Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

[Thirteen13]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

i thnk your all right lol, i find when i make 2 cups for me and GF it turns out well, single are no good though.

Ive already had 3 coffees im a bit buzzed out, ill wait for few hours before i try again

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Ive kept the grind size and amount the same, beans are the same, tamping is the same, but for some reason when ever i do 1 cup, extraction is taking upto 50-60seconds.

If youre going to keep the single, you might try this just once (Im just guessing what your normal dosing method for a double is and adjusting down):

Grind till basket almost full (at edges) with small mountain in middle. Tap down 2 / 3 times only. Add more grinds, do not tap down and sweep (quite carefully) the coffee around the filter basket with a flat plastic card without putting any compression on grinds, until there are no visible irregularities on surface. Rest tamper in centre of basket, then tamp normally.

This *might* get the dose down to a level where you have a chance.

It worked for me (not on a Breville), but I gave up on the singles anyway.
Cheers
BOSW

[rustic]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Just going back to the topic of weighing grinds.

Are any BCG800 owners having success producing consistent shots by weighing their grinds?

Personally I like to weigh my grinds but I am usually not able to reproduce consistent pours.
edit: Im noticing my pours usually start at 11 seconds but reaches 60mls between 28 - 39 seconds

I have a feeling my inconsistency comes down to one of the following:
- my BCG800 not producing a consistent grind size
- my scale only having 1 gram resolution (I am waiting for more accurate scales to be delivered to me)
- bad technique (as per Rustys explanation http://coffeesnobs.com.au/YaBB.pl?num=1312978609/1658#1658)

I am pretty sure Im consistent with the following techniques:
- WDT (as per instructions on home-barista website)
- two small taps on bench to settle grinds
- tamping @ 15kg onto bathroom scales

Almost forgot to mention Im using an 18gram VST basket.
The stock basket was more consistent but Im trying to get the VST to work

[argus]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

I was having the same issue with the BCG800 but saw a post from Phill (somewhere?) saying that when you weigh beans into the BGC800 you get "popcorning" resulting in inconsistent grind grind size.
This made sense so I tried keeping a couple of inches worth of beans in the hopper and it did improve things for me. Its also easy to use the hopper shut off to pour the unused beans back into the bag when finished to avoid them going stale. Ymmv but worth a try anyway.

[DavidW1960]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=easXHggmjUY&feature=g-upl&context=G2598812AUAAAAAAAAAA

Thats a pretty slow pour?

[jabbba]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Just wanted to share another "happy BDB owner" story. I am a complete newbie and after not having much luck with few cheaper espresso machines in the past, I gave up on the scene. It was only recently since a friend introduced me to his favourite girl called Silvia, that I got excited about it again. I didnt want to compromise much and decided on this machine as I couldnt believe how many happy stories I found here. So I thought, it must be good, they know :-)

Bought the machine (and the smart grinder) last night and rushed home to try it out before it was too late to have a cup. After a couple of tries with the pre-ground leftover coffee I had, I wasnt too excited about results. No surprises here, it was ground for my Aeropress and I couldnt wait for the next day to buy some fresh beans.

So today, I went to my favourite coffee shop and bought the Bolivian single origin beans and after reading some tips here in this thread, ground it to "perfection" and had a perfect first cup with a pour of around 30sec for a double. Crema was nice and stable and it was just... PERFECT... I could not believe that a newbie like me can get such great result. So, I tried again, tried to emulate the first go, and unfortunately, I ran out of beans in the hopper so after adding more, I probably didnt dose it correctly, but the pour was still around 23-25 seconds and at 7-8 bars. Tasted very good again. I was extremely happy. But, still couldnt believe I could make such beautiful shots, remember I am a newbie, so I tried a single this time and it was way under, less than 10 sec pour and the pressure barely touched 7 bar. Not sure what happened but the taste was not as sour as I expected and it surprisingly drinkable. I had worse than that at some reputable places.

Overall, I am very pleased with the machine and all the annoyances I had with lesser machines were addressed here. Almost feels like an Apple product, I think of an feature and how cool it would be if its there, and its there. Operation of the machine is very natural and the only unknowns are dosing it right and tamping. Taking the machine intricacies out of the equation make this process so much easier and more enjoyable.

[nickoyang]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=easXHggmjUY&feature=g-upl&context=G2598812AUAAAAAAAAAA

Thats a pretty slow pour?

The resistance by the coffee is too high and caused a slow pour. I believe in this case the pressure gauge reading was reaching its OPV setting point. If using manual pour over 60 secs (for BES900XL model) or 120 secs (for BES900 model), the vibe pump temperature will get too high and may cause a damage to the pump. Some high-end vibe pump has thermally controlled protection to stop the pump when it is over-heated.

[specialpants]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Thats a pretty slow pour?

Thats what I thought too when I saw it, and it is slower than what I usually do but the coffee turned out alright.

The 30/30 rule of thumb is good starting point and im finding that I do prefer a tightly pulled shot that goes longer than 30 seconds. This isnt always the case, because sometimes an overextracted shot is pretty nasty (depends on the beans I think). Most of the time, I get a roasty + sweet flavour which is what I like - but im sure we all have our preferences.

For example: I made one this moning using de bella beans (from cafebiz ) on the Duetto. The extraction was about 45 seconds and it was a beautiful cup of coffee.

I believe in this case the pressure gauge reading was reaching its OPV setting point.

How are you guys using your 900? All of my shots always activates the OPV (which is a good thing in my books) and Im quite happy with whats in the cup.

[DavidW1960]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Mine are generally at 9 bar which doesnt activate the OPV.

[Yelta]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Hi Jon,

This forum is broken up into numerous sections  eg. Cupping, Blending, Grinders, Roasting, Brewing equipment various cost ranges etc, but there is not a single section called How to make great coffee, or Coffee technique, so where does a new person look? 

I know I have felt lost in that respect, so I go to a thread about my machine (Bes 900), and then spend ages trawling through zillions of posts, picking up little tid-bits of info that I slowly piece together in order to get a basic understanding of what the key variables are, and how they interrelate to each other.

Ive spent hours and hours on this site doing this.

Now got to this link http://www.home-barista.com/howtos.html, try this article http://www.home-barista.com/naked-extraction.html

- in 20 minutes I gain more than 10 hours trawling this forum.

I think this forum would benefit hugely from a non-machine-specific section dedicated to espresso technique and troubleshooting.

No, the search in the top right does not do the job: you try how to make good coffee or extraction tips or extraction techniques
- you are going to spend ages trawling through posts.

The search is great for specific things when you know exactly what you are looking for, but it is no substitute when needed general initial guidance.

Cheers, Adam.

Lots of enthusiastic new members on board now Adam, why dont a few of you get together and make a project of your suggestions? Im sure Andy would support anything he feels would add value to the CS forum, There are quite a few well qualified senior members who would be more than willing to assist.
The exercise would also be a valuable learning experience for those involved.

[Courierdog]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

To change the topic slightly.
I received my Naked Portafilter from Breville today.
I cant wait to try it out first thing in the morning.
The product is of excellent workmanship and is a mate to the standard Portafliter in all regards.
Now it will be a simple matter to keep the basket clean on both sides for every shot.

[Thirteen13]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Almost feels like an Apple product, I think of an feature and how cool it would be if its there, and its there.

Dont get me started on Apple products!!!

Glad your happy, im in the same shoes as you, ive had my machine for about a week now and at first i was very happy, but then as i started to learn more i could start to see the flaws in my brewing, but people on here are fantastic and will point you in the right direction.

Just word of advice (use search function)

Also on side note, tried the double again today making a point to see how it all turned out and im pretty much going to kick the single wall out the window. Double turned out to be a great success, smooth flow, nice crema, very full flavour.
Cheers for your advice guys. Now i can go OD in bliss

[nickoyang]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

How are you guys using your 900? All of my shots always activates the OPV (which is a good thing in my books) and Im quite happy with whats in the cup.

As an OPV is normally using a spring to regulate its bypass valve, the linearilty of the springs counteracting force to the pressure from the basket determines how wide the valve opens.
When the OPV setting point is lower, the counteracting force is smaller; the range of the linearity to the pressure is wider as well. Under this condition, if your grinder can be tuned to any sufficient small grind size, you will find the best setting combinations with the grinding size and OPV setting to reach a consistent extraction at 9 bar. And you may also realize the tamping force and ground beanss weight become the key factors for pouring quality.

For my case, I used precise (down to 0.5g precision) digital scale to weigh the ground beans and lightly tamping force to get a consistent and beautiful extraction almost every time.

[jabbba]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Glad your happy, im in the same shoes as you, ive had my machine for about a week now and at first i was very happy, but then as i started to learn more i could start to see the flaws in my brewing, but people on here are fantastic and will point you in the right direction.


Also on side note, tried the double again today making a point to see how it all turned out and im pretty much going to kick the single wall out the window. Double turned out to be a great success, smooth flow, nice crema, very full flavour.

Day three here... Got some more samples from Di Bella today. The machine seems to be very forgiving and slight variations dont matter much as the result in the cup is always very good. I am more and more comfortable with my dosing and tamping and I am regularly getting 20-30 seconds extractions. Even made a beautiful decaf.

I am still struggling with the milk, but that is me, not the machine.

[Thirteen13]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Alright Ive hit a wall again. Shooting on the single wall, double basket. And the machine is pouring way to fast, only.building pressure to around 5 bar then stops. Coffee tastes rancid and very bad.
Advice?