Breville - Barista Pro Espresso Machine BES878BSS

I recently bought the Barista Pro as my first espresso machine and have found it to be pretty easy to learn and like it a lot.

There are tons of really good YouTube videos that walk thru how to set it up and dial it in. I did go thru a lot of beans to get it dialed in the first time but now it’s awesome!

breville barista pro can do everything you want with med/dark roasted traditional italian espresso. it seems some people can't read or try to find out the features, and blame the machine. it's actually preferred to use manual mode to get exactly what you want out of it. grinder, latest one, has very low retention, if you know what to do. and it's on sale for $600 at Amazon. $100 over your budget. if you drink light/med roast beans, grinder isn't good enough. heard good things about bambino plus. you will need a separate grinder with it. making espresso isn't too hard, if you can follow some simple suggestions.

this. if you have no desire to upgrade in the future. it works very well for med/dark roast.

if you must have everything in one machine, i suggest breville barista pro. better grinder. same burr as esp. otherwise bambino plus and separate grinder is a better deal. don't get things with auto dose or auto tamping.

So funny my son took an interest in my coffee habits at the same age, now everytime I turn on my machine (barista pro) when the vibratory pump kicks in he immediately smiles.

I hope you get some other suggestions. My local Marshall’s has a Breville Barista Pro on sale for $500 currently. Last year they had a few and I watched them get red and yellow tags. I was patient and lucky and finally bought one when it was reduced to $250. I haven’t seen deals like that lately.

Spot on, at the factory setting of 6, the adjustable knob doesn't get it fine enough for any of the beans I have tried. It pours super runny shots even all the way to the finest setting of the dial. Setting it to 3 puts it right in the best spot where it can go up or down.

Barista pro has better burrs better consistency better features, basically everything. If it’s in budget I’d go for it. Our barista express still easily is making better coffee that most cafes, took a month or playing and reading and adjusting, only our favourite roaster (out of places we have been) does better coffee IMO, espresso maybe a different story though I’m also enjoying some of our beans black. If you enjoy the process at all you will want to go up from a barista express either as soon as you get good or eventually at least, I can’t justify an upgrade cos it works and we got it as a gift.

I have a Barista Pro. I joined this group to try to troubleshoot its issues, as it’s been dying a slow and noisy death since a week after the warranty period was up. It served me well for the two years, but personally, I think it’s time to upgrade to two separate machines.

I have the Breville Barista Pro. I love it. I make coffee everyday and tastes better than the shops.

Great! Two other competitors within under ~$1.5-2k USD. What interested me with manual lever is doing espresso profiling for under ~$800 USD and also because a few years ago (2019) these new machines either were too expensive or didn't exist and heating up times of 20 minutes was a non starter for me. (That's why I bought a breville barista pro, 2 flush and brew ) With 2-3min heat up time , it's similar to a kettle and can use the machine for hot water dispensing.

It's indeed pricey, can potentially break in the future ( Especially it's their 1st version), must maintain it by using the correct water and flushing/clearing it. I have a Breville Barista Pro for 5 years, I did buy many stuff 54mm such as 3 different baskets (sizes and design), metal screen, paper and funnel. They all make a difference in the shot but did cost money. The Breville Barista Pro also had an integrated great grinder which makes it a bit less expensive. Yeah it's getting up there in the expensive range.

Got the same one when any family members come over I make them a latte and within the next week they are buying one too.