Profitec RIDE – dual boiler espresso machine with PID and Fast Heat-Up

Profitec RIDE – dual boiler espresso machine with PID and Fast Heat-Up

Matte black side panels, a satin-finished front between them, and on top a display that shows only what you need right now.

The RIDE heats both boilers at the same time. That sounds like a footnote, but it changes your morning: the steam boiler is no longer the one you wait for, it heats up in parallel with the coffee boiler. If you are in even more of a hurry, switch on the Fast Heat-Up mode. And if you don't want milk for a day, simply switch off the steam boiler and run the machine as a single boiler – that saves power and shortens the wait once again. A single boiler isn't only for espresso drinkers anyway; it just needs a little more patience when switching over.

Both boilers are made of stainless steel: 0.75 litres for coffee, 1.0 litre for steam and hot water. Each one is controlled separately via PID, and this separation is the real point of a dual boiler. Brew temperature helps decide which compounds are extracted from the puck – warmer brings more body and sweetness, cooler more definition and aroma. When steam performance is decoupled from that decision, you can genuinely choose the brew temperature by taste instead of aligning it with steam performance.

In front of the puck sits the Profitec brew group with a stainless steel mushroom, not the well-known E61. You can pre-infuse passively or actively – passively, the puck fills gently before the pressure rises; actively, the machine controls the pre-infusion phase itself. Pressure shapes the aromatic time window: different compounds dissolve at different moments, and a pre-infusion phase shifts exactly that sequence. In our observation, a saturated brew group delivers an even slightly more refined aroma profile than an E61, regardless of the heating system behind it. Others see it differently, and the E61 has its fans for very good reasons. Our opinion is one of many.

Then there is what makes everyday use quiet: programmable on and off times, an ECO mode, a shot counter in the display, reminders for cleaning the brew group and for changing the filter. The portafilter is bottomless and modular – two silicone attachments turn it into a single or double spout in seconds. And at 28 kilograms, the machine stands so steadily that nothing moves when you tamp.

At a glance

Who the RIDE is for

For anyone who makes espresso and milk drinks every day and doesn't want to trade one off against the other. For households where several cups are made in a row in the morning and the machine shouldn't break a sweat doing it. And for anyone who likes to adjust the brew temperature to hear what the bean has to say about it – one degree up or down noticeably shifts the picture in the cup. No shot is exactly repeatable; the bean, the humidity and you yourself change every day. Work by weight ratio, 1:2 as a starting point, and let the stopwatch play a supporting role. Espresso is complex, but it isn't rocket science.

Because the grinder contributes at least as much to the result as the machine, it's worth a look at our coffee grinders: affordable and precise, the Varia VS3 or the Comandante C40 as a hand grinder; for bigger burrs and more features, the Varia VS6, the Weber Workshops EG-1 or the Option-O Lagom. For puck prep, the tampers include the spring-loaded Normcore Spring-Loaded alongside the tampers from Weber Workshops, and the puck screens likewise cover both price ranges. For dosing by weight, have a look at the coffee scales: Normcore for compact and reliable, Acaia for app and flow-rate display. If you want to know what a dual boiler really does differently from a single boiler and a heat exchanger, read our deep dive on heating systems.