Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine BES870XL, Brushed Stainless Steel

Maddle United States

Best Entry-level Home Espresso Machine

I absolutely love this machine. With as many lattes as I drink, this will easily pay for itself within a year, inclouding the cost of beans, milk and cleaning products. Notes: Make sure to keep up with all the regular maintenance. Ever day after I've made my coffee, I wipe the steam wand, purge it, then wipe again. Make sure to get into all the crevices around the tip and you'll never need to use the pin to clean out the tip. Once I've done that and poured my steamed milk, I purge the showerhead by pulling one shot into the empty mug (no filters). This keeps the showerhead clean of coffee debris and keeps the coffee tasting pure. REMEMBER TO CHANGE YOUR WATER FILTERS. The filters should be changed every 60 uses or 2 months, whichever comes first. This wolill reduce how often you need to descale the machine, prolong it's useful life and provide better tasting coffees. You will still need to descale the machine every so often. The manual included is very helpful for keeping up with the maintenance (as well as pulling shots, making drinks and other useful tips) and you can also find instructions on their website should you misplace the manual. Gold tone makes pretty inexpensive replacement filters specific to this machine and they're available here on Amazon. I use them and am pretty happy with the results. Do not let the water run out. Ever. This could cause serious damage to the machine. If you forget once or twice, you'll probably be just fine but check the water reservoir at least 1-2 times per week. Clean the machine parts at least once a week. You may need to empty and rinse the drip tray 1-2 times a week (depending on frequency of use) but take it out and hand wash at least once a week. This is a good time to wash the tools and tool bin as well. Also, dont forget to take the coffee filters out of the portafilter and wash those as well. Over time, residue can build up underneath there. Also, the spouts in the portafiler twist off so you can clean them better. Clean out your parts, get in those crevices regularly and you'll be just fine. Don't forget to clean the hopper and grinder. You should clean it out every time you switch to a new bean or at least every few pounds of coffee. The instructions in the manual are pretty easy and straight forward. I also use a clean, dry towel to wipe any remaining coffee and oils from both the grinder parts and the hopper. Do not wash in warm water as you could risk it not drying well and rusting or not being lubricated enough and over heating. Just use the included brush and clean, dry paper towels. You could also vacuum out residual coffee from the grinder to assist in cleaning, but I don't usually need to. Also, remember that the stainless exterior is stainless plating. This means it can wear over time and not look as nice. The best way to handle this is to wipe it down with a damp cloth (once daily then more detailed once a week) and follow it up by drying it with a clean towel. This will prolong the exterior appearance. Also during your weekly cleaning, be sure to look under where the coffee and steam come out and clean around there. Milk, coffee and residue steam can splatter and build up so be sure to clean it as well. The weekly cleaning sound intensive but really takes maybe 5 minutes. Common issues: Keep in mind certain o-rings will need to be replaced over time. This is noted by Breville in the manual and on the website. There are two main places where you need to replace these: around the tip of the portafilter (where the spouts connect) and where the portafilter connects to pull shots. Another common issue is that the machine will make a loud "buzzing" sound and/or leak water out of the bottom of the machine. This is a common issue and, when it does occur, usually happens around 6 months to a year. This generally occurs due to a broken solenoid valve. If your product is still under warranty, take a video and contact their customer service. Maybe suggest it's a solenoid valve and they are usually very good about fixing or replacing the machines and parts. If it is no longer under warranty and they will not resolve the issue (because sometimes they still will after the warranty period), there are many repair services that can fix this. If you are especially handy and brave enough to fix it yourself, you can usually find the replacement parts fairly cheaply online (not just the valve, but really ANY part that may need to be replaced). Again, if it's still under warranty do not go this route, as it will void any existing warranty. Also, if you don't know what you're doing, you could do more damage than good. All-in-all, this is an amazing machine for this price point. There is a reason this machine is so popular and highly rated. There's a lot of customization available to you and it is a very good quality machine. I would not suggest any product below this machine and price point for your first machine as you'll likely be very disappointed in the results. Eventually you may want to upgrade to a more robust multi-thousand dollar machine, but this is great for the majority of consumers and is super user friendly. Use higher quality beans directly from the roasters and learn how to use the machine and make drinks and you'll be very happy with it. The quality is truly amazing for such a low cost espresso machine. Side note: Whole Latte Love on YouTube is a great resource for additional reviews, tips and tricks and maintenance for this machine (and many more). It's also a great resource on how to pull shots, steam milk, pick types of milk and make many different types of drinks when you're just starting out or want to up your coffee game.

Kyvnmiller United States

1st month review

Its been a month since I have bought this machine. I have not worked every coffee making device out there but I have operated and tasted many. I had just lost my Deloghni magnifca super automatic machine after seven years of use. It was a pretty good machine for being a super automatic. But I have craved to get a real espresso machine and do a proper cappuccino. I have used french presses, Vietnamese phins, drip, siphon, and single serve kuerigs. Being in the Pacific NW you would except awesome cafe's everywhere, and you would be wrong. To get a good barrista that knows what they are doing, is slim to none. So with the exit of my super auto, I shopped for a good one. I kept coming back to the breville. Only knocks it was really getting was that breville was Australian and new to the game. I took the plunge and bought it, and I do not regret it. So the good: It comes with its own grinder. It not the best, but then again its no slouch. It can be taken apart and cleaned. My super never did that. What this means is that as you build up grounds on the Burr, you can pull it apart easily and clean it. It has a hopper that you can remove and place unused beans back in its container, that is just awesome, you can make decafe then switch to a new bean. A reviewer gave a good tip that when you first run it, start at the coarse then work it to fine when you start to grind, good advice. I word of caution from me, every different roast of bean will be a new setting for the machine. If you use a oily bean, then you might have to clean the burr a lot in order to get that fine grind. Also be prepared to go through a lot of coffee to figure out the right setting to get that perfect cup. Temperature control. You can decrease or increase the temperature by 4 degree's, in 2 degree increments. Doesn't sound like much, but it can change the taste of your espresso. Easy to program grind amount, and shot times. It has a gauge to measure the pressure as it goes through the port a filter. It is a nice touch to be able to tell how things are working, several high price machine you have to feel it out and guess, this you can tell right away if something went wrong and you can adjust. The steam wand is easy to use, the switch on the side is okay, my super did have a better control knob that you could control the amount of steam that came out, but this one is slow enough that its not that bad to operate. Clean up is a snap, I really enjoy the fact that I can easily and quickly clean it up. It has a water filter, where I live we have a high concentration of hard water, so having a second filter to go through is nice. Parts. Breville has all the parts you can buy to fix your machine if they go out or need replaced. I am talking about new port a filters, rings, hoppers, water reservoirs, ect. It is pretty, looks really good, makes you want to drink coffee. The things that are not so nice: You will go through a lot of coffee. This is most true when you first get the machine and try to figure out how to run it. There is a couple of way things can go down. 1) you drink every cup you make, I suggest you do this alone. Anyone around you will worry you are on something because you will be running at a 1000 mph on that much caffeine, no matter what your tolerance is. You will be wondering why everyone around you is moving so slow. 2) invite people over and watch there reaction to find out well you are doing on making that espresso. Mess from the grounds. It has a tray, but for some reason my grounds always seem to go further then the tray. I placed a small dish under the grinder it that keeps it contained and its easily cleaned. You can also fill the port a filter, tamp, then fill a little more until you reach the proper level. I place a paper towel down and do the tamp on that, it catches the grounds that fall when tamping. Don't expect a piping hot cup of joe. You can get it hot enough, by following their suggestions. I poor hot water in my cup before and do a single shot on a empty port a filter, that seems to do a good enough job. My latte art is of clouds, mushrooms, cotton balls. I believe that is my malfunction though. Overall, for the price (especially now) and the quality of espresso I am getting, its the top choice. Is it the best machine out there, no. But if you can afford those then I am not sure why you are reading things on amazon. Try different beans, they will taste different from what you are used to, each type will need different techniques to get the right pull. The Seattle best coffee bean, I only need to lightly tamp, the Vietnamese Civet I have to really press hard to get to the right tamp. I will trying several others as I go along, but I think that's the best part of this machine. And to the few people ( there is other things I would call you) about the California restrictions, in the manual it does say that the parts on the machine that does come in contact with coffee or water is BPA Free and there is no parts that will make you grow a third limb, unless you already have one. If you read the blasted bill you might figure out what it actually is saying, Anything with a grinder or power cord falls in this warning. I don't know about you, but I am not grinding bits of plastic in my coffee, and I am not sucking on the power cord, but if that's what you want to do, go for it. For me, this has been a awesome buy, thank you for reading.

Tom thomas United States

Long-term review x4: THE END

6 year update: Well, it finally happened. It broke beyond my ability to repair! Bad smell and funny sound happened while pulling a shot. Opened machine and could pretty quickly see one of the solenoids was burning up. Not sure what the cause of it is -- part failed? Triac failed and sent too much current to it? Water damage from leaking tubes? Bought a new solenoid for $20, but after replacing it the machine was leaking from pretty much every tube I had to disconnect. I couldn't be bothered to wait anymore and find a supplier for 5 o-rings of the right od/id size, so it's done. Bought a new Breville, this time upgraded a dual boiler one. New machine works great! This one did for many years too, so I'm still 5-stars happy with it even though it gave up the ghost. It was repairable for probably another $10, unless the triac was bad too; couldn't find a replacement for that triac. Anyways, wholly recommend this machine. It's a good value and makes good coffee, and is as reliable as can be expected! 5.5 year update: Still love this machine. Still working great. I like to read negative reviews on things I'm going to purchase, and have been surprised by some of the negative reviews. One of the higher upvoted reviews talked about the maintenance this machine requires. Yes, it does require maintenance. It's not a pod-style machine where the maintenance is nothing. There is a tray that you have to empty *and clean* pretty regularly. It gets a fine coffee buildup from the cleaning process, and will get pretty nasty if you don't clean it. The same with the water tank, the filter in the water tank, the two different cleaning cycles indicated by the lights, and the dried milk on the steam wand. It's not a one-button leave-it-dirty-AF thing like your microwave crusted in tomato sauce and butter splatter. If you don't clean it, it may break. Don't buy it if you can't take an extra few minutes to check water levels, wipe down the steam wand, clean the group head with a paper towel, or wipe the coffee oil out of the filter. If you can do that, I can't recommend this enough. At 5.5 years of at least 2 2-cup espressos daily, it's still going strong, still only one replacement gasket in it's life. 4.5 year update: We did have to replace the gasket, which was pretty easy. Barista Express didn't have the gasket in stock, but there are a number of compatible ones on Amazon. $8 or so. Otherwise still making the same great espresso on day 1600 as it did on day 1! Update: Checking in at 3.5 years. This thing is still going strong, supplying my wife and I with delicious daily lattes. That's roughly 2500 quad lattes without breaking down! The gasket around the group head did pop out recently during one of the cleaning cycles, but didn't need replacement -- we were able to detatch and put it back together. The price has gone up 30% but it's still a steal. Back-of-napkin math: 1 cup milk per drink 20 grams of ground beans per drink 1/2 gal of milk costs $3.50 in my HCOL area 1.14kg of espresso beans is $15 That means each drink is 40 cents of milk and 26 cents of coffee beans. Maybe 10 cents of electricity? Another 4 cents of occasional vanilla or caramel flavoring? Our 2500 drinks have cost $2,000 plus the $500 for the machine, vs $12,500 if we'd walked to the nearby cafe every day. What a bargain! We've had this now for 1.5 years. It is absolutely the best $500 I've spent in recent memory. It makes a fantastic espresso shot for us plebs. I'm sure true aficionados can find many faults, but for the Starbuck-going average Joe this will make an espresso on par or better simply because you can choose the beans. No plastic waste or expensive custom cups, and you can actually control all the little variables like grind and time and pack density. I get up 10 minutes earlier and prep our morning coffee, saving the $10/day Sbuck habit for two. I haven't done the math, but the cost of milk, beans, and electricity is probably less than half that. 100 days and it pays for itself, 450 days and we're $2200 richer than the alternative.

DAN CRESSWELL Canada

Great espresso machine with built-in grinder for the money.

I've had this almost two years now, so I figured it was time for a proper review. If you don't want to read my in depth review but just my quick opinion and are in the market for a semi-automatic espresso maker (with grinder!), you can't beat this machine for the money it costs (especially here compared to a department store). It comes with a satisfactory grinder (anything better itself will cost you hundreds of dollars on its own), and an easy to use (and learn) espresso maker which makes good espresso, latte's, etc. (assuming you don't use garbage beans of course). Its been nearly two years and I've yet to have a problem and still works just as good as it did the day I got it. I'll start with the cons, because there aren't many and they are very minor, picky issues. The grinder: I find the size setting to be slightly misleading. I'd assume you could use the full range of grind sizes, but anything less than a 4 you'll have trouble pulling a shot with the proper pressure. Over time I've found I've needed to reduce the grind size more and more, but that could be to poor (lack of) regular cleaning habits because I'm lazy. The pressure gauge. There's an "espresso range" on it which you may think anywhere in that is OK. Its not. To get a good pull you'll need to make sure it starts around at least "12:30" and ideally about "1:00" if you treat it like a clock (pointing straight up would be 12:00). Once you get a feel for the grind and how much tamp pressure to use, you'll be able to do this with regular ease after a couple weeks of use (assuming you mainly stick with one type of espresso). The port-a-filter. Its not standard sized so it may be hard to replace. No big deal. Those interested in this probably have more "professional" machines anyways and aren't in the market for this. Now onto the good things: If you've never used a steam wand before, this is probably a good machine for you. Enthusiasts may say its not good or powerful enough, but its great to learn on. Its not a "double boiler" machine where you can froth milk and do the espresso at the same time, but for starter home use its great. Those double boiler machines start at 2-3 times the price of this. If you only make lattes for yourself a couple times a day (like me), its perfect. Because its doesn't use a boiler, its a little slower. That actually makes it EASIER to make perfect milk for the novice (also like me!). By the time I'm done making a latte, I've probably spent about 3 minutes. That's about 6 minutes out of my day which is quicker than waiting forever at st*rb*cks for something worse. The grinder: Its built in. Enough said. Clean it out once in a while and you'll be fine. Making espresso: You can adjust the temperature within 4 degrees of 200f (the factory setting). Adjust according to your taste and beans you are using (I'm not an expert, there's a ton and probably too much info out there on the subject). I keep mine at 202 as it brings out slightly better flavor for the standard bean I use. If you're using relatively fresh coffee beans, you shouldn't have much trouble pulling a decent shot. Maintenance/cleaning: its easy to use the cleaning cycle. Don't buy the cleaning tabs or descaling solutions. Buy Cafiza tabs as they will cost you a fraction of what the Breville ones cost for regular cleaning. Dezcal can be bought for descaling also with the same cost difference. The drip tray is dishwasher safe (top shelf). I put mine in about every two weeks. In between that, I give it a good rinse when the tray is full to get rid of any grime that may have built up. If I get 2 more years out of this, I'll be extremely happy. I've already gotten back my return on investment.