# No love for Ascaso machines?



## rxmnt (Sep 10, 2020)

I just noticed that this forum completely lacks any reviews or experience reports of the "new" Ascaso machines (Ascaso Steel Uno/Duo PID, Dream PID, Baby T/Zero - although that one just came out, apparently). Is there no Ascaso retailer / reseller in the UK, or are all of you sceptical because of them using thermoblocks?

I'm currently thinking about buying a new espresso machine, and I'm considering the Ascaso Duo PID - any feedback / experiences regarding Ascaso machines would be greatly appreciated.


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## Blue_Cafe (Jun 22, 2020)

Never understood the communities problem with thermoblocks tbh.


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## Drewster (Dec 1, 2013)

Blue_Cafe said:


> Never understood the communities problem with thermoblocks tbh.


 Does the community have a problem with thermoblocks?


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## Blue_Cafe (Jun 22, 2020)

Drewster said:


> Does the community have a problem with thermoblocks?


 Good question.

The Decent uses a thermoblock, no?

Great idea, but i've no idea how they rate in real world usage vs other stuff.


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## rxmnt (Sep 10, 2020)

Blue_Cafe said:


> Good question.
> 
> The Decent uses a thermoblock, no?
> 
> Great idea, but i've no idea how they rate in real world usage vs other stuff.


 The concerns I've read about were mostly regarding temperature stability. Allegedly, if you pull a shot in a thermoblock, and the shot is taking too long, the water will spend more time in the thermoblock than it was designed for, and it will overshoot the desired temperature.

Although I must ask, wouldn't this be true for a HX aswell? Aren't HX machines conceptually the same as thermoblocks, just with a different medium (water instead of metal) to heat the passing water?


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## allikat (Jan 27, 2020)

In my opinion, thermoblocks are fine in principle. A well designed thermoblock, such as that in the Decent is great. There's quite a few poorly designed machines with thermoblocks that bring their reputation down. I'd not pick or avoid a machine because of the manner in which it heats my brew water, so long as it's well designed and capable of good temperature stability.


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## rxmnt (Sep 10, 2020)

allikat said:


> There's quite a few poorly designed machines with thermoblocks that bring their reputation down.


 That's true, although to be fair, those machines usually cost <£200, so it is to be expected that they perform worse than a £1800 dual boiler.

But still, the "thermoblock bad, boiler good"-mindset is sadly a little stuck in my head, too.


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## allikat (Jan 27, 2020)

Well, on the HX vs Thermoblock debate, let's consider things here. A thermoblock is pretty much a big chunk of metal, and with a nice PID controlling the heating, it's able to reasonably quickly react to the situation and keep temperatures stable. An HX would, since it has a LOT bigger thermal mass to work with, be less able to react quickly even with a PID, however, there's also a far more stable environment it's working in because of that large thermal mass. It's swings and roundabouts pretty much.

I think a lot of machines went HX initially because way back when, as fast acting digital control of heaters wasn't around to make thermoblocks competitive in performance, while HX was well understood. Nowadays that situation is different, and a thermoblock is perfectly able to easily match or beat an HX system.

In short, for both systems it comes down to design and build quality. It's just that any twit can find an old HX design from decades ago that's way out of any patent protections and is good, and build it. Making a really good thermoblock isn't quite as easy yet and will require an R&D spend like that the Decent guys have done. And really high performance thermoblocks are rare enough right now that everyone (understandably) fixates on HX and DB machines as the peak of the art.


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## coffeeWhippet (Aug 1, 2020)

I was wondering the exact same thing. I even contacted Bella Barista as they were originally the official UK supplier to ask if they were planning on stocking any more - their response was that they were no longer stocking them as they felt they had other machines which offered the same thing. I wondered if they were unreliable or something else as it seems strange that there's so little talk about them. They have some really lovely looking machines so was quite disappointed... I mean look at it! Mmmmm! E-61 group, PID, lovely wooden touches, nice lever for the steam wand... but nowhere can I see what this machine is actually like in practice from an end user...


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## KTD (Dec 28, 2017)

Does look good. However the baby T is £3500 I think. Would you choose that machine at that price?


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## jaffro (Oct 6, 2015)

KTD said:


> Does look good. However the baby T is £3500 I think. Would you choose that machine at that price?


 Pretty sure someone in the Niche Facebook group had one in white, with a white Niche.

It looked amazing, but yeah for £3500 I'd be looking elsewhere! Gotta be in Decent territory with that, right?!


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## mcwill (Aug 9, 2020)

jaffro said:


> It looked amazing, but yeah for £3500 I'd be looking elsewhere! Gotta be in Decent territory with that, right?!


 Decent plus change.


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## Jasetaylor (Jul 31, 2020)

Drewster said:


> Does the community have a problem with thermoblocks?


 Yes, we hate them....what, with all that thermoblock privilege.

On a serious note I wasn't aware of any such 'problem'.


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## rxmnt (Sep 10, 2020)

KTD said:


> Does look good. However the baby T is £3500 I think. Would you choose that machine at that price?


 True, it sadly is very expensive. I'm a little sad, because I really like the concept of having a thermoblock for coffee and a boiler for steaming.

Anyway, the "cheaper" (£1450?) models look nice aswell:


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

that must be a well working thermoblock if they sell them at that price


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

There is not a lot of love on home barista for these machines either , make of that what you will. 
£1450 is a lot for a machine with those parts and functionality .


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

Blue_Cafe said:


> Never understood the communities problem with thermoblocks tbh.


 I'd say the reservations come from the usually negative experience with cheap "espresso" machines (80-100 pounds) you can get at Aldi or similar places


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## rxmnt (Sep 10, 2020)

Mrboots2u said:


> There is not a lot of love on home barista for these machines either , make of that what you will.
> £1450 is a lot for a machine with those parts and functionality .


 It's kinda funny, on another (German) coffee forum, there's an ~80 page thread of users reporting mostly positive things. I think the earlier models had a part (some valve?) that apparently wasn't very durable and broke for many owners, but aside from that, the responses were overall positive, which is why I'm even more confused as to why those machines aren't popular on here or homebarista at all.


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

rxmnt said:


> It's kinda funny, on another (German) coffee forum, there's an ~80 page thread of users reporting mostly positive things. I think the earlier models had a part (some valve?) that apparently wasn't very durable and broke for many owners, but aside from that, the responses were overall positive, which is why I'm even more confused as to why those machines aren't popular on here or homebarista at all.


 product placement/marketing thing?

like the Xenia, nice machine, but only sold in german speaking countries


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## Iskanda (May 22, 2016)

Stanic said:


> like the Xenia, nice machine, but only sold in german speaking countries


 We sold some machines now to other countries (i.e. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Japan) but we are too small to handle many countries (we are only 7 members in our team). That's why we are focused on middle Europe. But even with this limitation we have always 130-160 binding orders in the backlog. That's enough to have a good life and business.


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## Adam_e91 (Nov 17, 2020)

Looks like there is an Ascaso stockist in South Wales.

https://www.ferrari-espresso.com

How would a machine like https://www.ferrari-espresso.com/product/ascaso-steel-uno-prof-i1-and-grinder-new-ex-ascaso-factory-stock/ compare to something like a Sage with a built in grinder?


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## HDAV (Dec 28, 2012)

Interesting I looked at the grinders from ascaso a few years ago but went with a mignon instead, they make the francino picicino grinders iirc but not looked that the machines not a lot of prices on the Ferrari site, but dream 0 is £600 so 50% more than a new classic or sage bambino both £400 and would realistically need to perform better than a classic with a pid to justify the cost. Also you can get a francino for similar money

https://www.ferrari-espresso.com/product/ascaso-dream-dr-19-matt-black-2017-with-uk-wiring-and-moulded-plug/


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## Coffeetoffi (Dec 10, 2020)

The guys from Kaffeemacher in Swiss tested the Steel Duo PID and were pretty impressed, especially with the temperature stability. You can see the graph at their website - unfortunately in german, but google translate might work well enough to get the gist: https://kaffeemacher.de/blogs/espressomaschinen/ascaso-steel-duo-pid-test

I'm currently in France, where maxicoffee sells the black one for 400€ less than any german store (i'm normally based in Cologne). Pretty tempting, especially because our old delonghi just broke...


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

I was interested in the Duo Pid but couldn't find details that I wanted to know. I'd be buying blind so wanted a parts diagram for instance and asked a european company and was told they probably haven't done one. Asked Ascaso and no reply.

Thermo thingies as I call them. They can give pretty good temperature stability but can't be that agile when water flow stops so may boil off a little at the end of a shot.

For steam obviously water is boiled off in them.

So scale and any deposits left behind when water boils of can be a problem.

Boilers tend to scale the element and flakes may fall off much like a kettle. The scale can be soaked in descaler for as long as needed.

Sage have had 3 versions. First 2 a block followed by a coil. The element being in closer proximity on the coil and also reckoned to have less of a problem with scale. The block was in 2 parts sandwiched together with a labyrinth type narrow channels cut in it. The thermojet looks to be an attempt to make the system more agile. The heater still has mass but is more exposed and the heating part is pretty small. As scale and novice users are the bane of their life it wouldn't surprise me if it offered improvements in getting rid of scale and may well be more thermally agile. The thermocoil version was reckoned to help. Stainless tubes too rather than coated aluminium used in the block.


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