Breville Bambino Plus BES500

It's a Little Bit Impressive – Introduction ------------ Do you dream of making a quick cappuccino before reading the paper or browsing Facebook? If so, the Breville Bambino Plus MAY be the machine for you! It is an excellent brewer with a small footprint. What is the Breville Bambino Plus? ----------------------------------- The Breville Bambino Plus occupies a curious niche between the pod machines, such as the Nespresso, and serious entry-level home Barista machines, such as the Gaggia Classic Pro or Rancilio Silvia.

And it does so rather well.

It allows the home barista more control over coffee, coffee grind (should you choose to grind your own), dose, tamp pressure and extraction time -- although the last has defaults -- than a coffee pod appliance, like the Nespresso or its Aldi equivalent. The results are rewarding for people who don't have time, money or inclination to delve into the whole coffee hobby, such as those who buy more expensive machines, like a Gaggia Classic Pro or the Rancilio Silvia.

But that's not to say the coffee is far worse. On the contrary, the Bambino is an excellent example of how spending more money on coffee machines quickly becomes a case of diminishing returns. In fact, it brews coffee better than it ought to.

My Purchase ------------- A disclaimer. I bought the Bambino from Gray's online auction site as a 'retail return'. Auctions often mean many things, some of which are not good. Happily, in my case, the machine was in perfect working order barring a slight discolouration on one side. Nevertheless, the term "caveat emptor" should be on the mind of anyone bidding in these auctions.

What You Get -------------- The Bambino is a coffee machine with a narrow and short footprint. A 54mm portafilter with plastic insert; two dual wall baskets - one single dose and the other double; a stainless steel jug; a tamp; a blind filter; a 'razor' tool to help measure the dose; and two cleaning tablets.

The build quality is suitable as an appliance, albeit with plastic and thin stainless steel bits. The heating element is a 'thermojet', a type of thermocoil, which has a metal tube running through a heated metal block. The main advantage of a thermojet over the usual thermoblock, which doesn't house a metal tube but instead has a cut-out channel for the water, is a likely improvement of the appliance's longevity. The joining of two metal blocks in a thermoblock can mean leakage over time if the seal weakens. This leakage should not, I believe, happen so readily with a thermojet.

The Bambino has a PID for a 93-degree C brew at 9 bars of pressure. Most home baristas see this as an ideal temperature and pressure set-up. While you cannot change these settings, unlike some higher-end espresso machines, they are good values to use. A temperature probe is located on the base of the drip tray and allows the Bambino to steam milk automatically. Unlike most inexpensive coffee machines, the Bambino has a three-way solenoid valve for back flushing.

The Bambino will automatically prompt for back flushing and de-scaling cycles after a set number of uses by cryptically flashing lights on its front. You need the manual to decipher these.

The drip tray itself is small, but removes easily and there is a float to show when it is overfull.

Buttons -------- Across the top of the Bambino are three horizontal buttons and two vertical buttons close to the steam wand. The first two are for single shot and double shot espressos. The buttons allow for a volumetric flow, which can be re-programmed or remain at a default setting. The home barista can also manually control the flow.

The third button starts the steaming function, and the two horizontal buttons are for the milk temperature (top) and milk texture (bottom). The three milk temperature settings are about 50 degrees C (one light), 60 (two lights) and 70 degrees (three lights). The three milk texture settings are smooth, from latte art (one light) to full-body cappuccino (three lights).

Press the double shot button to turn the Bambino on, and both the single shot plus steam button to turn it off. I can vouch that, once turned on, it takes about 3 seconds to get up to temperature.

Espresso --------- I brewed espressos using both home-ground and store-bought, pre-ground coffee. I used the dual wall filter basket, although you can buy regular single wall baskets and better portafilters for the Breville. One feature of the Bambino is pre-infusion, which allows a small dose of water at low pressure to wet the coffee puck.

The Breville has a dosage 'razor', a distribution tool allowing one to size the dose. I used it once and shelved it. I recommend, for best results, buying and using a small set of coffee scales. In both cases, I aimed for 16 grams of coffee for a 32-gram shot with a 25-35 second brew time.

The result from my own finely ground coffee in the dual wall filter basket was good to excellent. While I pulled shots from my Rancilio Silvia with more texture and clarity, they're not proportionally better for the price differential. The espresso quality from the Bambino was at least as good, if not better than from most cafes -- specialty cafes excluded.

However, the result from pre-ground coffee was mundane. I couldn't hit the flow with time, yet still achieved a 'crema' from the pressurised basket. The difference is that pre-ground coffee is better for use as a base for a cappuccino, which leads nicely to milk-steaming...

Cappuccino ------------ The milk pitcher provided by Breville is designed to be placed on the temperature probe at the base of the drip tray. It's essential to position the stainless steel milk pitcher ON the temperature probe; otherwise, it continues steaming without stopping.

I was sceptical at first but found it formed an excellent foam in a quick time. I recommend using the milk's mid-points (two lights for temperature; two for texture). The steam wand only moves up and down -- no other direction -- and after steaming, the Bambino auto-purges the steam wand.

There is an ability to steam manually, should you want to, but this seems to go against the intended use of the Bambino Plus, which is excellent coffee with minimal input. This brings me to the workflow and the best reasons to buy the Bambino...

Why Would You Buy It? ----------------------- The Bambino is great if you want a quick cappuccino or espresso in the morning without too much fuss. In the time it took me to make a cappuccino on the Bambino and clean it, my Rancilio Silvia was still in its 15-20 minute boiler warm-up.

Yet the quality of the Bambino's coffee was not far off what one might expect from the more expensive Rancilio Silvia. So the Bambino wins concerning ease of use and coffee quality, and it makes a persuasive argument at its price point.

Why Wouldn't You Buy It? -------------------------- The reasons to buy more expensive machines, such as the Silvia or even Gaggia Classic Pro, are for finer control over the coffee inputs and build quality/serviceability.

First, what do I mean by build quality? While the Breville Bambino Plus is well built, I suspect it's not designed to last decades nor be easily serviceable by the home barista. There exist decades-old Gaggias and Rancilios because you can open them up and replace components, including the boiler. The Gaggia and Rancilio, and other espresso machines, are designed to be easy to service on and upgrade.

If something goes awry with the Bambino outside of the warranty period, then the average home user will not be able to open it up and service it. That's not to say the Bambino won't last years, if not decades, but that after the warranty period, should it fail, then the cost to repair it may prove too much over the cost to replace it.

The second reason is control. Many expensive espresso machines allow the barista control over brew pressures, brew temperatures and water flow. For example, the Decent DE1PRO allows all or some of these parameters to alter during the brew cycle. While this can be rewarding, it is often time-consuming and, please note, expensive.

Conclusions ----------- I brewed some exceptional espresso shots and excellent cappuccinos. The workflow was quick, which is good if you are time constrained in the morning, and the quality is as good as, if not better than, most cafe bought coffee. While the Bambino's design is primarily for those who want a high-quality brew with minimal fuss, it could also be a start to a wonderful coffee journey.

If you want the best from the Breville Bambino Plus, I recommend buying a set of scales and a good grinder. That way, if you venture into a more serious coffee hobby and purchase higher-end machines, you won't have to buy these. Yet, the espresso quality and convenience from the Bambino Plus begs the question: why would anyone upgrade?

I'm not sure. It sounds like a two-cappuccino problem.

Pros: Bought this for the smaller footprint, which is good. Automatic milk frother Cons: The wand is so tight to put on and machine of course is too light to give resistance. Head cleaning cycle indicator comes on, cannot over ride making it impossible to finish making coffee. After six months head cleaning indicator playing up, will not… Read more

clean. was able to use manual clean so I can use machine, The drip try capacity is shallow and spills occur regularly. Water tank does not have filter, but I bought a jug to filter water to use in tank.

I am disappointed in this machine. I haven’t had it a year and could not in all honesty say it is worth it’s purchase.

This machine gets a star for being compact & fitting on my bench, and a star for the mostly decent coffee shots (although it's very unforgiving with beans and grind size). It loses three stars for its control panel and general design: * no on/off switch. Press any button to turn it on (great, this is achievable in a bleary pre-coffee state;… Read more

random prodding will produce the desired effect). Ok, how do I turn it off? Maybe it has an automatic timed switch-off.. nope. What? Press and hold single shot + steam buttons? Ah dang it, my under-caffeinated finger slipped and now it's shooting another shot at me (after I've already removed my cup, of course).

* forced cleaning cycle after (apparently) 200 shots. I love that it loves being cleaned. I don't love that it gives no warning, and no way of delaying the cleaning while I finish making my cuppa. Even worse when someone else uses the machine first, tips it over 200, I emerge to a blinking machine, and now I'm running late for work as I had to mess about with a clean before making my cup.

* the cleaning cycle overfills the drip tray. Yes, I emptied it first. Yes, I put a 2L container under the wand and group head (which seems superfluous as there's a seal in the filter basket so nothing is coming out of that baby). I still ended up with water seeping across the bench like the machine was a small child who was too busy to take itself to the loo. And again, the buttons to start the cycle are ambiguous, and it's unclear when it's finished cleaning. Is this combo of lights its normal state or is it trying to tell me something new?

* ooo here's a new combo of flashing lights; what does this mean? What's that, Bambino? You're out of water? Maybe you could have a water warning light next to your "cleaning required" light and your power switch!

My elderly Breville machine was amazing, but the Bambino Plus has put me off Breville completely. If I need to get the manual out to decipher basic functions on a benchtop appliance, you've done something wrong. I'm not looking forward to having innocent house guests at Christmas.

I really liked the Bambino Plus while it was working. Despite maintaining the machine meticulously, it began developing intermittent issues around the 12‑month mark. By the time it reached two years old, part of the frothing system had failed completely. This was my first Breville after several De’Longhi machines, and unfortunately it hasn’t lived… Read more

up to the same standard of reliability. I’ll be trying another brand next, as you simply shouldn’t encounter major faults with an appliance at this price point after only two years of use.

Makes the best coffee and makes it hot – To say I’m impressed is an understatement. This compact little machine makes brilliant coffee. It also makes HOT coffee not lukewarm. It heats up and is ready to go in 3 seconds. I really can’t fault it. I feel like the quality of coffee pods has gone off lately, and the pod machines don’t make piping hot coffee. The Bambino Plus does. It’s… Read more

quick, easy, tastes great and is piping hot. It is also easy to clean. Of course there’s a bit more cleaning involved than with a pod machine, but the extra effort required is well worth it. You will get a piping hot satisfying coffee with this amazing little machine.

Looking good – I have been using the Breville Bambino Plus for over two weeks now and I agree with other reviewers that it's not easy to see the bottom tray filled up so quickly with the automatic purging and also the milk splatter with the auto steam wand cleaning. I have resolved that by using a small jug and also a small jar for the steam wand cleaning as… Read more

shown in the two video clips. The automatic purging uses 75ml of water each time, now I have decided to press it again to stop after just a few seconds which is enough to clear the coffee debris. Otherwise, I am quite happy with it, we are enjoying good Cappuccino.

OK but significant drawbacks and best bought on sale – The machine works OK. To get decent coffee, I found that the included portafilter and tamper were inadequate. The tamper is very lightweight, and getting an even tamp is almost impossible. The portafilter has a bunch of plastic in the bottom of it, and the breville baskets don't extract that well. With a better portafilter (eg Pesado 54mm) and… Read more

basket and a decent tamper along with some scales, the espresso turns out much better and more consistent. But that is going to set you back another $100 - $150, bear in my mind. If you are grinding, a dosing ring and a WDT device is also necessary in my opinion, adding to the cost.

The milk frother works well for me with the automatic setting, but isn't quite up to doing latte art.

My signficant complaints: 1. The group head cleaning cycle which can't be skipped. As others have pointed out, this is very irritating as it inevitably interrupts your coffee process. Just a really poor design decision and completely unnecessary.

2. Water leaking. After a few months I started to get water leaking out of the connection between the water tank and the base of the machine. Research online indicates this is a known problem. It can be overcome by never removing the tank and filling it in place with a jug, but it is still a defect.

3. Customer support. When I contacted Breville about the water leaking, they asked for more details and then ignored me. This is well within the warranty period. They wasted my time and failed to resolve the issue. This is unacceptable behaviour for a company with >$1billion dollars in revenue and a thousand employees.

So the machine is OK value, but I would only buy it on a significant sale due to the poor accessories and water leak issue. Do not expect any customer service, and be prepared to troubleshoot your own problems.

When combined with the DT50 grinder this machine produces consistent espresso and is good value. Its shortcomings are the excessive vibration which sometimes unlocks the porta filter while pouring a shot, shifts your cup from under the group head while pouring and makes an infernal racket as the tray vibrates. Storing glasess on the top is a no.… Read more

The cleaning function is also poorly designed in that you might be halfway through a round of coffees and are forced to clean. The cleaning function also leaks under the unit. Plenty of design flaws but it’s compact and does what I want at a good price.

Cannot bypass the cleaning cycle. Ruined many a coffee and left to work angry many times because you can't bypass the cleaning cycle. Breville and its designers must be having a great laugh at what could only be described as an "f-you customers" malicious design every time a user vents their frustration online at this failure of a machine. Well, here's another review for you to enjoy, laugh it up boys. Show details

Have bought Breville Coffee machines for over twenty years, the most recent bambino plus broke down in the first twelve months. Instead of a replacement, it was sent to some repair factory for 6 weeks where they said there was nothing wrong with it and sent it back. It’s still broken , so am I supposed to give it back to breville to send back to… Read more

the repairer. It seems insane to pay freight to another state, pay the repairer for doing nothing and then pay freight back to your state . What a waste of resources. The customer service team couldn’t give a crap. Just another complaining customer. Waiting so long to have nothing done on your machine would not make you buy breville products. Would it be cheaper and use less resources just to replace, at least it would work!!!!

Consistently good coffee – Took about a week to get good coffee - playing with the grind etc - but now I consistently get good lattes from the machine. I like my coffee hot and strong and this delivers in both respects. It is VERY quick to warm up compared to my old machine and does not take up much bench space. Being small the drip tray needs emptying quite often. The only… Read more

minor issue I find is that it is a very lightweight machine. This is mainly a problem when inserting and removing the portafilter - the whole machine tends to move so have to grab the machine with one hand and the portafilter with the other.

Adorable new addition to the family! – My new little Bambino Plus is adorable! It's tiny kitchen bench footprint is ideal, it's easy to use and it's little drip tray is the perfect size for keeping the machine as regularly clean as a baby's proverbial! It's not as technical as some, but comes with dual walled Portafilter baskets and single walled in two sizes and you are able to… Read more

adjust the steam temperature or liquid flow with the push of a cute lil' button. Besides it's fresh, shiny appearance, it's well-proportioned water reservoir and self cleaning steam nozzle are beaut features this baby brings to the family. The only downside is that the warming tray does not keep your coffee warm, but as we drink it straight away, that's not really an issue. We are back to drinking coffee the way Breville intended it!

Cleaning process is not a great experience – While I like the coffee making process and milk frothier the cleaning process is a real pain. You can be in the middle of making a coffee then all of the sudden it stops and you have to commence the cleaning process before you can commence making the coffee again. Also the drip tray is far to small and overflows easily. I would not purchase this… Read more

particular model again.

Breville need to do a lot better in making the cleaning process more intuitive giving the user a warning in advance that it will either require a cleaning cycle or descaling.

Disappointing – We purchased this in August 2022 to replace a Sunbeam cafe series machine we’d had for about 8 years. The milk frothing has been very variable & unsatisfactory and we’ve found it regularly clogs up and has an error message on the steam wand, though at present that seems to be ok. I think it may be the 4 fine hole design in the steam wand… Read more

blocking more readily? It clogs a lot more often than our old machine did. We’ve found that the milk temperature varies a lot irrespective of what automatic setting is used, what milk volume is in the jug or volume setting is chosen, etc - I think the automatic wand overheats the milk quite frequently and then that contributes to the fine holes clogging. We’ve overcome this by manually turning the milk frother off, which defeats the purpose of an automatic setting!

It has proven very hard to get the milk wand to consistently steam and produce an ok standard of frothing - it definitely is nothing like a cafe quality from our machine, despite us trying quite a few combos of the settings. Occasionally it gets close, but that’s a bit like finding the needle in the haystack. I’ve found the automatic wand hasn’t lived up to its promise at all.

Generally the espresso machine has worked well. Today it wouldn’t work at all - we have done all the correct maintenance, perhaps it is just blocked internally, as it was trying to pump, but no water or coffee would come out at all. I guess we will find out as it’s now been sent off to service under warranty.

I took it to our place of purchase and now have to live without a home coffee machine for 3-4 weeks while Breville service it. This machine has been a big disappointment and seems to require a lot more upkeep than our previous machine did. Perhaps it’s the compact design, I’m not sure.

I wouldn’t recommend this model for purchase. I’m very disgruntled to be without a coffee machine for 3-4 weeks too. I’d strongly encourage anyone considering purchasing a Breville or coffee machine in general to ask the retailer a lot about refunds and returns policies and check this carefully prior to purchase, as 3-4 weeks without your coffee machine is a big deal, especially when it’s only 6 months old. I guess this is what an ‘extended warranty’ upsell covers :-(

Update - I also tried the ‘mediation’ option offered by Product Review, but never received any sort of response from Breville

Breville Overlord demands 10 mins cleaning before you can continue! – Now owned for 2 years, review updated 19/11/2024. For 2 years I have used it at least 4 times per week with no faults or failures so rating increased from 1 to 2 stars. This machine would get 4 stars except for the Overlord factor. Without warning and no bypass or defer function The Breville Overlord insists on a cleaning cycle. The ransom to be… Read more

able to finish making coffee is a clean cycle of 12 minutes before you can proceed. It does not care that I just extracted the expresso and I JUST WANT TO FROTH THE MILK to complete the coffee. [Content Removed] Breville!

HOW STUPID TO AUTOMATICALLY LOCK THE MACHINE HALFWAY THROUGH MAKING COFFEE when it just needs a clean. The genius that designed this is an idiot!

There is also a forced DESCALE, but you can defer that so you can complete making coffee and do the descale later.

CONCLUSION: an otherwise compact and easy to use machine is ruined by a Dictatorship. Auto milk froth works OK but at lowest setting makes the milk too hot for my liking, so I do it manually. Being able to fine tune the extraction time is handy to adjust flavour.

The included tamper is not good. Light weight and uncomfortable. I purchased a spring loaded one with a fat wooden handle that is comfortable and much better to use. Also got a dosing ring which is a must if you grind your own beans.

ATTENTION BREVILLE USER GUIDE AUTHORS You need to have a quick reference list of what all the light patterns mean so that the user can quickly identify the issue without the need to waste time trawling through the entire user guide or searching for it on the internet.

Machine works well but when machine unexpectedly stops working and lights are flashing the user guide is USELESS!! I wrote my own cheat sheet for what the lights means so the next time I am caffeine deprived I can quickly and easily refer to my list of light meanings.

Great coffee machine – Have been using this for more than half a year now. Great coffee machine, it's compact and simple to use. The main trick/skill is to figure out how much coffee is needed and how to pack it in the portafilter. This takes a couple of tries to get right but once done the process of making a coffee is very simple and efficient. The cup of coffee that… Read more

comes out is cafe standard (to my taste). You have 3 levels of how hot you can make your coffee and the 3 levels of how much froth you want when steaming your milk. May not be enough granularity if you're a coffee connoisseur but for me it's great as it's easy to use and the coffee tastes great. The only issue that could be improved is the movement of the cup when the coffee is pouring, the machine is vibrating and sometimes the cup moves from under the portafilter. I solved this by placing a sticky rubber mat used to hold mobile phones, hopefully this is fixed in the next iteration of the product.

So disappointed with this machine – After reading all the reviews that said this was easy to use all I want to do is throw it in the bin..so disappointed. Only 30mls coffee comes out of double shot. I read how to change it 2 60mls and it worked once then back to 30 mls. Now today I turned it on and the 2 coffee settings keep flashing. The temp of the milk even though set on the lowest temp came out at 90c. What a waste of $600. Show details

Great espresso machine with tips – Milk frother awesome. Makes great coffee. Some tips: * Take the frother out of the milk before it stops and wipe it straight away with wet washer. Stops the end getting clogged and keeps it cleaner * With the automatic purging, use a small cup and tip it down the sink. THen you don't need to empty the tray very often * Use a small washer on top to… Read more

stop vibrations of the above-mentioned cup and tamper * Clean with these tablets (cheaper than Breville) https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/174461062567

Great machine, homemade coffee that beats the local cafe – We got the machine at a discounted price thanks to a corporate partnership program with the vendor. The machine is easy to use and I love that it has 3 programmed levels of milk texture to choose from and also 3 temp settings for the milk - it makes it easy to automatically froth the milk to my preferred texture and temperature without trying to… Read more

get it to the right texture and temp manually. The extraction of the coffee is also good. The only slight problem is that the drip tray is small and fills up quickly, especially as the steam wand has the auto clean functionality after each cup. But it's a minor inconvenience and overall we really do love this machine.