# Piccino owners



## Guns Jovi (Dec 2, 2017)

Would you recommend your machine for someone wanting to make milk based drinks

thanks


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## coffeebean (Jan 26, 2010)

Piccino is great for milk based drinks as the dual boiler gives really good steam but if you did need water for americanos it does not have a water tap. Can do you one for £750 delivered if you are interested


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## Guns Jovi (Dec 2, 2017)

Thanks for your reply Would you say that is better than the Oscar 2?


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## coffeebean (Jan 26, 2010)

Totally different machine - the Oscar is a HX, the Piccino is a dual boiler. If you prefer an HX though, I would go for a Cherub over an Oscar and get the water tap as well as fabulous steam power


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## Guns Jovi (Dec 2, 2017)

coffeebean said:


> Totally different machine - the Oscar is a HX, the Piccino is a dual boiler. If you prefer an HX though, I would go for a Cherub over an Oscar and get the water tap as well as fabulous steam power


I'm a novice and the cherub is out of my price range ?


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## coffeebean (Jan 26, 2010)

What's your budget?


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

This might help you understand the types of espresso machines that are about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso_machine

Dual boiler is pretty obvious. One for steam and one for brew so the temperatures can be different. HX heat exchanger. The boiler is run hot enough to produce steam - it's expected to cool sufficiently one way or another when producing the water for brewing. The wiki mentions how this is done but I believe there are variations. The other type is thermoblock machines - the water is heated as it's pumped. Main difference between them and boiler machine is that they can produce both steam and coffee very shortly after they are turned on. The main source of those is probably Sage but there are others. They tend to be cheaper for the facilities they offer.

Where things get a bit complicated is that the temperature of the brew water will alter the taste of the coffee that comes out. Any changes in temperature while it comes out will also alter it. So electronics gets added to improve that. Some machines use mechanical thermostats and these require a significant change in temperature to turn on. PID is usually used to try and fix that. The best fix though is PID and a massive boiler as shots don't require that much quantity of water so the bigger the boiler the lower the temperature change when a shot is pulled. Main problem here is heat up times and also if the heater needed to do that can be run on a domestic mains socket.

I have 2 machines and one of those is a Piccino. Mechanical thermostat and temperature drift as a shot is pulled. People mention temperature surfing on machines like this. It's due to the change in temperature needed by the thermostate between switch on and switch off so some make sure that the brew boiler has just switched off before pulling a shot. I didn't notice any effect so wonder why. To use the machine it's first turned on. The boilers heat up pretty quickly, 2 or 3 mins. The group head in about 15mins, the portafilter as well a bit longer so I flush the machine to speed that up - run a shot through it without any coffee in. That will cool the water in the boiler and turn the heating on. I then dry the portafilter, grind the coffee and tamp it then run the shot. The boiler will have reached it's max temperature again while I have been grinding and tamping or at least be close to it so I've seen no signs of the need for temperature surfing. Fracino don't provide a light to indicate that the brew boiler is on anyway. If I run another shot straight afterwards the same thing will happen again. Where some one may have problems is if the machine is just left on and then used from time to time. The answer is to flush it again. A brief flush then can be done with the portafilter out, grind and tamp then run the shot. If it's been left in it will have kept the portafilter hot.

My other machine is a Sage thermoblock one. The Piccino needs more coffee than that and can't produce exactly the same taste because the extraction methods used are very different. That doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the taste. It's just slightly different and needs tuning just like the Sage does.








Hope this helps rather than confuses you. The Piccino apart from the pump and pipes uses bit's that are also used in their commercial machines. Spares are also easily available- all makes go wrong from time to time. I bought mine to play with and modify. I think I'd favour it over an HX machine but would also be inclined to point beginners at Sage machines. A problem with the Piccino is descaling but on the other hand it does come with a proper water softening filter that should cope with 70l of water before it needs replacing. It may not come with any filter baskets and a portafilter. Not sure. £750 very probably isn't a good price. Of it's type I suspect you will be hard pressed to find a better machine for the same amount of cash. You'll be into timing shots though eventually. The Piccino gets pretty expensive when it can time it's shots itself.

A grinder is the other area. There are people on here that might spend more on the grinder than their espresso machine or buy a used commercial one that would cost more new.







An area I am wondering about. I manage with Sage grinders but have to wonder if bigger is better. My answer was to find one that's rather beat up externally but fortunately in very good nick inside so when I can will be using it to see if it does make any difference.

Sage thermoblock and other makes that use these can have one problem - they can scale up more quickly than boiler types. Mine makes between 3 and 8 mugs a day so decided to descale every 2 months just to be on the safe side. Or at least I hope that's on the safe side. It's easy to do. We get very soft water anyway. There seems to be a number of machines that aren't easy to descale "at home" about even the Piccino but as I mentioned it does come with a decent water filter and that should help with the need for descaling. Other makes - something I would want to know about before buying. Some people add filtration to the water supply they use to fill the machine.

John

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## Guns Jovi (Dec 2, 2017)

Thank you. That was really helpful. Appreciate that info.

Looking like the piccino or Oscar



ajohn said:


> This might help you understand the types of espresso machines that are about
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso_machine
> 
> ...


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## Guns Jovi (Dec 2, 2017)

£700


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## coffeebean (Jan 26, 2010)

Well if it helps - there are 2 versions of the Piccino, electronic and semi auto. I can do you a semi auto one for £700. Electronic one I can't do for less than £750. The Cherub would be £850 which would probably be a bit of a stretch but well worth the extra!


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

When I bought a Piccino temperature surfing was mentioned immediately on here also the need for a spanner to descale. The problem with descaling is draining the fluid that's needed to do it from the steam boiler and rinsing it out. The fluid is just a mix of a powder and water. I've seen comments on a number of machines about the difficulty of descaling. Some use bottled water but there can be other reasons for that. All approaches really probably delay the need to descale even filters. How long - pass.

Talking thermoblock this one is popular

https://sageappliances.co.uk/collections/espresso/products/the-duo-temp-pro?variant=40400733124

I *suspect* some would say that the minimum cost decent grinder to go with it would be this one

https://www.bellabarista.co.uk/eureka-mignon-instantaneo-grinder-auto-manual-matt-black.html

Same for any machine in the reasonable price ranges. Some would spend more.







As I mentioned I prefer to find out cheaply via buying a tatty good one. That might have turned out to be an expensive option but the internal parts are ok.

What I use daily are these

https://sageappliances.co.uk/collections/espresso/products/barista-express?variant=40400693188

https://sageappliances.co.uk/collections/coffee-grinders/products/the-smart-grinder-pro?variant=40400713348

2 grinders because I often use more than one type of bean helped by finding the 2nd grinder cheaply. The BE is popular too. In many ways I am glad it was the first machine I bought. I can believe it's possible to get better results from other grinders but better is a funny word. In what way better etc. I went for the BE because I had a strong feeling that I would end up with 2 grinders. Some buy the DTP on the basis that they can buy any grinder to go with it.

Putting Sage into perspective it's probably impossible to match this one from other makers even at the listed price

https://sageappliances.co.uk/collections/espresso/products/the-dual-boiler?variant=40400714820

My only beef with the smaller thermoblock machines is the filter baskets sizes they make. I drink long blacks though with a bit of milk and like to try different beans. It looks like there may be a solution to that. Not sure yet.

John

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