Breville Dual Boiler with Smart Grinder BES920 / BCG820

Purchased August 2014 when we previously owned small biz cafe with a commercial triple group head machine. Being full time baristas we wanted "real" coffee at home (not pod!) & Breville was arguably the best balance between cost & semi auto prosumer functionality. After 5 years ownership it's mostly positive experience - slower than commercial machine but does good job of extraction & decent microfoam (if you have right technique), easy enough to clean & descale, holds temperature, aesthetically pleasing, ideally paired with Smartgrinder (origi...Read more

Breville BCG820BSS Coffee Grinder
Well after two years down the track and using the Breville BCG820BSS every day I thought it was about time to put pen to paper and write down my thoughts about this product. The unit was well packed and complete with all fittings, easy to assemble the last couple of parts that are separated for packing purposes & in a short period of time I was able to attempt my first grind. The first thing I noticed was that there was no static electricity charge in the coffee grounds, and they fell neatly into the tamper ba...Read more

This machine is a game changer. Well, for me it has been. For several years, I owned a pod machine. I had always side-eyed the Dual Boiler, but the initial cost stopped me from purchasing. In hindsight, it might have been a better deal, given the price of pods.

Fast forward to May this year, my pod machine was playing up and hubby insisted we look at another machine. I almost bought another pod machine, but one afternoon we were walking through Harvey Norman, and I side-eyed the Dual Boiler. Again. And this time I couldn’t resist. The Duo dua...Read more

I bought this coffee machine back in March 2016 and to tell you the truth, it hasn't missed a beat. The unit is easy to clean though descaling has been a little tricky on a few occasions but in the end it all worked out.

The coffee still extracts to a consistent standard. I only perform double shots with this unit with fresh (under 2 week roast) coffee. The group head after three years still doesn't leak, amazing. I have had two Sunbeam 6900 series, the 6900 had issues though the 6910 was a lot better. The tech between the two is very wide tho...Read more

I have owned an number of espresso machines over the years and my world of coffee changed when I bought my previous version of this machine which I had for over 6 years with no issues. It started to leak after 6 years and was going to take a weeks to get fixed so I ended up buying a new version of it which I am now reviewing here. People have asked me why I didn't change to a different machine and my answer is why you should seriously consider buying it:
1. it is a dual boiler (only when you have had a dual boiler compared to the majority on...Read more

I have it for just a bit over 2 years..until last week it just stopped working. I have this err2 message and the machine just wont turn on. It is out of warranty now obviously. I need to take it to Breville service centre which is actually not as convenient, Breville probably isnt aware that some of their customers actually have to go to work 5 days a week.

For this price, I really expect the machine to last longer. I made like 1 coffee a day...

Dont get me wrong, its a great machine..it does the job. It s just....its lifespan isnt great, sup...Read more

The 920 is a good machine. Good coffee.

When you go to descale it, when you search for info, make sure you’re aware of what generation software your machine has. I didn’t know there were different generations, and ours is a 3rd generation machine. The descaling process is different for each generation and the initial instructions I got from the web didn’t identify they were for a specific generation. I suspect the product manual that you get on a search is for a first generation machine. Descaling is tricky and it seems to cause many peop...Read more

As an ex demonstrator for another coffee machine manufacturer I knew that I need a double boiler machine. I did not want to go up to the oracle range as I had previously had one and the computer panel is just a pain and something always went wrong. I looked at the barista plus (the one down from this) but was only a single boiler and the trick is that the cheaper ones only had a tamper size of 54mm and this had the industry standard of 58mm. Its tamper handle is decent, nice and heavy and the machine is easy to fill the water tank from the ...Read more