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Help, underextraction on Breville Bambino Plus

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  • Help, underextraction on Breville Bambino Plus

    Hi!

    Was hoping that somebody could please help me try to troubleshoot my extraction problems.

    I have a new Bambino plus. I've been getting some not bad coffee with the double wall basket and that's been fine but I want to try to get better coffee out of it.

    I now have the MATOW bottomless PF and have ordered the Breville single-wall basket which hasn't arrived yet. The PF comes with a basket so in the meantime I've been practicing dialling in with that one. I have a Breville SGP and use grinder settings of 17 sec, size 7 which gives approx 17 grams. The beans are a couple of months old now but don't want to buy fresh until I've sorted out this problem. My extraction runs out with a watery consistency in 20 seconds. There is a small amount of channeling but not major.

    I've tried cutting the grind down to size 5, doesn't make a difference. I've paid careful attention to distribution, using a dosing cup to spread the coffee in the basket and a distributor/tamp combo. I'm not sure if I'm tamping too hard or not hard enough or how much of a gap at the top of the basket there should be. Should it be the same level as the pressurised basket, i.e. the razor tool just touches the puck? I'm not sure how much coffee should even go in the basket to be honest.

    Could the MATOW basket just be a piece of rubbish and maybe I should wait for the Breville?

    I'm really not sure what to try next.

    Any helpful suggestions are much appreciated!

    Thank you!

  • #2
    To add to above: According to Amazon the basket fits 19-20g so maybe I'm not putting nearly enough coffee in/too much space at the top of the basket, I'll try that tomorrow as a first step.

    Comment


    • #3
      Welcome Sylvester, I am not familiar with your machine but it usually hard to make good coffee with stale beans. My first thought would be try fresh beans. Good luck

      Comment


      • #4
        Yeah these are not for drinking, just for experimenting with. I currently have three bags of stale beans open so want to get through some of it before buying more. And, the freshest bag is still okay with the pressurised basket.

        Comment


        • Yelta
          Yelta commented
          Editing a comment
          A common mistake, do your self a favour and buy some quality fresh beans from a reputable roaster, your coffee experience will change dramatically.
          PS don't buy your beans from a supermarket.






          a

        • Barry O'Speedwagon
          Barry O'Speedwagon commented
          Editing a comment
          Well, yeh, but plenty of local IGAs sell freshly roasted local beans (e.g. the one near me), so I wouldn't rule them out of the equation.

      • #5
        Sorry mate but 2 year old powdered camel shit will pull a good looking shot through a pressurised basket.
        Buy some reasonable beans and try again.

        Comment


        • SanderP
          SanderP commented
          Editing a comment
          Comment of the month.

          Cheers

      • #6
        Nice. Okay, so from these answers I'm going to assume that beans that aren't fresh could be causing it to run through like water, underextracted, and that fresh beans could solve this problem, increasing brewing time. Fair enough, I will find something fresh and start again.

        Comment


        • #7
          If you’re near an Aldi grab a kilo of their medium roast in-house brand for $12. They’re roasted in Melbourne and usually fresher than what you’d find in the supermarket (except maybe the Campos they have at woolies $$$)

          I found them good to get a rough dial-in before using nicer beans.

          Comment


          • #8
            Hi. Per the above suggestions I have purchased fresh beans today. Unfortunately, I'm still having the same problem and so far all shots from these fresh beans have been wasted.

            Specifics: 21 grams of beans at grind size 5. Extraction time is 23 seconds and yielding 44.5 grams of coffee. Results: Sour, watery.

            Please help

            Originally posted by WoweeZowee View Post
            I found them good to get a rough dial-in before using nicer beans.
            Yes this is what I've been trying to do. I did not think that getting fresh beans would solve this problem and it hasn't.

            Comment


            • #9
              Maybe try wdt with a paperclip until you can order some 0.4 mm acupuncture needles to stick on a cork or 3d print a body. Also be very careful with not going too deep with depth on distribution tool. I would suggest try wdt and then tamp only to start.

              Comment


              • #10
                Can you put up a pic or video of your technique?

                What beans did you get?

                Comment


                • #11
                  Think I'll leave it to the experts, they seem to have the problem pretty well sorted.?

                  Comment


                  • #12
                    Originally posted by Blues1143 View Post
                    Maybe try wdt with a paperclip until you can order some 0.4 mm acupuncture needles to stick on a cork or 3d print a body.
                    I think that's a little beyond my scope. I'm using a dosing cup and distributing that way, before using the distributor/tamp. I have read about WDT though and did try it with a bamboo skewer. I don't think the results were any better than the dosing cup.

                    I got beans from Cafe Cherry Beans, which is within the dreaded 5km lockdown zone. There are other local roasters but they don't do pick-up orders at the moment.

                    This is what I'm trying to do with the distribution: https://youtu.be/C9u9S_-PcwQ?t=452

                    Not sure how to upload a video. Looking after 2 littlies full time so getting a video might not be possible for a while.

                    Stats today: 21g coffee in, extraction 22 secs, 44g coffee out. Still kind of sour but marginally less watery coming out. Using fresh beans hasn't made much of a difference.

                    And get this... after I go out and buy new beans today, the bonus promotional fathers day coffee beans arrive in the post today with no warning! so I now have six new bags of coffee, and three open bags of stale beans.

                    I appreciate everybody taking the time to read and reply. It's a big learning curve for me but all of it helps.

                    Comment


                    • #13
                      Update, tried upping the dose to 22.5g (because why not). Now I have an imprint of the shower screen after extracting so maybe the dose wasn't enough before? This slowed extraction time to 26 seconds and it was a bit less runny. Still a bit on the sour side of things but an improvement. I forgot to weigh the coffee output though. Next time.

                      Comment


                      • #14
                        Can you try grinding even finer?

                        Comment


                        • #15
                          The Breville SGP has an inner burr adjustment that moves the grind setting numbers about 5 or 10 numbers (finer or coarser depending on the adjustment, if you move it 1 marker finer the number that used to be 5 will now be roughly equivalent to 10 or 15). Read the manual for how to adjust.

                          Comment


                          • SylvesterMcMonkeyMcBean
                            SylvesterMcMonkeyMcBean commented
                            Editing a comment
                            Interesting, I didn't know that. Will have a look tomorrow. I'll try a finer grind. Would explain why people talk about a grind size of over 10 which seems massive to me on the normal setting.
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