myself a skilful gamer anyway so no worries haha 😁

Goodfella I use Meross smart plugs, they integrate wethh with Alexa.

Another vote for Meross from me- also work well with Google Home.

Goodfella I have the Synchronika and have been very happy with it. Great steam and plenty of it and really nice quality to the exterior - I’m sure you’ll be pleased with your purchase. Just remember its super heavy and you might need some help getting it out of the box and up on the counter ! As for value for money, well if your using something every day and its part of your kitchen, then you may well need to take aesthetics into consideration and that includes the weight and feel of the components, levers, handles etc.

My favourite definition of ‘value’ is “the perceived benefits, usefulness, and importance of something". It means that value is entirely subjective. For some the La Marzocco Linea Mini is overpriced for it’s technical functions for others it’s a joy to see every morning - just as my Synchronika is for me when I stumble into the kitchen on a Sunday morning…

Ernie1 The Bianca is a great machine at a really good price.

Goodfella What did you end up with? Is it Bianca or Vesuvius or something else ? Thx

LMSC

Goodfella So I have chosen a machine! I am going to be getting an ECM Synchronika

Very nice, enjoy👍