Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

[X119]

Thank you very much for the reply.
only purchased it yesterday and already making the most awesome coffee. What a great machine.

[bb2wa]

bb2wa,

How did you empty the boilers to remove the citric acid and any scale?

Barry

If I remember right I emptied reservoir first. Half filled it with weak citric acid soln. Flushed water through boilers till ph showed up acid. then let system sit for a few hours? Then flushed till water back to normal. I used swim pool ph strips for the analysis.

[TRRR]

Wondering if anyone knows if there is a way to turn off the cup warming surface on top of the BES920?
hoping there is an advanced menu function somewhere!

I added insulation to save power and stop heat being lost through the cup warming tray. I packed the inside with polyester pillow fill and it works well. Keeps the boilers warm for hours once switched off.

May not save many $ but I did it to save CO2.

Just have to remember to take it out if I need to make a repair under warranty!

[bb2wa]

Insulation like the photo at this site would be better I think.

[TRRR]

That looks nice but there is a lot of stuff under the hood of the breville and you don't have clear access to the boilers like the machine in your photo. It is good to have insulation on top of the boiler too to stop heat loss to the thermally conductive Al cup tray.

The poly fill takes about 5 mins to install but I agree it looks ugly, but with the cover on no one knows it's there

[bb2wa]

Perhaps you'll shorten life of some of the plastic parts with reduced air circulation?

[TRRR]

Maybe, but maybe other parts including the electronics will be kept cooler and last long.

i should add that I tested the fill in the oven first to make sure it can handle the temp without melting. The steam boiler goes up to 140 c but the stuff I used was ok at 170

[Sheumack]

I'm not sure if this is an appropriate place to post this, or even if its appropriate for the forum.

I was in the Breville Factory outlet in Harris St, Ultimo, on the weekend (looking for a Stick blender) and they have a number of BES900s - Factory seconds, or I'm guessing refurbs. $749 in Cranberry, $999 in Black. There may have been a Silver one for $749, but I took a photo of the ticket, not the unit. All are advertised with 12 months warranty.

I have no relationship with Breville, I just thought it might be interesting information.

[Barry_Duncan]

Sheumack,


I think that is ok. Breville is a Site Sponsor.

Barry

[Barry_Duncan]

If I remember right I emptied reservoir first. Half filled it with weak citric acid soln. Flushed water through boilers till ph showed up acid. then let system sit for a few hours? Then flushed till water back to normal. I used swim pool ph strips for the analysis.

Did you only descale the brew boiler, not the steam boiler?

The technician at Breville’s factory seconds shop at Ultimo Sydney uses a pump attached to a probe to empty the BES900 boilers.

Barry

[bb2wa]

I did both

[noidle22]

I descaled a BES900 this morning, the steam boiler is the boiler that you can notice a loss of performance from.
To empty them, I remove a level probe then insert a nylon tube attached to the inlet of a vibe pump then just pump the water out. Same goes for cycling the descaling solution through and rinsing the boilers.

It is good to fully fill up the boilers manually to descale them as using the autofill won't fill the steam boiler enough to do the best possible job.

It can take quite a few flushes to remove the acidic taste. Also, Breville themselves advise using Cafetto Restore as the descaler for all of their machines.

[bb2wa]

vibe pump?

[georgemac]

hi all, just joined coffee Snobs and first post. I have the BES900, purchased mid 2012.Very happy with the machine in general. recently the water flow through my porta filter is too fast, resulting in week watery coffee. I have tried numerous different grinds, right up to the finest possible on my breville bcg800 smart grinder. Any thoughts ?

[saroadie]

hi all, just joined coffee Snobs and first post. I have the BES900, purchased mid 2012.Very happy with the machine in general. recently the water flow through my porta filter is too fast, resulting in week watery coffee. I have tried numerous different grinds, right up to the finest possible on my breville bcg800 smart grinder. Any thoughts ?

Welcome to Coffee Snobs George,

First thoughts are that you've been using your machine for 2.5 years and if this is the first such occurrence, then what has changed?

The 2 main possibilities that could cause your symptoms are:

a) Stale beans - when were your current beans roasted? Over 3 weeks ago and they are likely stale.

b) Grind too coarse. If you've had the grinder apart recently for cleaning possibly there's something under the top burr holder preventing the top burr from being fully seated. If you've recently purchased a different coffee it's possible your grinder may not be able to grind fine enough for that coffee. There is a shim kit available from Breville which shims up the bottom burr to allow finer grinding. Mid 2012 purchase date could mean either your grinder requires shimming because of wear or the fact that many of the earlier smart grinders struggled to reach fine enough settings out of the box and required shimming even from new hence the availability of the shim kit.