Review on Breville BES990BSSUSC Automatic Espresso Machine by Troy Jennings

For the money I wouldn't say this is the best espresso machine when it comes to making a consistently good cup. You can pay that amount for a professional manual machine and get much more consistent results. Of course you do all the work. INITIAL TESTS: The grams of coffee dispensed from the grinder varied from run to run between 18.5 and 20.5 grams in the port filler, with no adjustments. It doesn't sound like much, but it makes a huge difference in the time it takes to brew 50 grams of espresso in a cup. I'm assuming the pounding is the consistency as done by a machine. Note. I've also tried tapping myself with a calibrated pounder (30lbs) and haven't noticed any noticeable difference. I ran over 60 tests using the gram scale to verify the dose of coffee produced and the number of seconds it took to brew 50 grams of espresso. I did this with a few different grind settings and ran a lot of tests before changing them. I used manual extraction mode so I can stop the counter at any time. I've found that with no adjustments mid-pouring, it can vary within 10 seconds and the flavor changes accordingly. This means if you run the fully automatic mode on a per-second basis, your cup will be different every time. When you make Americano, you can really taste it. Not saying it's bad by any means, no the trophy is still good, just disappointing when you pull the 'holy grail' out of the car and the next trophy is so-so. If you spend that much on a machine, you can get a higher price range manual machine that performs better. Now that this is almost a fully automatic machine but fits in with the manual machine types, this machine can't be beat for ingenuity. FROTHING MILK: I found that contradictory too. The amount of quality foam required for latte art really shows. The milk froth taste is the best I've had from an automatic frother. But on the other hand, from cup to cup, without changing the amount of milk in the jug, the initial temperature of the milk and the frothing parameters, I was sometimes able to create great drawings and sometimes nothing at all. I'm not saying my art is great, but I can (see picture, it was with this machine) and sometimes the white foam would literally not rise to even try to depict the art. I wish there was a manual mode for the nozzle like the old machine had a two position switch. With this machine, you could bypass the air supply and fire higher temperature steam for manual frothing. I have found that this coffee is best suited to longer extraction times, which means finer grinds. For this mix I prefer 10/40 = 30 seconds pour after the first drop. This should yield 50 grams (2 ounces) of espresso if the grind settings are correct. If you have a faster extraction, it will be very noticeable (acidic) and go straight to the sink. Pulled correctly, I get tons of dark chocolate with a characteristic cherry note.