# Sage Bambino Plus???



## Sean63 (Jan 28, 2015)

Hi

I am looking for some advice on the Sage Bambino Plus.

My son is looking for a small form factor espresso machine and wants to be able to foam milk. He is used to using my Expobar but has no room for anything close to a normal sized machine.

I was recently introduced to friends Sage Barisa Express and was very impressed by the coffee and milk quality and the great design.

Based on this I have been led towards the Bambino plus.

Has anyone any experience of these machines?


----------



## joey24dirt (Jan 28, 2017)

Yeah I've got one. For what it is, I think it's a cool little machine. It has auto steaming but can also be used manually. Slow and steady but if you have used the BE you will know the rate that steams at.

Just be aware they only come with pressurised baskets, not a huge issue but worth mentioning.

I have mine in my work van paired with a sage grinder 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## idekov (Aug 21, 2019)

Hi, I have one as well...bought it this summer. I have ordered from Sage - BE portafilter (fits perfect) and single wall baskets. You can see some shots in Video's section. I use it with Eureka Mignon MCI grinder. Small footprint and in total under 700 GBP setup. Excellent for milk preparation - late, cappuccino.


----------



## AndyJH (Apr 25, 2017)

My girlfriend has one so by default I use it quite a lot. I'm really impressed with it to be honest, great little machine. So much so I'm having trouble convincing her to let me bring my DB over to her house! As Joey has said, be aware of the baskets as it only comes with the pressurised versions, I just ordered some non-pressurised ones directly from Sage very quickly.


----------



## Iris (Oct 29, 2018)

Can you tell me have you tried the non pressurised baskets from like the duo temp pro in the portafilter that comes with this machine? Do they work?

Or have you tried one of the duo temp pro portafilter in this machine, does it fIt it?

Whats the quality of the coffee like with the the pressurised baskets and portafilter, that comes with the machine?

I have a sage barista express but barely use it now its basically an ornament to mch faff and hassle, I have a 3 month old baby so time is precious. I love the idea of the bambino with automatic milk frother plus the pressurised baskets would so much less hassle to really need to be fussy dialling in, but just wondered wat kind of quality espresso it produces.

Sad to say I mainly use my nespresso creatista uno, as I am just so time poor but miss espresso from fresh ground coffee, although the pods I get from Rave for nespresso are quite good.

@joey24dirt


----------



## pavonnipuller (Dec 8, 2019)

Iris said:


> Whats the quality of the coffee like with the the pressurised baskets and portafilter, that comes with the machine?


 Hi Iris,

I recently got a the Bambino for my girlfriends house. I've found the presurrised baskets overextract increasing the the bitter notes, sometimes to quite an unpleasant degree (This I assertained with my home roasted beans that I'm very familiar with and have dialed in on my home machine). This can be adjusted slightly with a less coarse grind and/or lighter tamp however not by much.

If making milk drinks, its not so noticable.

I spoke to breville/sage and they have very kindly sent me 2 (single & double shot) single wall non-pressurised baskets for free! Amazing, I'm still waiting for them to arrive and will report back after experimenting.

All in all though it seems to be a great little machine that removes a lot of the stress and fuss especially if time poor. You can make a tasty coffee and be out the door in well under 5 minutes if needed.


----------



## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

I tried tuning my BE with a pressurised basket. Behaved as I expected as the grind went finer and finer that was what eventually set what came out and the shot time.

 Didn't drink much of it though so no comment.

The BE and this one appear to use the same baskets so there isn't really any need to switch from the Bambino portafilter. I understand just like all of their others it's stainless.

Faffing though - tuning up for some bean always involves a bit of that. The question in that area really is once it has been tuned. How much variation people will accept? For ease on a machine with buttons I would be inclined to say try allowing the shot weight to vary rather than weighing out. The BE is a volumetric machine and it will hold a shot weight well if used correctly. The gauge on it can help a lot with that. The Bambino also appears to be volumetric. In either case shot time will vary somewhat just as it does when people weigh out. How much depends on consistency of preparation. What I found on the BE was that it mostly didn't vary much at all but did noticeably at odd times. I didn't use a timer but got used to how long it took after many shots. Then I used a wall clock to see how much it did vary by. Shot weight was held to a few grams - that wont have much effect on taste. There is more scope for variation in that area than most people seem to think.

Also for ease of use I'd suggest leaning on the tamper when people tamp. Far more likely to give consistency and a part tamp with a 2 slope leveller helps keep the main one square.

Obviously weight of grinds comes into it as well. That too needs to be pretty consistent and timed grinders are very likely to need timer adjustments. Always using the same beans may help with that but weight still needs checking. Niche is an expensive solution. Weighing in on others is also possible but more faff.  Niche has a bit of that too - getting grinds into the portafilter. It does need a bit of attention.

Least faff weighing in grinder? Sage. Just keep feeding them in until the desired weight is achieved. After a while what went in will come out. One possible problem is some beans clogging it up when it's used like this - then has to be cleaned. Very oily beans wouldn't be a good idea due to that. Should add that once it's settled to what goes in to what comes out changing the setting will upset that a bit but it soon comes back.

John

-


----------

