Coffee Blog » Lelit Bianca V3 – Kev’s Review For 2024. Best Dual Boiler?
Lelit Bianca V3 – Kev’s Review For 2024. Best Dual Boiler?
By: Kev | Updated On: September 13, 2024 at 10:04 am
Lelit are an Italian manufacturer who started out in the 80s as a family business making steam irons, they began producing espresso machines in 2001, and have since become one of the most well known Italian espresso machine manufacturers.
They quickly established themselves as one of the most innovative Italian espresso machine brands, having developed some game changing machines, and although this may seem like they hit the ground sprinting, it’s not quite as surprising when you consider that they were already one of the most successful Italian manufacturers of irons and steam boilers by that point.
The Bianca made a big splash as soon as it was launched, for various reasons, and we’re now onto the third version. But is it really as good as everyone says, or is it all hype? You’re about to find out ;-):
Lelit Bianca V3 Review
Features:
- 500ml Stainless Steel Brew Boiler
- 1.5L Stainless Steel Steam Boiler
- Quiet Rotary Pump (can be plumbed in)
- E61 Style Group
- 2.5L Water tank (can be positioned on the back or on either side)
- Flow Control Brew Paddle
- Shot timer
- Dual Pressure Gauge (steam and brew) plus brew pressure gauge.
- 58mm Chrome Plated Brass Portafilter
My Observations:
This is one of the best premium espresso machines ever made, and for the price, to say it punches above its weight would be an understatement, holding it’s own against machines including the La Marzocco GS3, Slayer, and Rocket R Nine One, machines costing from around 2.5 times to 6 times the price!
The word “best” is a tricky one, though.
Whether it’s the best machine for you or not, would depend on you. So I’ll go through the specs & features, and then I’ll answer the most obvious questions, and my goal is that by the end of this post, you’ve decided whether or not this is the “end game – for now” machine for you.
How Does it Look?
This is a very nice looking machine. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course, but I think Bianca is a stunner, and there are a few colour options too, I think the black one is my favourite.
It’s not huge either, at 29cm wide, 39cm tall and 48.5cm deep.
What Kind of Espresso Machine Is Bianca?
This is a rotary pump, dual boiler espresso machine with manual & programmable flow control.
So when we’re looking at similar machines, other Dual boiler rotary pump machines with flow control, we’re talking about machines like the La Marzocco GS3 MP, Rocket R Nine One & Slayer one group.
The La Marzocco GS3 MP will set you back just under £7,000, the Rocket R Nine One is about £4750, and the Slayer One Group is just over £11,000 – so this is what I meant earlier when I mentioned that Bianca punches way above her weight.
How Much Is The Bianca?
In the UK, the Bianca is around the two grand mark, just under for the silver stainless steel one, and just over for the coloured versions. In my YouTube video I joked that it was a good reason for people to relocate here from the States, as they’re about three thousand dollars across the pond.
What's The Espresso Like?
How would you like it?
The thing with a machine like this, is that you have the level of control that will enable you to use a really wide range of beans, and to get the most best from them – this is provided that you use a capable grinder of course, and great freshly roasted coffee beans.
If you’re using a classic espresso blend, and you want to pull a relatively straight forward 1:2 or 1:2.5 shot for example, in the standard 25-30 second shot window, you certainly can do.
If you wanted to pull a shot manually using the brew paddle to have a low pressure preinfusion phase, followed by a bloom, followed by a 6 bar shot with a gradual reduction in pressure for the final 15 seconds of the shot, for example, you can do that too.
If you wanted to set up a profile using the LCC (Lelit Control Centre) with a preinfusion time, stop time (bloom), low flow rate start, and then a low flow rate finish, you can do that too.
Can I Change The Brew Temperature
Absolutely, in one Celsius increments, from 80C – 115C, or if you want even smaller changes, just change the temp to F, as you can adjust in one F increments too, which is roughly 0.56°C increments.
Most people will probably find they’re using a brew temp between 93 – 96C, and if you’re not sure, just experiment, but keep in mind that with most beans, going outside of this range wouldn’t be all that helpful unless you’re doing something very specific.
What's the Brew Temperature Offset?
This is a feature specific to the new V3 model, which allows you to set a plus or minus temperature offset in the LCC, and it sounds like this is a temperature profiling feature.
The Decent DE1 for example, does temperature profiling, by mixing cold water with hot to achieve fast temp drops, so if you wanted to, you could add a temp drop as a profiling step.
Also with the DE1, the group is more responsive to temp increases than a huge brass E61 style group is likely to be, so although positive temperature steps in a profile aren’t going to be as fast as negative steps, they still offer fairly meaningful adjustments throughout a shot with the Decent espresso machines.
The same is true of the Kafmasino One, although that doesn’t have the ability to mix cold water, so the temp drops aren’t as responsive as the DE1.
With the Bianca being an E61 style group machine, no matter what the offset is set to, it’s not going to be all that responsive in terms of how much it’s likely to change during a shot.
So for me, the offset feature really allows you to set what your priority is, for example if you’re using a light roast and your priority where temperature is concerned is that the temperature doesn’t drop during the shot, then you’d set a positive offset, which just means that the brew boiler will be on during the shot.
If you’re using a darker roast and you’re more concerned about preventing overshot in group temp, then you’d set a negative offset, which means the brew boiler will be off during the shot.
My only problem with this is that they’ve given such huge (25C) positive and negative temp offsets, that it would give the impression that it would be able to hit one of these offsets during a shot, which I can’t imagine could ever happen.
I may be wrong, but I can’t see it being possible that you’d change the brew temp during a shot with the Bianca any more than a handful of degrees.
What's Low Flow Mode?
This is another feature that’s specific to the V3, and it’s the ability to run the pump at a reduced flow rate, at either (or both) the start of the shot & the end of the shot, for a period of choice.
The flow rate is usually 6.5 ml per second, and in low flow mode it’s dropped to roughly 4 ml per second.
What’s The Preinfusion?
If you’re using the manual paddle, you can control this manually, but if you’re using a profile, preinfusion is one of the several profile steps.
This is what it sounds like, you can program preinfusion via the LCC, along with whether to start with low flow and or end with low flow, and to set a wait time for blooming.
What’s the steam power like?
The steam power is great, but it’s not too overpowering or difficult to master, it’ll take about 27-28 seconds to steam 170ml of milk to 60C (the test I always do in my review videos), and it’s perfectly consistent, and dry.
Although a lot of people will probably be slightly intimidated by the Bianca, they really shouldn’t be, and in my opinion this is the perfect machine for beginners, as well as for seasoned home baristas.
Most beginners start off at the entry level, which makes sense because it’s very difficult to justify spending thousands on a home espresso machine when you’re just getting started, but if you can start out with a machine with this kind of temperature and pressure reliability, your learning curve is likely to be shorter.
I’m not only talking about milk steaming here, I’m talking about the espresso side of things too, but if you’re wanting to get the knack of consistently steaming perfectly textured jugs of milk, you’re likely to find your feet much quicker with a machine at this level.
How Loud is it?
Bianca has a rotary pump, so she doesn’t make a great deal of noise. She’s definitely not as loud as Bianca from EastEnders.
At the time of writing I’m away on holiday in Cornwall with the family, and I’ve brought the Sage Dual Boiler with me (paired with the Baratza Forte AP), I’ve just made a coffee with it, and the pump noise is very similar to the noise level of the grinder, I’d say somewhere around 60-65 db from about a metre away.
I wouldn’t say it’s all that loud, and it’s no louder than the grinder anyway (and I’m using the Baratza Forte AP which isn’t a mega loud grinder, not like it’s very noisy sibling the Sette 270 & 270 Wi), but by contrast, when you’re pulling a shot with a rotary pump like the Bianca, usually the sound of the espresso hitting the cup is actually louder than the pump!
I don’t actually think this matters all that much really, because a vibe pump isn’t usually going to be the loudest part of the workflow, that’ll usually be the grinder & knocking out the puck, or steaming milk if you under aerate and you milk screams at you.
But one thing I really do appreciate with rotary pump machines, is because they’re rotating, not vibrating, your cup or glass doesn’t want to do a runner off the side of your scales. This is the only thing that does wind me up with vibration pump machines, although if your scales have a rubber mat, this will usually keep your cup/glass still.
What’s the Stand by mode?
This is an E61 machine, they’re really made to be left on between coffees, so most people would have a machine like this on a smart plug, set to come on 30-40 mins before their first coffee, as I mentioned earlier, and to be turned off after their last coffee of the day.
But Lelit have given Bianca a clever stand by mode which doesn’t turn the machine off, instead it drops the boiler temperature & pressure, for a quicker 10 minute heat up time vs switching it off.
What's the Auto Off?
By default there’s a 30 minute auto standby mode that turns the boilers off all together, making the stand by mode useless ;-).
To toggle between stand by mode off or on, all you need to do is to turn the machine off, put the lever up, turn it on, look at the light around the on/off button, if it’s flashing the auto off is on.
Then repeat the process, you’ll have a solid light which indicates the standby is now off, turn it off, and back on again, the stand by mode is now set to off.
How Long is The Heat up Time?
As I’ve mentioned, machines like this with big brass E61 style groups do take a while to heat up, the boilers themselves don’t take a great deal of time, in the UK with 220V power it takes a couple of minutes for the brew boiler to reach temp, and about 13 mins for the steam boiler.
But how long it takes for the machine to be temperature stable, and therefore the ideal temp to start brewing, depends on the group heating up, and that’s going to take about 25 minutes.
As I said in my YouTube video review, though, this doesn’t mean you can’t make coffee with it earlier than this, if you want to make a coffee after 15 mins or so (as soon as both boilers have reached temp) you can, it’ll just produce better & more consistent espresso after the group has properly heated.
Is Bianca Simple To Use?
As I said earlier, I can appreciate how a machine like this may look intimidating to the uninitiated, but it’s not actually all that complex at all, and it can be just about as simple as you’d like it to be.
You don’t have to use any of the programming, and you don’t even need to use the manual paddle also, if you want to start off just leaving the paddle at the open position, and operate it as if it were any other E61 machine, by lifting up the brew lever, you can do that.
Then, if you wanted to just setup a pre-infusion time on the control panel, you can do that, it’s very easy to do, and this is very simple, when you lift the brew lever, it’ll start the preinfusion before the shot starts.
From here, if you want to start adding more programmed steps, such as a bloom time, a low flow start, and/or a low flow start, and even a plus or minus temperature target, you can, but you don’t have to.
You could also try pulling profiled shots using the manual brew paddle, again just starting simple to begin with, just moving the paddle straight out towards you to begin with aiming for just over 1 bar of pressure, for however long you want the preinfusion to last, before moving the paddle all the way to the left.
After a while you may find yourself pulling complex manual profiled shots, or you might not. Bianca is a brilliant machine, even beyond her ability to do profiled shots.
What Grinder To Pair With Bianca?
It would be a real shame to go for an espresso machine at this level and pair it with an entry level grinder, this would be like buying a Ferrari and filling it with chip fat.
If you’re wanting to go with single dosing, I’d be looking at the DF64 or DF83, or Niche Zero or Duo, or the Eureka Oro Mignon.
If you’re going for a hopper grinder, I’d be looking at something along the lines of the Eureka Mignon Specialita, Libra or Mignon XL, Baratza Sette 270, 270 Wi or Baratza Forte. For more, see:
Which Kind of User Is The Lelit Bianca For?
In my opinion, Bianca is for just about everyone. As with the Sage Dual Boiler, many beginners tend to be intimidated by it, but they really shouldn’t be intimidated by any of the high end machines.
The price of high end machines can be intimidating to the uninitiated, I can definitely appreciate that.
Even if affordability isn’t an issue, justifying such a high price for what is at the end of the day a “coffee machine”, can be quite a challenge, especially when it comes to justifying this price to your better half ;-).
But if you can afford and justify the investment, starting off with a high end machine like this, paired with a suitably capable grinder, is well worth it.
If you’ve already fallen well and truly down the home barista rabbit hole, then you probably have little concern about whether the Bianca might be for you.
If you’ve been doing the home espresso thing for a while, and you’re wondering if the Bianca is for you, it’ll probably come down to choosing the Bianca over other options, and often the choice here is simply down to mindset, meaning whether or not you’re in the mindset of an E61 machine user or whether you can get into that mindset.
If you’re someone who just can’t get your head around having to use a smart plug to have your machine turn on 30 mins before your first coffee, and/or to leave the machine on (or in standby mode at the lower temperature) until your last coffee of the day, then this may be the deciding factor against the Bianca.
If, like me, you think you can easily get over that – and you’ve got no concern about simply plugging into a smart plug and scheduling the machine to come on so it’s ready when you want your first coffee each morning, then there aren’t actually many reasons I can think of to to decide against the Bianca.
What Are The Negatives?
There are always pros and cons, and as I’ve mentioned, some people will see the heat up time of E61 machines as a con, but other than that, there are no deal breakers in my opinion.
The main thing I’d say is that I really wish it had stored and programmable pre-sets. Most people who’ve reviewed Bianca have said this, it just makes sense to do this.
The amount of programmability it has is great, but you can’t save these profiles, and you can’t easily switch from programmed to manual either, you have to go through each of the steps removing them and then you have to add them back again later if you want to go back to that auto flow profile.
The Rocket R Nine One for example has 5 reprogrammable pre-set profiles to choose from, and something like this on the Bianca would be amazing.
There’s also the auto off, which isn’t really a problem, it’s very simple to turn off, I just think they could do with clearer info about this, making it clear that you need to disable this in order to use the sleep mode.
I’ve also heard some people referring to the offset feature negatively, I don’t quite agree with that, I think this is a useful feature, but I can see how the huge offset targets would lead to potentially misunderstanding what this actually does.
In other words if you think it’s a temperature profiling feature, if that’s something you want to do, and you buy it on that basis and discover that this isn’t what it does, then I can see that being seen as a negative from that perspective.
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