Dual Boiler Coffee Machines

Dual boiler coffee machines have a separate boiler for coffee and for steaming milk. This allows precise control of brew water temperature and higher steam pressure. These machine are perfect for the coffee enthusiast. If coffee is as much a hobby as a daily ritual then a dual boiler may be perfect.

Dual boiler coffee machines are just what they sound like, machines with multiple boilers. Instead of a single boiler with multiple water paths, dual boilers just feature separate brew and steam boilers. This allows a boiler to be ready at all times for either task. The upshot here is the removal of temperature as a cause for shot inconsistency. It’s nearly impossible for a barista’s shot prep to outrun brew boiler recovery on a machine like this.

Like a heat exchanger, a dual boiler allows you to steam and brew at the same time. Both boilers are temp stable at the required temp for each process, providing excellent consistency in both brewing and steaming. The only time this can change is, again, in high steam volume situations, such as trying to steam milk for 10 20oz. lattes in a row. The difference with a dual boiler is that this situation won’t cause brew temps to fluctuate and create inconsistent espresso.

So what’s the issue? The first, as you might have guessed, is cost. Machines with dual boilers tend to be much more expensive than heat exchangers because they pack in much more material. Functionally, a heat exchanger takes up the same amount of space as a single boiler. On the other hand, a dual boiler machine requires double the materials. That means double the components that could fail over time. They also requires double the space. This is another primary issue with dual boiler machines, they tend to run larger.

These caveats aside, dual boilers are powerful solutions for very high volume cafés, especially useful when you actually have multiple baristas working one espresso machine.