Breville Barista Pro Espresso Machine BES878BSS, Brushed Stainless Steel
Semi-Automatic Espresso Machines
Breville Barista Pro Espresso Machine BES878BSS, Brushed Stainless Steel
$4.30
| Asin | B08133HX34 |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 13"D x 14"W x 16"H |
| Weight | 19.5 pounds |
| Manufacturer | Breville |
P The Critic –
I’ve had a few different espresso machines over the last decade, and have tried and returned a couple as well. This one is, by far, my favorite machine for several reasons. Throughout the review I will reference differences primarily with the Barista Express, as that is one that I had for some time as well.
The overall appearance of the machine looks good. I have the stainless steel version, and it looks sharp and well built. Breville is the only company I know that has the magnetic tamper holder underneath the top of the unit, and it’s a nice touch. A place to put the tamper, and always know where it is. Also, the tamper is a nice metal one, rather than the thin, light plastic many other brands use.
I also like that most, if not all, of what comes in contact with hot liquids is metal rather than plastic (though the portafilter does have some plastic, but I use a naked bottom portafilter as stated below). I kind of like the ease of the automatic machines that grind, tamp, and pull the shot, but the plastic group head makes me a bit uncomfortable. I try to minimize hot foods and liquids contacting plastic as much as possible. If plastic particles can leach out of water bottles, then heated plastics most likely will leach more.
As far as performance, I will touch on the grinder, pulling of the shots, hot water spout, and very importantly, the steam wand:
I have seen some complaints about Breville’s grinders, and I don’t understand why. Granted, I do believe that most of the complaints come from people who are much more advanced in their coffee preparation and understanding than I am. Nevertheless, I do find the grinder to do a good job. It has fine adjustments that you make with the dial on the left of the machine, plus larger scale adjustments that you can make with the grinder itself under where the bean hopper sits. I wouldn’t say the larger adjustments are super easy, but definitely doable if you follow the directions. I’ve made a single adjustment on the grinder itself and only rely on the fine adjustments other than that. As a side note, I saw on an instructional video by another reviewer that you want to make the fine adjustments while grinding to prevent getting anything stuck. I’m not sure if this is necessary but I do it just in case.
I am impressed by how little of a mess the grinding makes. The dosage amount and grind size is consistent once I dialed everything in and left it there. Plus it’s easy to switch from single to double dose.
Pulling shots is rather straight forward as well, but does take time getting things right. As far as getting it right, that’s more dependent on the size and dosing of the grinds as well as the tamping force, but you see the results during the shot pull. I don’t use the included portafilter because I’ve always liked the appearance of the naked bottom portafilters, so I found one on Amazon that’s sized for this machine. The naked bottom ones look cool pulling the shot, but make a bit more of a mess than the standard portafilter, and are a little less forgiving than the included one.
With a fairly good grind size and amount, you can get good consistent shots. With my Barista Express, I noticed that the second pull was usually more bitter and not as good tasting as the first shot, if pulled within a few minutes of each other. With this machine, I can pull a double shot, steam the milk, then pull another double shot without any issues or difference in taste. The Barista Pro also has the three second heat up time vs the thirty second or so on the Barista Express, which isn’t a huge deal itself but I believe the newer heating unit is more advanced and allows for the better second pull.
The hot water spout is angled and can dispense right into the cup after the shot is pulled without having to move the cup to a different location. Also, I like the angled spout versus the one on the Barista Express.
As far as the steam wand, it doesn’t seem like there is much advertised or discussed about the improvements of the steam wand versus the Barista Express, but in my opinion, it is far more powerful. I had a lot of difficulty getting the correct texture of milk for latte art, but with the Barista Pro, the steam wand seems much more powerful, faster to steam the milk, and can more easily achieve that proper texture and consistency for good latte art (my latte art isn’t very good, but I’m going to blame that on my skills rather than the steamer). For fairness, I will say that my skills have improved some since having the Barista Express, but I definitely feel a significant difference with this steam wand. Such that I feel that alone makes it worth the increased price compared to the Barista Express.
I have also tried an automatic machine. I would say that the automatic machines are easier to use, less of a learning curve (though there is still somewhat of a learning curve) and most give you the option to make a regular drip coffee as well. They don’t usually have as good a shot pull or taste as a unit like this one, and personally I like the “artsy” part of going from grind to shot manually.
To conclude, I would definitely recommend this machine to anybody who is looking for very good espresso drinks that are better than what you will usually find in coffee shops, at the comfort of your home. If you’re willing to learn how to use the steam wand well for lattes and cappuccinos, I feel this machine is better than the Barista Touch, and better than other machines in this price range. Within a few months, the machine pays for itself versus getting a latte a few times a week at a coffee shop.
StrandedMoose –
This is a very well-engineered Espresso machine that is a great place for any beginner, and even the intermediate barista. This is probably one of the best machines you can get under the $1000+ range from my research.
Like any espresso machine, it takes a lot of coffee and trial and error to get used to it. This is because you need to find the optimal pull time and grind size for each bean that you use. I highly recommend Nicoletti Old School Roast for latte-based drinks. For those, I use an internal burr of 4 and grind size of 9 or 10.
You can find excellent tutorials on YouTube specifying how to perfect the espresso pull for your bean of choice. The video “How to Dial In Breville Barista Pro” by Lifestyle Labs makes it very easy. However, you can also just use the preset values to get decent results. I wish that Breville had an official course on how to use it for complete beginners, because I was totally lost when I received mine.
After a lot of trial and error, I now am making oat milk lattes that taste exponentially better than anything I can buy at a coffee shop, for a fraction of the price. I currently use Elmhurst Oat Milk and Elmhurt Barista Edition because it’s the only oat milk on the market that isn’t filled with gums or oils.
My oat milk lattes are on par with any whole milk latte from the local coffee stores. Needless to say, I’m very happy with this machine.
Pros
– Easy to use, intuitive interface
– Very easy to clean
– Very easy to descale/service
– Visually appealing
– All necessary components in one chassis
– One button push for excellent single or double shot drinks
Cons
– Can’t steam milk and pull espresso at the same time (all pros recommend doing this, so it’s a bit silly that this unit can’t).
– Steam takes significant time to generate. It also spits out water first, watering down your milk. Whereas Higher end espresso machines will instantly shoot steam that is pre-heated in a chamber)
– Grinder is not as precise as many high end grinders; There are no half sizes so it is difficult to fine tune at a certain point. My understanding is that it’s not as powerful either and beans often get stuck in the hopper so you often need to tap on the hopper to make sure all the beans grind.
Amazon Customer –
I waited about a year to write this review, to make sure I used the machine enough to have an opinion. It works amazingly. I use it every day – and have since I purchased it. The initial set up will take time, like any other good espresso machine. You’ll need to dial in your beans and find the right grind size, brew time, etc. I found a YouTube video and followed it to help me out. After that, I just began practicing every day with steaming the milk and after a while I was able to make the perfect drink for me. It has eliminated my daily coffee runs, I of course will still grab a coffee while I’m out running errands just for fun but the price of the machine has paid out for how much I use it.
The machine will tell you when to descale and when to flush based on how many pulls you are doing which is great. I bought extra tablets and will flush it probably once every 2 months and then descale it quarterly. All of the cleaning parts are fairly cheap on Amazon and breville has videos online to follow.
I clean the tray and steam wand weekly and found that soaking my wand in 1:2 white vinegar/hot water works the best for getting any scalded milk out of the nozzle and keeps it steaming perfectly. You can twist the nozzle off after soaking for an hour and use a straw cleaner to scrub the wand out. This helps eliminate blockages in the wand which I was having in the beginning after a couple weeks of use even after purging the wand after every use.
Everything comes apart really easily for cleaning and moving – I kept the original box and styrofoam for moving since I moved across the country and everything held up perfectly. I did end up purchasing a different tamp but the one that comes with it works fine I just preferred a heavier weighted one.
Overall, I highly recommend this and will keep using breville products if they are all built this well.
edney0207 –
After doing research, I decided to buy this espresso machine and it didn’t disappoint. What a delight it is to have easy cleaning, fast heat-up time, and the gorgeous Black Truffle color is just a cherry on top. I love this machine! It’s super reliable and has everything I need. Totally worth the investment!
Richard B. –
After all the positive reviews, I was looking forward to brewing my own lattes. The machine arrived promptly as scheduled. I unpacked everything, removed all the plastic, tape, etc. I rinsed all the components like the frothing cup, tamper, portafilter, water tank, etc. I soaked the water filter for 5 minutes, installed the water filter into the water tank and filled the water tank with water (below the max line). Then I powered on the machine and tried the initial flush after putting a mug under where I would expect the water to come out. 10, 9, 8, repeated beeping and reset back to wanting to do a flush. I tried a few times, tried with the bean hopper and without, with and without the portafilter attached. Nothing…
The instruction manual makes no mention of such an error condition or what to do. Online, I found some references to the flush requiring the portafilter and others arguing it doesn’t. Often I have seen people say this indicates a dead machine… So, basically, DOA…
**Jun 6 update**: after waiting about 1 hour for Breville support, and working with support for about 15 minutes, they indicated I need to send the machine (just the shell, not the water tank, etc) via UPS, then wait for receipt, then they will send a new machine to me. Currently, it looks like my 2 day Amazon order is basically turning into a 2 week exercise. Hopefully, the new machine will be worth it. I’ll post an update when I receive the replacement.
**Jun 14 update**: I received my replacement unit. It worked right out of the box. Of course setup was faster this time since I already knew what to do. As for the quality of the machine, I am still working on making a good espresso (haven’t perfected the crema). Also, be aware that the steamer outputs a couple seconds of water initially, so I recommend using a cup to put underneath until steam starts coming out, then start frothing the milk. The steam wand stops after awhile, whether or not the frothing is complete (if you buy a larger frothing cup, it won’t always be complete). The portafilter sometimes is hard to get on and you certainly want to get a dosing funnel for the portafilter. I am also purchasing a bottomless portafilter for the machine so I can more easily customize the settings.
**Jun 19 update**: After trying several times to make a decent espresso and latte, I finally figured out it was the beans I had. Don’t expect a decent espresso if you have older beans (even if they made a decent drip coffee and came from a coffee shop). Also, Starbucks beans are “old” the day you buy them. I have to find a decent local roaster, but at least the Lavazzo Barista Perfetto beans I ordered recently produced a richer coffee with some crema (even though I have no idea when they were roasted either). I also found it is better to weigh the beans and grind the full amount rather than use the timed grinding amount. Overall, I see I am in for a lot of experimentation, but now that I got my first semi-decent espresso (far better than you can buy at Starbucks), I know this is a good machine.
Overall, I am raising my review to a 4 star (not quite as good as the “pro” machines I am used to at work in our micro-kitchens, but certainly better than the DOA unit, and customer service was pretty good). However, for the price-point, I am not sure I am going to get a better machine without spending several thousand to get the features like “instant” steam (without dripping water) and being able to froth your milk concurrent with the “extraction”.
Heather Foxman –
I have had my Breville for 2.5 years and overall it has been a great experience. The machine is very easy to use – a beginner can make an excellent latte in minutes – but you can also play with various features to suit your particular espresso and latte style. I especially like how this machine heats up immediately – no waiting for coffee! Want it now? You got it! NEW feature – the small funnel that comes with it now keeps all the grounds in when. it comes out of the grinder so no mess – fabulous! How am I able to compare the new machine with the slightly older one? Well . . . I have been very happy with this machine . . until just recently – I cannot tell a lie – we had a rocky spell, Breville and I. But as they came thru for me I the end, I have raised my review back up to a 5. technically, due to the fact that it happened, perhaps I should have put a 4.5, but that isn’t possible. What happened was my machine just stopped working. I called support and the representative did a video chat with me to try to fix it on the spot. It was great that they could run me thru the different “fixit things” to try right over the phone, but eventually it became obvious that it needed something more than advanced cleaning. They were very prompt – they sent me a box to ship it in just like a day – super fast. A couple days later they then sent an e-mail with a quote and I decided to spend the money because I really really love this machine. It wasn’t cheap – but shipping was included so really not bad over all. And I wanted the professionals fixing it, not me trying this and that off of a DIY YouTube video and getting no where. So they fixed it and sent it back super fast – BUT – sadly, in their haste to get it back quickly to me, the technicians shipped it in a wet condition, and when it arrived it stunk and had rust marks on the face plate! Yikes. I was very very upset as it was not at all in that condition when I sent I to them. I had waited a couple days to send it and let the machine dry out on purpose. I can only think that it was an inexperienced technician who was trying to get it back to me super fast who made this mistake, and hopefully they are taking steps so this never happens to anyone else again! Initially they did not offer me any sort of compensation for this mistake – even tho having these blemishes was really upsetting and really spoiled the art factor of this machine – cause really – it is beautiful looking – it isn’t just an old coffee maker – it is a show piece in your home! I have mine proudly on display and serve coffee to all my guests! It looks fantastic on my counter! So when they did nothing for me I wrote my review detailing what had happened and lowered my rating to a 3. And then magically, someone at Breville either listened to what I told the representatives, or saw my review or I don’t know – but they suddenly did the right thing and approved a replacement machine! At no cost to me. I was ecstatic. Breville did right by me. It actually brings tears to my eyes cause I bought my original machine with money my Dad left me when he passed away. Otherwise it was really out of my price range. So thank you Breville – you warmed my heart and corrected your mistake and for that I give you 5 stars! You did the right and ethical thing. You can trust this company.
Christopher Komuves –
So, the machine itself is very pretty with all its shiny stainless steel, and it is satisfyingly heavily built. The parts are well machined, and fit together well.
DOCUMENTATION:
The documentation, however, is terrible. There is one page of the manual (page 15) that contradicts itself just within that same page. It says that “if the espresso starts to flow after less than 6 seconds…this is an UNDER EXTRACTED shot.” Later on the same page, it says a correct extraction is when the “flow starts after 8-12 seconds”, and that under extraction is where “flow starts afer 1-7 seconds”. So, my extraction was starting to flow around 6 seconds, and sometimes 7, so according to the manual, that was both not under extracted and was under extracted. I wound up talking with a support person from Breville (I’ll get to that later), and I told her that the range of how much ground coffee should be used doesn’t actually work with the provided portafilter, and seems oddly high. When she asked me where I saw the range I was quoting, I told her (again, page 15), and she said it said something different, telling me I was wrong, followed by, “oh, you must have an outdated version of the manual that has the wrong numbers in it” even though I just purchased this a week ago. She emailed me the current manual. The provided manual says 8-10 grams for 1 cup, 19-22 grams for 2 cup. The PDF she emailed says 8-11 grams for 1 cup and 16-19 grams for 2 cup. These are really major mistakes that have made getting this to work properly into a nightmare that was unnecessary.
SUPPORT:
I spend an hour on the phone with a customer support woman from Breville. I’m going to recount some of the detailed dialogue so you can understand what this support experience was like for the hour of my life I will never get back.
She asked me no less than 4 times to grind a batch of coffee at 15 grind setting for 13 seconds, after I started off by telling her that when I did just that (the default), and it produced 21.4 grams of coffee, where only about 20 grams could be squeezed into in the portafilter, despite the manual saying that’s in range for what should fit. I kept telling her that again, and she would go back to it again and keep asking me to grind that much coffee despite my telling her that only 12 seconds worth could be squeezed into it. She also kept calling me “Mr. Hall”, which is not even vaguely close to my name, until I asked her why she was calling me that, so she switched to “Mr. Christopher” (my first name).
She had me run through the 1 and 2 shot cycles just to measure how much water comes out without a portafilter in place, which turned out to be almost 2 and almost 3 ounces, respectively. She then said, “Oh, that’s way too much, it should be 1 ounce and 2 ounces.”. I responded by saying, “isn’t that what the output should be of espresso when you actually pull it–since some water will be left within the grinds, etc.?”. She said, “no, it’s supposed to be 1 and 2 ounces without going through coffee and would be the same when it goes through coffee.” She then had me run though doing custom shot volume, telling me completely wrong information about how the procedure works, and had me change the amounts to 1 and 2 ounces of water. I did that–slightly more actually because water keeps coming out after you stop it. Then she had me pull shots through coffee. The single cup shot had a volume, including crema, of only 0.6 ounces! When I told her it was “point six ounces”, she said “that’s too much, it should only be an ounce”. When I responded again that it was “zero point six ounces” she said that again. When I said, “but that’s barely more than half of what it’s supposed to be, barely more than half an ounce”, she responded, “oh, right, that’s less than an ounce, I always get that backwards.”
I asked her if doing the “reset to defaults” on the machine would restore the volumes for shots that they machine came with, which seemed fine to me in the beginning. She said, “no, resetting to defaults does not affect that setting, you have to manually change it back using the custom setting.” After the call, where she left me with unusable settings and I was having a really tough time getting them right, I looked in the manual, and she was dead wrong. Doing a reset does reset these volumes, so I did.
At one point during the call, I had to tell her I needed to switch to a different coffee as I was almost out of the one I had just purchased (since she was making me waste massive amounts of it on totally useless tests). The beans I was using to this point, btw, were fairly good. It was Allegro Coffee Organic Espresso Bel Canto ( https://amzn.to/3eOOSnQ ). She said that the problem I actually called about–which was that I could not get the extraction into the correct time range of 8-12 seconds before flow starts, was entirely because I was using “inferior beans”.
OPERATION
I do love that this machine heats up in just a couple of seconds, whether for making espresso or for steaming milk. That’s an excellent feature. The steam wand is powerful too–though for small amounts of milk, it’s so powerful that it’s hard to get good microfoam and to not overheat the milk.
One design flaw is that when you grind the recommended amount of coffee into the portafilter (you put the portafilter and handle into a little slot), it spills coffee grounds everywhere–both wasting good coffee and making a mess that’s a pain to clean up each time.
I did find an excellent solution to that, which is to add in a ring funnel. I was skeptical about this, but with this on the portafilter, you leave it far belong the grinder and manually depress the button behind where the filter is supposed to go, and all the grinds get into the portafilter with no waste or mess. This means totally not using the grinder as intended, but the design for that is so broken that this is the only reasonable solution. The one I used was this, and it works shockingly well: https://amzn.to/38KwVmf
So, I’m not sure what to say about this machine in summary. It’s pretty and has some great features and engineering, but also some painfully badly engineered features. Documentation and technical support are among the worst of any company I’ve encountered. I so WANTED to love this machine. I like it, but there are a lot of issues to get past. I don’t have experience with other competing machines, so I don’t know what faults they have to compare with this. Between the design flaws, terrible support, and blatantly wrong information in their documentation that they provide, I would have to conclude that Breville is quite a dysfunctional company. Maybe I can live with that for a pretty machine with some nice features? I’m still trying to decide.
Amazon Customer –
5 star for sure. The machine is well built and great quality. I’m a big fan of Breville and own many of their products. It’s a great value also and not hard to use at all. Those that are lazy might disagree but I would rather take 5 minutes out of my morning to make my own espresso drink for just pennies compared to what coffee house’s charge for the same quality product. That’s not an exaggeration, it takes me literally 5 minutes for the whole espresso making process. That include grinding the coffee beans and steaming the milk, 5 minutes. You waist a lot longer driving to a coffee shop, waiting in line to order and waiting in line behind people also waiting on their coffee. Also, do the math, if you buy a coffee, just one coffee, for 5 or 6 dollars and that is a low end price at a coffee shop per day you can expect to spend $1,825 to $2,190 a year. A Barista Pro at 600 or 800 dollars, depending on if you catch them on sale, will pay for itself in a matter of months and my first machine lasted 7 years before the boiler gave in. That’s literally thousands of dollars saved not buying 1 cup of coffee per day at a coffee house and getting the same quality drink. I, with no doubt, will keep purchasing Breville espresso machines as long as they keep making the same quality machines at the reasonable prices they have now.
Wes –
I have had this espresso machine for over a year now. It has been amazing. I was going to a coffee shop every day, and this machine makes espresso just as good as the shop. I have already saved enough money to buy this machine 3 times. I had a minor paint issue on the drip tray and ignored it for months. I think I caused it by puttingit in the dishwasher, I
decided to email Breville last night via email. They responded at 9am this morning. With a few pictures and 3 quick emails, they thabked me and sent me the tracking number for the new part.
If the price tag is a concern (was for me), just add up your yearly coffee tab. My coffee addiction was $2,500 a year! Well worth the price!
Hatricia –
I have always wanted an espresso machine, but could never justify the cost of a decent one. Especially one that would be easy to use, low maintenance, and wouldn’t take too much time to use.
My drink of choice is usually a caramel macchiato from Starbucks, but it’s expensive, and the quality isn’t always consistent. So with the amount of times I find myself in the drive through every week, and how often I end up with a drink that doesn’t even taste good, I finally decided to just get this. Also on work from home days I don’t want to get up to go out just for coffee.
I was able to do the Amazon payments option, and when I calculated how much I’m probably spending at Starbucks a few times a week, it was close to what I’d pay for this machine each month (terrible I know), so it would be more than worth it. Plus now I could have coffee on weekends or days when I work remote.
When I got it, I did spend quite a lot of time at first figuring out what all the parts were so I didn’t mess it up, but after the first two shots I realized how easy it was going to be to use. I think after 3-4 shots I had both the grind time and size just about perfect and have not had a bad one since.
It’s quick to make my coffee in the morning before work, I can just run the pieces under hot water to rinse off, and then I’m done. I have used it every day since I got it about a week ago, and today I did a more thorough cleaning, and even that only took about 5 minutes.
I am really happy I splurged on this, it was a big investment for me, but it’s been everything I wanted so far.