Breville Infuser (BES840) Owners thread

[Erimus]

You could use the razor tool until you get your scales and that will put you somewhere close. You're never going to get perfection with this machine though, as they're more suited to milk drinks.

[skeevs]

I definitely need to get one of those cheapie 0.1g scales from ebay. So, this morning..

I did the grind 1 step finer so about 19g went into the basket. Stopped the double shot after 20s, pressure gauge was in just after the ideal zone into broken lines. The kitchen scale I used didn't register the change in weight. So I poured the ristretto/espresso and measured it was about 35ml.

Steamed the milk and poured into a 160ml flat white cup. It had a bitter aftertaste though most of the drink. From what I've been reading, ideally ristretto should be at 20ml-30ml. So I'm wondering if I stopped the extraction where it the flavor was more dominant on the bitter parts.

[woodhouse]

for a ristretto you want to be pulling around the 1:1 ratio. so 18g in, 18g out. get a pair of cheapie 0.1g ebay scales if you haven't a set already. i'm not familiar with your machine, but if there's a manual start/stop button, you should use that. otherwise, press the double shot, and then press it again to cancel the shot just before you hit the target weight.

[skeevs]

Hey guys,

I'm trying to pull a double ristretto.

I dosed 18g into the double basket, pressed on the single cup. It was finished with the extraction by itself after 20 seconds. I didn't measure but I'd imagine it was 30ml. Pressure gauge was in the broken line area, after 2nd screw.

Is this the right way ?

[prydey]

@prydey I reached out to Pullman and Mark responded that they don't make pullman baskets for this size. Is this something that they used to have ?

sorry, I didn't realise the infuser didn't have a 58mm group head. my bad.

[Lyrebird]

The average force on the puck due to water flow at ~ 900 kPa is of the order of 1 kN*, hard to see how you could possibly tamp it hard enough to materially affect the flow.

IMO the main effect of tamping is to change how much coffee will fit in the basket.



* assuming a linear pressure gradient which should obtain by Darcy's Law. 1 kN is roughly 100 kgf, the unit misnamed as kg in the posts above.

[crazyhakins]

Tamping pressure makes very little or no difference whatsoever. A light tamp as long as it's level is sufficient. Dose and grind are the main concerns.

I personally don’t believe this is an accurate statement. A shot is determined by the RELATIONSHIP between grind size, dose amount, and tamp pressure. I do agree a light tamp is enough, and tamping harder isn’t necessary like manay barista manuals say it is, but for me if I dial in my grind and dose my tamping pressure still has an impact on the shot visually as it pours, how quickly it finishes etc. I could be completely wrong. I know there’s a lot of science that goes into it - puck expansion, water flow/resistance etc. but that’s how I understand it from my own experience.

[Yelta]

Haven't bothered to check but reckon I use 3 or 4 KG max.

[Erimus]

Definitely Yelta. It's about time this 15kgs of force myth was busted, along with practicing this on a set of bathroom scales.

[Yelta]

Tamping pressure makes very little or no difference whatsoever. A light tamp as long as it's level is sufficient. Dose and grind are the main concerns.

Spot on Erimus! gorilla force tamps are not needed, about all you will achieve is a case of RSI.

[Erimus]

Maybe I should've tamped harder this morning.

Tamping pressure makes very little or no difference whatsoever. A light tamp as long as it's level is sufficient. Dose and grind are the main concerns.

[skeevs]

@prydey I reached out to Pullman and Mark responded that they don't make pullman baskets for this size. Is this something that they used to have ?

[skeevs]

Last night I got tinkering around with a 5c coin, dosing and grind settings. Pulled double shots and finally got to 30secs extraction time, with grinder set to 15s and grind 22. Pressure gauge was at borderline of ideal/broken lines(slightly past 2nd screw). Went to bed pretty happy about that.

This morning, the grinder lost the grind settings and defaulted back to 17.8s and grind 22, which I forgot to adjust. So I just brushed off the extras and measured dose to 18gms. Tamped. Pulled double shot. Extraction time was almost 25s this time, but gauge was at 12 o'clock, right on the 2nd screw.

Coffee did taste a little weaker though.

Maybe I should've tamped harder this morning.

But otherwise I think I'm on the right path.

Thanks for this @prydey.. will go looking for it

I'm using a 17-19g Pullman basket with my Pullman tamper.

[prydey]

Btw which vst baskets would be best to go with a Pullman tamp?

I'm using a 17-19g Pullman basket with my Pullman tamper.

[prydey]

Good advice Prydey, apart from point 1, I don't like to see any sign of the shower screen on the puck, perhaps OK on the Breville, just makes a mess that must be cleaned up by backflushing on my machine.

yeah, fair enough. all machines probably vary and all users no doubt have their own nuances as well. the 5c rule tends to align fairly well with the Razor tool, which breville supply with the 920 for a guide to dose level. it is just a start point though, not a 'set in stone' rule.