Filter basket for BES860

[Xanthine]

I just picked up a Breville BES860 for the princely sum of $5.
It was sitting in a trailer full of junk at a local garage sale, looking all forlorn and ready to go to the dump. The seller seemed rather amazed that I even wanted it.

When I got it home the 'Queen of Clean' attacked it with her cleaning gear and it came up looking like new. It appears to have had very little use and the burrs in the built-in grinder feel quite sharp.

Water in, beans in the grinder, power on and away it went.

Since I had only used some old beans to test it and, and perhaps more importantly, it only came with a pressurised double basket, I did not bother tasting the resulting brew.

I must admit that I was a little disappointed that there was nothing to fix so I had no excuse to look inside, but at least it will be interesting to see how it compares with the 6910 for making a coffee.

So now the task is to find a suitable non-pressurised double basket for it. A search of the CS forum only served to confuse me over the basket size and which machines might have a compatible basket(s). It seems the correct size is either 53 or 54mm and that most of the 8XX series Brevilles use this size so I would be pleased to hear from anyone who knows what will fit and what other brands may be compatible.

In the meantime I may get impatient and 'open up' the bottom of the pressurised one I have to see what happens.

Trev

[trentski]

It's just a false wall so no harm in removing it. Plenty have. Friend of mine recently got a non pressurised basket for his breville, came from NZ

[Xanthine]

I was hoping to use the pressurised basket for backflushing as I guess that it will probably need a de-scale etc, but I just tried the rubber disk from the 6910 and it should work instead. So it looks like it is going to be out with the Dremel.
At the moment I don't want to outlay much money on it, on top of the initial high purchase price, before seeing how well it works . I am also guessing that the built-in grinder will need modding to get it to grind fine enough. Then the plastic fittings on the solenoid will probably crack - at least I will get to take the covers off. (Got to do something soon to cure this coffee machine addiction)

[Xanthine]

Well today I bit the bullet and took the Dremel to the pressurised basked.
The bottom came out quite neatly with the little abrasive wheel and I made sure to leave a few mm around the rim to stop the press-fit perforated floor from blowing out.
I did notice that the two 'floors' were very close together and there was a lot of coffee grounds lodged between them.
The first trial extraction was an absolute gusher even with the grinder set to finest. The pressure gauge did not even lift off the stop.
Next I tried some ground coffee from the K3 on my 'normal' setting - near perfect!
So off came the top of the machine and I tweaked the large white gear to it's finest limit. The burrs were just coming into contact now on the finest setting!
For the first test grind I backed off a couple of clicks but this still resulted in gushing and no pressure.
One click finer and the grinder began to struggle but still no pressure.
One final turn to the adjuster stop at the finest setting and the grinder seemed to be really complaining, with the occasional click from the gears slipping.
This time the pressure gauge needle barely lifted off the stop and the extraction was still much too fast.
I spent the rest of the afternoon playing around cleaning, checking and double checking everything in the coffee path of the grinder - everything looked good except that I still could not get the grind fine enough. The coffee should have been coming out like flour but still had a slightly gritty consistency no matter what I did.

So - has anyone got any words of wisdom on what I should try next as I am at a loss? (At least I've now got a real challenge, but not what I was expecting - all good fun!)

[Javaphile]

It sounds like stale beans. What beans are you using?


Java "Gotta be fresh!" phile

[Xanthine]

It could well be the beans - they were just some leftovers that I was handed from the pantry, so when I get time I will try with our regular fresh ones. I just figured that they still should have been fine enough to choke the machine when the burrs were virtually touching. The grind just felt too coarse. I am still thinking that there is too much play somewhere in the grinder mechanism. If fresh beans don't do it I will probably strip the grinder down and check it again. I did notice that the top burr seemed to be a little loose in its carrier and that could be contributing.