Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

[Lyrebird]

If you still use powder in your electric dishwasher, it's main ingredient is also sodium percarbonate,

Not to my knowledge.

According to the available MSDSs, they are usually mixtures of one or more of sodium carbonate, sodium metasilicate and sodium percarbonate, generally in that order of concentration.

[pcrussell50]

Not to my knowledge.

According to the available MSDSs, they are usually mixtures of one or more of sodium carbonate, sodium metasilicate and sodium percarbonate, generally in that order of concentration.

You're right of course in the strictly formal sense. Sodium carbonate and sodium percarbonate are so similar in both look (colorless odourless white granulated powder) and function, I had forgotten the difference.

Sodium percarbonate is sodium carbonate (i.e. Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda) reacted with hydrogen peroxide and it is a very effective cleaner for all types of brewing equipment. It rinses easily.

Cleaning Products - How to Brew

Sodium carbonate is a salt made from sodium and carbonic acid. This strong base appears as a white crystalline powder.

Sodium percarbonate is an adduct formed from sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide. An adduct is a chemical that includes all the atoms found in the reactants used to make it. Sodium percarbonate is a moderately strong oxidizer. Like sodium carbonate, it is a white, odorless power.

https://www.livestrong.com/article/4...-percarbonate/

I was hoping to keep things simple and not have to go down this road. As an adduct of sodium carbonate, sodium percarbonate works the same way... for our uses... which is acting as a detergent to coffee oils and residues. Still, I do not use sodium carbonate detergents inside my espresso machine. I stick with Cafiza or (Cafetto when I visit AUS and can get some) for that. For cleaning my stainless coffee carafes and thermally insulated storage flasks, portafilters, shower screens, baskets, I use powder dishwasher detergent in boiling water. It works a treat... And for the same reason as coffee detergents do. When I clean these same items, the same way in percarb products like espresso detergents, the difference is not detectable to me... except in the pocketbook.

-Peter

[inertia8]

I now have the group collar service kit.. Fyi it no longer comes with a portafilter handle...

Shall fit it up on Wednesday with the new prongs and ball valve to complete this saga :P

[pcrussell50]

I now have the group collar service kit.. Fyi it no longer comes with a portafilter handle...

Shall fit it up on Wednesday with the new prongs and ball valve to complete this saga :P

I took a spare portafilter handle I had, and drilled the bottom out with a carbide hole saw. Not as easy as cutting brass, but with a proper drill (not a weak battery drill), it went pretty well. Worked a treat.

BTW, what do you mean by "prongs"?

-Peter

[inertia8]

Yeah was hoping to have a spare handle is all.

Prongs was meant to be orings but autocorrect on my phone did it's thing!

[inertia8]

Everything was going great, replaced the group head, using just the group head from the repair kit they sent. I replaced the ball valve and all orings..

Then I tackled the coffee probes because one definitely looks to have leaked in the past.. Well I'm kind of stuck... Both coffee probes refuse to come out of their sockets on the boiler and I slipped and have busted the electrical tab off one of the probes... I am seriously reefing on the top of this thing with pliers, twisting and turning and the probe is possessed, it won't come out.

Any tips? What the he'll could cause the probe to be stuck in with such strength? Scale build up on the under side?? It twists around and will freely go up and down but wont come out..

Pics a plenty when I get it done..

[inertia8]

Disappointing news, both probes are stuck in their mounting tubes, they will move up a several millimeters, one even moves so that its flange is flush with the top of its tube in the boiler. Both will twist around 360deg but won't come out and this is with the machine on the floor, feet holding the machine down and using a pair of pliers to either apply constant upward pressure or pushing down and then trying to shock it free...

Both probes now damaged beyond use, going to have to remove the boiler and carefully drill them out then try and remove the pieces that fall into the boiler.. maybe thru the ntc threaded hole.

I can only presume this is the result of being in the boilers from day dot and the ends have corroded/melted to the point of being larger than the ports in the boiler.

In short.. should have bought a new machine! Still might!

[inertia8]

So boiler is NLA, probably too expensive anyway... I can see the insides and the remains of the probes.. the reason they would not come out is massive scale build up on the underside, they are very bulbous.. hindsight says i should have tried descaling the boiler prior to removing the probes, perhaps i still can.. contemplating just cleaning out as much swarf as I can and then using as is till I can get a bes920 on sale. I figure the probe materials are food safe.. but boiling them in water all the time? hmmm

[inorog]

damn! That's just bizarre! Good to know though! Sorry that you had to find out that way!

[inertia8]

yes, i was in a rush and should not have been so careless, so the advice is... if your coffee probes are stuck good... don't force em out because the bloody scale is tougher than the plastic of the probe... you can remove the boiler and descale by soaking upside down so the probes get a good clean or leave it as is and plan for replacement like I should have done!

I have decided that I am going to flush all swarf out of the boiler, then shake the boiler around till the probe remains are sitting in the middle/bottom of the boiler and leave them there.. then reassemble and use the machine whilst I wait for a sale that brings the bes920 down into the 6-700 range..

I'm also discussing with Breville to see if they can offer anything.. that said i'll probably keep these spares for the eventual bes920.. had just hoped to stave that decision off for a good 3-4years with this lot of repairs.. hopefully my findings regarding the collar have been of use to some people out there.

[pcrussell50]

So boiler is NLA, probably too expensive anyway... I can see the insides and the remains of the probes.. the reason they would not come out is massive scale build up on the underside, they are very bulbous.. hindsight says i should have tried descaling the boiler prior to removing the probes, perhaps i still can.. contemplating just cleaning out as much swarf as I can and then using as is till I can get a bes920 on sale. I figure the probe materials are food safe.. but boiling them in water all the time? hmmm

Wow, eights! What a thing to find. I was sitting helpless when you were asking advice because your problem was one I had not seen before. And I was worried if whatever was causing your problem might be in store for me one day. Glad to hear it's something explainable anyway. And not to tread over your corpse here, but I'm also relieved because I use scale-free water, so issues related to scale do not affect me.

I wanted to say that your patience and willingness to work a problem are a model for us all, by the way.

-Peter

[inertia8]

Thanks Peter, it was pretty disappointing to get everything done, then think "I'll change the coffee probes"... then... oh well hahah.

I'm descaling the coffee boiler this arvo and if the scale on the probe remains dissolves I will see if I can then jiggle the remains back to their respective holes and then grab em out.. not likely but worth a shot.

I have acquired the correct closed end crimp connectors to enable me to re-join the boiler and the heater element in the new shower head.. make it all look oem again (previous shop repair had the joiners out in the main body of the machine rather than tucked back out with all the others.

[inertia8]

I have arranged to purchase a BES920 brew boiler from a fellow CS member, with the accompanying NTC thermistor, which is different to the screw in hex styled used by my early BES900.

My first order of business will be to ensure that both the old BES900 and new BES920 thermistor produce the same resistance at a couple of different temps to confirm I can use the 920 part in place of the 900 part.. The boiler will also have a drain tube for descaling, which I will tuck away somewhere out of the way. The coffee probes, I have new probes and o-rings.. The water hoses appear identical and I have new o-rings.

[inertia8]

Ok,

I was offered a bes900 with some of the usual symptoms by a fellow member here for a very reasonable price.

I've just removed it's boiler and will keep the rest for spare parts (shower head looks ok, minimal bubbling etc.).

Just as I'm cutting the wires for my machine, I double check one of the blue wires that goes down underneath the stream boiler and low and behold I've found some sort of bizarre looking formation of I don't know what... whatever it is, it's been dripping down onto the waste pipe and bottom of the machine.. I'll have to see if it's just a corrosion of the brass fitting in the water feed pipe or if it's corrosion of the boiler? Cockroaches?



To clean it up or to leave it??? how hard is it to disassemble the machine to get this sorted?

The bes900 I've picked up has a slightly different boiler with the feed tube entering much higher up in the boiler.

[inertia8]

I've left the growth for now... Machine is back up and running with the boiler from the donor machine, new probes and new orings for most connections.

Had to flush thru a tank of water until bits of debris stopped appearing in either the cup from hot water or shower head. Will run another tank thru in the morning before enjoying a hard earned cuppa