Diamant Americana 3 Group

Baristas
Anne Cooper – Head Roaster / Barista Di Bella Coffee
Tim Adams – 2009 AASCA Australian Barista Champion
Luke Shilling – Barista Effect

The Results

Aesthetics
Classy look, with a presence that would make a great show piece in any café. Pearl white is the stand out colour. Easy to read display for each group head. Overall, the finishes are sleek and it exudes enviable qualities any serious barista looks for in a machine.

Ergonomics
Like all Expobar machines, the Diamant has plenty of working area for the baristas. Positioning of the buttons in a circle is, of course, challenging traditional placement and will take a little bit of getting used to … no doubt this is where the ability to change the colours of the buttons will be helpful.

The Teflon coated steam arm is great … will no longer have a line of burns up our arms from bumping hot steam wands … Yay! (but may take away that ‘rite of passage burn’ for baristas, when they get their first steam arm burn!)

Sliding steam control (optional) is a must, and it is great this machine has sliding steam as opposed to the traditional dial knob. Big fans of sliding steam, as too many baristas are injuring themselves from dial steam knobs. From Anne’s personal experience as a young barista working in a very busy café (over 1,000 coffees every day!) her joints seized in her wrists due to the excessive turning of the steam knob. This feature should be promoted just as strongly as the other features – especially from an ergonomics and workplace safety (duty of care) perspective.

Extraction
Great controlled water flow through groups for consistent shots. When both Tim and Anne were doing test extractions, between the 2 of them it always did a consistent pre-infusion.
The groups are very forgiving – for those that are a bit akin to up-dosing, you can do superb ristretto extractions with this machine.
Individual temp adjustment of individual boilers via the PID control – perfect. The ability to change temps on each group head is perfect for today’s espresso bars, especially when running three different grinders.

Milk Texturing
Wow … they’ve got it all covered! Slow steam tip, fast steam tip, temp controlled … and now we are more informed as to the performance of the water levels of the steam boilers! Overall, creates really nice texture; very, very hard to do a “bad” jug of milk.

Load Test
Pumped out 50-60 coffees in short bursts of 20 minutes. Machine didn’t miss a beat.

General Comments
This machine screams and promotes consistency and education.

Consistency: by providing as much data as possible to the barista and café owner. As they say, “Data equals knowledge, knowledge equals power”– the barista now has the power to consistently create a superb espresso every time and actually know how/why/what they did. Because there are so many variables involved in creating a superb espresso extraction, this machine now provides all the right information in order to help guide the barista/café owner.

This info can then be passed onto other baristas in store to ensure a consistent extraction is being produced – no matter who the barista is. And from a roaster’s perspective, that is invaluable. Too often there are inexperienced (and experienced) baristas who are too quick to blame the coffee and not themselves. Baristas need to remember how much control they have over the extraction process. This machine will reinforce and teach them how much of an important role they do play in the whole extraction process.

Education: with the low water level warnings/auto cut offs/ maintenance warning light etc. this is a technician’s dream machine!

It is also teaching baristas the importance of knowing how an espresso machine works. There are still too many baristas (and café owners) out there that will thrash the guts out of their machines, perform minimal maintenance (because they’re too busy or it’s too expensive) and then not understand why their machine is not performing! The low level indicators/shot time clock/ PID control/descaler light/grind setting adjustment light etc. etc. etc! – and more … these will surely help educate more and more baristas and café owners about the importance of being more technically aware of how their machine works in order to consistently produce superb espresso extractions – and really do the coffee they are using justice!

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Features

• Automatic boiler refiller
• Automatic back flush program on each group
• Built-in volumetric motor and pump fitted with 2 retention valves and solid particle filter
• In built magnetic calcium neutraliser on pump and pre heat exchangers
• 99.9% pure copper boiler
• Direct pre-infusion chamber on each group
• Available in standard or high group
• Independent 1.5 litre brew boiler on each group
• Digital Display
• Programmable time clock for automatic switch on/off
• Steam boiler and coffee boiler temperatures individually controlled by PID system
• Maintenance management with warning light for programmable service reminders
• Memorises total brewed coffees
• Long stainless steel non burn steam tubes (do not become hot when frothing the milk)
• Four programmable volumetric dosages for each group
• Three steam taps, with one equipped heat sensor for automatic control of temperature (no need for jug thermostat)
• Two electronic hot water outlets (can program different volumes)
• Each group with extraction time clocks (shot clock and grinder alarm if extraction time is outside set parameters)
• Programmable display lights with 5 different colours and 5 different display patterns
• Available in personalised corporate colours
• Isolating taps on steam/hot water taps and groups to allow machine to be serviced without turning machine off

Specifications

• 1.5 L boiler for each coffee group
• 1,200 W heating element for coffee boilers
• PID temperature control with digital display for coffee boilers
• Power: single phase (2 or 3 phase on request)
• Maximum installed power 25 amps
• Boiler size: 17.5 L
• Boiler composition: 99.9% pure copper
• Pump pressure gauge
• Auto on/off program
• Automatic boiler filling: yes
• Power (W) 6,000
• Heating exchange: 6,000 + 1,200 + 1,200 + 1,200 Watts
• Hot water outlets: 2 electronic controlled
• Steam outlets: 3 (with 1 equipped with heat sensor for automatic control of temperature). Auto shut off.
• Inbuilt Ppump type: rotary
• Pump capacity: 200 L/hour
• Standards compliance: CE
• Product dimensions (mm): (1,080) W x (632) D x (595) H
• Product (Net) weight: 130 kg