Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

[nickoyang]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Nick has compared it with an Alex Duetto and says he cant tell the difference in the cup.

Well there you go.  If Nick says so then it must be correct.  :

Hi

Thank you all. Yes, I cannot tell the difference in the coffee in the cup made either by Alex Duetto 2 or BDB. I can tell you I spend more time to enjoy BDB than Duetto 2 because BDB is easily heated up in 2 ~ 3 mins and it provides volumetric dosing. I usually pouring the shot into a number 4 sized espresso cup directly and I can confirm the dosing volume is quite accurate and consistent from shot to shot.

Honestly, BDB indeed pours very excellent espresso if the BDB units OVP is set to 9.75 ~ 10 bar appropriately and a fairly good grinder is used to pair with these machines.

Cheers,

[Gnat]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Youre in luck then - illy espresso pods dont qualify as coffee.

[smiley=laugh.gif] Parents are happy to use it in the percolator. I was just going to compost it.

Ive found that if you sort of press up and tilt as you remove the portafilter, it unsticks the puck from the head and it drops down into the basket with zero mess and no need to run any water to get it loose.

That method leaves behind grinds on the shower screen for me

You can actually just pull the puck off the screen, no need to flush water through. It comes off fairly easily for me, and avoids pushing any grinds up towards the seal if you try to stick the portafilter back on. I always get some grinds left on the shower screen, stuck puck or no; a quick wipe/flush clears that off though.

Do you guys leave your machines set to auto power off? seems to go into a standby mode after an hour then off after 4. Wish those parameters were configurable...

You can set it to not go into standby mode at all, but you cant change the period of time it takes it before going into standby. I usually turn the machine off after using it, the boilers retain heat for an hour or so, so its fairly fast to heat up again.

Im also finding the drip tray doesnt fully catch the drips/grinds that fall down between its metal screen and the case, thus theres always a little puddle around the wheel. I try to avoid splashing there if possible.

Design oversight here from Breville, It would have been nice to have a bit more of an overlap over the drip tray. I dont get a puddle of water, but definitely a few drips each time I make coffee. Helps if you wipe that area frequently, or put a cloth over the tray (I have on on top of the tray to help prevent scratching the tray cover).

[Thirteen13]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

If your grinds get caught on the shower screen, you dont even need to put the portafilter back on. just hit any of the shot buttons and even PF water will release the puck. Hold the porta just below the puck and will fall in. Otherwise scrap it off with your finger.

[Barry_Duncan]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Otherwise scrap it off with your finger

I scrape it off with the portafilter. I dont scald my fingers and the puck falls into the filter basket.

Barry.

[Thirteen13]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Otherwise scrap it off with your finger

I scrape it off with the portafilter. I dont scald my fingers and the puck falls into the filter basket.

Barry.

Haha i get burnt digits sometimes when i do it. Ive since learnt to catch the falling puck in the porta lol....

[Ericle]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

I had been looking for a dual-boiler machine for quite some time.
I was interested in the Reneka, but they stopped making it. Then, while studying my post-graduate degree in Bologna, I became interested in the La Spaziale, but by the time I finished the degree and was packing our container back to Israel, I had no more budget!
Finally, I read reviews of the Brevile BES900, a year ago, and knew that I had found my machine.
The Israeli importer has no interest in bringing in the product, so I contacted Breville directly, in July 2011.
A very nice customer service rep, named Tina Atkins, forwarded my inquiry to BRAD MAURER, head of international sales. I have never heard back from him, to this very day.
In November 2011, not having received any kind of response from Breville, I wrote to Tina again, and again she forwarded to Mr. Maurer (Id fire him if he were my employee). No response.
In the last two weeks, I wrote once again, and finally received the following response from someone in Singapore named Karis Leung:

"Regarding to your request of Dual Boiler, this is correct that this model do not launch in Israel at the moment and we are still having discussion with distributor to decide if this model will be launch or not in the future. Sorry that we also cannot provide you a unit from here as we do basically let distributor to sell our products locally and hope you can choose other Breville products also with satisfaction." When I wrote back asking how I was supposed to get a machine if the dealer wasnt planning on importing it, I received a further, semi-literate response:

"We really appreciate to your support to Breville after compare with other products, however, we are not able to supply you a unit directly from here, all our distribution to the International markets are go through distributor locally and also, each of the product is specially made for that country in order to comply with local compliance requirement to ensure product safety. Really hope you can understand on this."


It took OVER A YEAR to get any kind of attention from them, despite repeated mails from me, and when I finally received a response, it was non-sensical: Id have to buy from my dealer, because they could not bypass the dealer. At the same time, he/she told me the local dealer was not planning to import the machine in the near future, and wished me good luck. He/she also gave me some story that each Breville machine is built specifically for the requirements of the particular country. Actually, thats total crap - Breville knows full well that Israel adheres to the EU standard, and the only difference is the plug. They sell all their other products here.
Conclusion? I wont be buying their dual-boiler espresso maker or any other Breville product. They arent Kitchen Aid YET, and there are plenty of other espresso machines, juicers, blenders and mixers out there whose makers offer gold standard customer service.

[nickoyang]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

It took OVER A YEAR to get any kind of attention from them, despite repeated mails from me, and when I finally received a response, it was non-sensical: Id have to buy from my dealer, because they could not bypass the dealer. At the same time, he/she told me the local dealer was not planning to import the machine in the near future, and wished me good luck. He/she also gave me some story that each Breville machine is built specifically for the requirements of the particular country. Actually, thats total crap - Breville knows full well that Israel adheres to the EU standard, and the only difference is the plug. They sell all their other products here.Conclusion? I wont be buying their dual-boiler espresso maker or any other Breville product. They arent Kitchen Aid YET, and there are plenty of other espresso machines, juicers, blenders and mixers out there whose makers offer gold standard customer service.

Sorry to hear about your story of trying to buy a BDB from your country. I had same problem as you and I imported it by myself. The whole process to import it was annoying.
The worst thing is I have no any service to my machine, so any warrenty of the machine does not work to mine.
You do have any other option to choose an equivalent pouring capability espresso machine. It is up to you. Wish you get what you want.

Cheers,

Nick OY

[nickoyang]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Hot water tap dripping was reduced and the brewing pressure comes back a lot but issue was not resolved reliably. I am thinking how to make the rod move further toward the hot water outlet end when knob is closed up. The knob itself is screwed onto the assembly of the needle valve firmly and dont know how to lossen it to check whether the rod could be screwed in further...

Just to update the further fix to my BDB...
1. I disassembled all the hoses and nozzles connected to the needle valve as I did last time.
2. I took apart the "L" shape bracket that fixtures the needle valve body.
3. I used wrench to rotate the metal nut between the valve body and the hot water knob clockwise a little bit. It was already tight enough, so just twisted it a little bit further. If it goes too much, the needle valve may be rotated too much to be fixed by the bracket. I just stopped it at its limit rotated angle. This twist may help reduce the gap tolerence between the valve nucleus and the valve body to make it more air-tight.

Now the hot water tap stopped dripping and only drips one drop after the end of a shot. Looks perfect right now. Brewing pressure now comes back to 9 bar sharply.

Cheers

[Ericle]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

You do have any other option to choose an equivalent pouring capability espresso machine. It is up to you. Wish you get what you want.

Cheers,

Nick OY

I agree - there are other great machines here, from La Spaziale to La San Marco, to the local Favorita brand, to all the stainless E61 boxes. Ill get one of them... maybe even a refurbished heavy duty machine... but the Breville caught my fancy. Thanks for your input!

[peter.wake]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

BeanInPeril wrote on Jun 19th, 2012 at 3:24pm:
Ive found that if you sort of press up and tilt as you remove the portafilter, it unsticks the puck from the head and it drops down into the basket with zero mess and no need to run any water to get it loose.


That method leaves behind grinds on the shower screen for me

Strange, because it leaves mine pristine apart from a trace of oil. Perhaps the problem is with your pucks?

However, even if it does leave grinds, it doesnt matter. Either youre about to do a clean and backflush or youre about to make more coffee immediately, in which case you are going to do two 3-4 second flushes before you put the loaded portafilter back in. Either way your shower head is going to get cleaned.

On the other hand, running water to drop the puck makes the puck wetter and messier when you dump it, and is an avoidable and unnecessary step anyway - or for me it is.

[PastorDean]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Ive had my 900 for about 4 months now. Initially the 1 cup and 2 cup functions were working fine. Now Im finding that ive got the 1 cup set to 18 seconds... with no portafilter on or an empty portafilter it will run to the perfect 18 secs... but once I put my coffee in there it seems to run continuously (well I stopped it at 40 seconds.

any ideas?

[nickoyang]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Ive had my 900 for about 4 months now.  Initially the 1 cup and 2 cup functions were working fine.  Now Im finding that ive got the 1 cup set to 18 seconds... with no portafilter on or an empty portafilter it will run to the perfect 18 secs... but once I put my coffee in there it seems to run continuously (well I stopped it at 40 seconds.

any ideas?

This could be nothing wrong with your machine because the 1 and 2 cup shot botton are actually volumetric dosing but not shot timers.

Cheers

[PastorDean]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

This could be nothing wrong with your machine because the 1 and 2 cup shot botton are actually volumetric dosing but not shot timers.

Cheers

ok so i need to just do a volume set on the 1 cup shot - so set it on an actual extraction with coffee in the portafilter...

[PastorDean]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

honestly i dont know why I didnt think of that... :-[

[DavidW1960]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Yeah you have to set it with coffee in the PF.