Breville BCG800 Smart Grinder

[specialpants]

Hi special pants are you sure about this as i still do not see it

Positive.

If you haven't done a cleaning cycle with your BES900, and the machine has reached a certain number of shot counts - it will flash 'clean me' as it is warming up. Once the machine has warmed up, the message disappears. There's probably another threshold before the message stays on permanently.

You could ignore the warnings if you're pretty diligent with your cleaning (eg clear water backflush and chemical backflush every week/fortnight depending on usage).

[MvO]

Please share the kind of beans you could not grind properly.
I bet, these were (most probably stale or "el cheapo") not from a local roaster - did I win?

I thought the forum was about sharing information, not winning or losing... In any case, most of the coffee that went through the smart grinder was bought from a local roaster and was less than a week old at time of purchase..

In any case, I have put the same beans through a cheaper Sunbeam 0480 and had no problems. Perhaps the Smart Grinder I got was a dud.. Replaced it with another Sunbeam (for mum) and had no problems

[water_dragon]

[QUOTE=specialpants;485404]Positive.

If you haven't done a cleaning cycle with your BES900, and the machine has reached a certain number of shot counts - it will flash 'clean me' as it is warming up. Once the machine has warmed up, the message disappears. There's probably another threshold before the message stays on permanently.

You could ignore the warnings if you're pretty diligent with your cleaning (eg clear water backflush and chemical backflush every week/fortnight depending on usage).[/QU Thanks for reply I clean weekly but my mine does not display this and the water is double filtered .

[Rumo]

Guys just need a hand here, sorry I haven't managed to find anything similar on this thread

I bought a BDB/SG combo recently and I can see that the grinder is grinding too finely; I am at the border with percolator and not comfortable there... hoping it would give me a finer degree of control towards the finer end of the scale were it properly calibrated; has anyone raised this before? The grinder is not shimmed and the batch number is 1205

Thanks
R

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

Welcome Rumo,

I'm not sure that people are going to understand your question (maybe i've just lost the plot). Are you sure that your grinder is 'grinding too finely'? If it is similar to a percolator grind, then surely it is grinding to coarsely (sorry, I'm guessing that is what 'at the border with percolator' means). Might be best if you spell out clearly what the symptoms of your problem are.

Cheers
BOSW

[Rumo]

Welcome Rumo,

I'm not sure that people are going to understand your question (maybe i've just lost the plot). Are you sure that your grinder is 'grinding too finely'? If it is similar to a percolator grind, then surely it is grinding to coarsely (sorry, I'm guessing that is what 'at the border with percolator' means). Might be best if you spell out clearly what the symptoms of your problem are.

Cheers
BOSW

Thanks

OK, I can't seem get a coarse enough grind on the espresso scale so I have to adjust the grind into the percolator zone on the BCG800 screen which disables espresso dose control. I am using a single wall basket on the BES900 with a light tamp & getting very long extraction times, with dripping rather than free flow and late pours. The ground coffee comes out very fine and with lots of lumps.

I was hoping to remove some shims but there aren't any

Thank you
R

[water_dragon]

Thanks

OK, I can't seem get a coarse enough grind on the espresso scale so I have to adjust the grind into the percolator zone on the BCG800 screen which disables espresso dose control. I am using a single wall basket on the BES900 with a light tamp & getting very long extraction times, with dripping rather than free flow and late pours. The ground coffee comes out very fine and with lots of lumps.

I was hoping to remove some shims but there aren't any

Thank you
R

I like Barry am having difficulty understanding your problem I can not see the grind ever being too fine have you adjusted the dose or are you tamping with the power of a power lifter. I personally find the finer The grind and not over dosing gives me consistant pours, Having said that no 2 grinders or 2 different type's of bean will be the same.Why do you think it is grinding too fine does it feel like talc between your fingers I think you need to explain your dose and tamp for us to understand this a bit better Rumo.

[prydey]

Hi Rumo, what do you mean by 'very long extraction times'? longer than 25-30 seconds? what sort of volume are you getting in that time?

it is a very strange problem. normally the opposite situation is what people complain about so its a bit of a first around these boards, not being able to grind coarse enough. have you tried adjusting the dose? are you familiar with the 5cent test? if so, have you done that to establish whether you are in the ballpark for correct dose? maybe you are updosing too much which can have the same effect as too finer grind.

most people i know with the BSG are grinding with the guage right up the espresso end. with fresh beans mine normally starts out under the ss in espresso and i adjust it finer as the beans age.

how old is your grinder? the code is in the 1200's so its obviously fairly recent. i'd be taking it back if you can't improve things. probably an issue with it by the sound of things.

[Rumo]

Thanks everyone, crisis over. I've taken the grider back today and the replacement (batch 1201) works a lot closer to what I was expecting. I may actually need to add a shim in, will play some more with it & see how it goes.

Thanks
R

[johnsmith]

i just became a new owner of the bcg800 + bes900 combo over the weekend, and am having fun dialing in both of them.

i have an issue with the bcg800 - the grind fineness indicator jumps around. it jumps when i'm adjusting the coarseness, when it's grinding, and even when i'm just moving the machine. and by jumping, i mean the arrow jumps from one place to another, a lot of the times it jumps all the way to the finest end, then back, and anywhere in between.

i've removed the top burr and used the brush to give it a good clean but that didn't help.

does anyone else have this problem? should i take it back to the shop?

[Danieln]

Hi John,

Are you sure you aren't getting any small stones in your coffee, this sometimes causes grinders to jump about.

-Daniek

[johnsmith]

i don't think there are any stones in the beans. I'm using beans roasted on 13/12/2012, dark horse blend from Mecca.

Could it be the beans are too hard for the grinder?

[johnsmith]

i tried again this morning, and the jumps seem to have decreased - just from one indicator to another and back, rather than all over the dial.

could it be because the beans were harder because they were fresher? would like to hear others' experiences.

[Pete39]

I've had that grinder for about 12 months and have never experienced what you describe. I have had it struggle with lighter roasts - I get a nasty sound that I think is a clutch designed to protect the motor. The grind stops for a short moment and then recovers. Others have described this as well, but the fineness indicator doesn't move. Sounds like you should take it back and see what your retailer thinks.

Pete

[johnsmith]

happy to report that i exchanged it and the new BCG800 no longer has the problem.