Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

[Adam_Preston]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Hi Toasty,


Well spotted, especially re: for the Pr in the menu! Its the same gauge and functionality though....the 120V variants often just have some slight graphical differences for the US market.

[soctec]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Sorry, but again I need to ask/comment. If I bought one of these machines and I follow the instructions correctly and my bar pressure is 11-13, do I need to have it fixed so I get 9, or is my coffee going to taste the same?
... and down the track, if I get better at using it, without getting it fixed, it is likely that I will find a need to change my mind and indeed want to have it fixed...

[artman]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

As I understand it, the machine is designed to limit the brew pressure to 9 bar, so even with a blind filter, it should not exceed 9 bar, is that right?

I would think that even a basic gauge would not be out by my than =+/-0.5 bar, maybe 1bar max (but even that is >10% at 9bar), so if you are reading 11-13 you would think your machine is not limiting the brew pressure correctly and I would get it adjusted and have it operating as its should be, even if your coffee tastes fine now with the higher pressure.

Its a shame its got these teething problems, but its fantastic Breville are doing their best to rectify the affected machines. My friend bought the DB and the smart grinder a couple of months back, and he still hasnt used it!! (he went away straight after he bought it). Cant wait for him to get back to have a play. Really keen to see how it compares noise wise to the rotary pumped machine I have now. The DB certainly seems to tick a lot of boxes and is fully featured for the price!!

Cheers

[>mcknightp]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Did you do that sketch on the board Phil?  Its very neat.

Nah, some designer by the name of Keith did it............you may have met him once or twice or perhaps more!

[nathanrodger]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Hi all,
Not an owner, but looking to be. Read through this entire thread, and am keen to have a look & play.
Im in Sydneys inner west and wondering if any sponsors near me might be open on the public holiday tomorrow?

Just want to check the BES900 out with someone who can pilot it vs a big box store.

Cheers, Nathan.

Ps. Yes I am up at 1:30am reading the BES900 threads!

[artman]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

You can contact all sponsors at once using the email address at the bottom of the sponsors list on the left. I noticed this post, at least one of them is open:

http://coffeesnobs.com.au/YaBB.pl?num=1211848740/15#15

Not sure if they sell the DB, best to contact them.

Cheers

[Dennis]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Nathan if youre prepared to come to my home (sylvania) after 4 today I can make you a coffee on one. We are the only Sydney sponsor that stock them.

Cheers
Den (cuppacoffee)
0404049812

[samhighley]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread


I finally got around to shooting a video of my experience with this machine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnMwATdTraA

I guess the hardest thing for me now is stopping the extraction from running away (blonding too quickly?), while still getting that 30-40 second extraction.

[>mcknightp]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Sam

Thanks for the video. Just a few things that may improve your shots.

Brew water temperature is "everything"! The way you are using the machine, youll never get brew water being delivered that is at the optimum temp. You need to have a purging routine. From my experience with the 900 you need to purge immediately after taking out the porta-filter, then purge directly before inserting it for an extraction. The duration of the purges depends on how long its been since you last pulled a shot. This is not a commercial machine with a large thermal mass, it loses temp quickly. Unless youve put a scace on it, you wouldnt know. Something almost every cafe/espresso bar should do, so they understand the purging required to get correct brew water temp. This is actually "temperature surfing" a term coined by David Schomer of Vivace Espresso in Seattle & the God Father of specialty coffee in North America. First guy to PID a LM Linea in 1996...

Insert & brew. Dont insert, leave it sit there (for even 2 secs), insert & press a button immediately. You have 11+secs to grab those cups & put them under the spouts.

Temperature of all the espresso paths is critical to the length of the shot before blonding. In other words you need to have the porta-filter out of the machine the absolute minimum amount of time required to grind, dose & tamp. The longer its out of the group head the more temperature its losing & the shorter the shot will be before blonding.

Bean freshness. For me I dont call coffee thats 2 weeks out of roast, fresh. In a commercial environment Id like to age profile a coffee. ie taste it every day & make notes on how the taste changes with age so I can pick its peak & how long to keep serving it. Id be grabbing coffee that is 7 days out of roast & start there. Smaller 250g bags are the way to go if theyve been bagged that way at the roastery. 250g bagged at the cafe will not be the same & should be consumed the day you buy it if it came out of the hopper theyve been serving from. How long had that bag been open?

Also looked like the bean hopper of the smart grinder wasnt very full. This leads to inconsistent grind particle size as most grinders rely on the weight of the beans in the hopper to "force" the beans between the burrs. The fuller, the better.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Phil

[samhighley]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

From my experience with the 900 you need to purge immediately after taking out the porta-filter, then purge directly before inserting it for an extraction.

Noted, and correcting

Insert & brew. Dont insert, leave it sit there (for even 2 secs), insert & press a button immediately

Yeah, that was my brain going "did I forget anything?". Ordinarily id press the button pretty quickly.

In other words you need to have the porta-filter out of the machine the absolute minimum amount of time required to grind, dose & tamp.

Difficult to do when putting together a video, but I take your point. Working to correct this as well.

Bean freshness. For me I dont call coffee thats 2 weeks out of roast, fresh.

Ive got some here that was roasted 5-days ago, which I might try tomorrow. Its difficult to get consistently fresh beans that I like here in Canberra.

Smaller 250g bags are the way to go if theyve been bagged that way at the roastery.

Yep, bagged at the roastery in 250g bags and date-stamped.

Also looked like the bean hopper of the smart grinder wasnt very full.

Yeah, I tend to just load it up with roughly what ill need for the day. Ill try loading more in.

[artman]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Sam

In other words you need to have the porta-filter out of the machine the absolute minimum amount of time required to grind, dose & tamp. The longer its out of the group head the more temperature its losing & the shorter the shot will be before blonding.

I guess a naked PF makes this less critical somewhat?  Ie coffee comes out of the basket and straight into the cup, doesnt hit a potentially cooler PF floor.

Cheers

[Rusty]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

I guess a naked PF makes this less critical somewhat?  Ie coffee comes out of the basket and straight into the cup, doesnt hit a potentially cooler PF floor.

Wouldnt the basket cool quicker than the PF floor seeing it has less mass  :

[samhighley]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

I guess a naked PF makes this less critical somewhat?  Ie coffee comes out of the basket and straight into the cup, doesnt hit a potentially cooler PF floor.

Id have thought itd make it even more critical actually, with less thermal mass in the portafilter, and therefore even faster loss of heat?

Isnt the temperature were trying to control the temperature of the water going into the coffee-mass (and the coffee mass (puck?) itself), rather than the temperature of the liquid coming out?

[Edit] Rusty beat me to it

[artman]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

hmmm, yeah, didnt think of it that way, but on the other hand it would also not take out as much heat getting hotter as it does not weigh much??? [smiley=undecided.gif]

Cheers

[pcrussell50]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

I was at David Schomers Vivace not two weeks ago. They use naked poratfilters in their beautiful Synesso machine. Hes the bloke Phil was referring to. Last week I was at the place in Santa Monica that was recommended here on CS, which also had a Synesso with naked PFs.

-Peter