Hi,

I have a Breville 870XL and it seems like I cannot get the appropriate brew temperature. Breville claims that I should expect the temp to be around 93C (with -4F or +4F adjustments). I get only 80C MAXIMUM! Even with the +4F adjustment and that is taking care of everything :

- Warm up the machine for 1 hour
- Warm up my cup
- Warm up the portafilter by pouring a double shot

I have checked the temp with two different thermometers, and they give the same reading. I get my readings from the cup directly after the coffee is extracted. I also tried without coffee in the portafilter and get the same results.

Do you think there is something wrong with my unit? Am I doing something wrong? What the point in having a PID if I cannot even get good temp?

Thanks

There is a differential between set temperature and water coming out of brewhead. I don't know what amount this usually is though. I do it without portafilter into styrofoam cup, warm up the thermometers first, wait to get back to brew temp, then do again. I believe this eliminates anything sucking heat from water as much as possible, but someone correct me if there is a better way to do it.

I just did it on mine, which is supposed to be a 105c thermostat, and I am getting a water reading of 187 and 189 on two totally different thermometers. I've done this before and got slightly higher readings, so some variability there. Also, I expected my water temp to be higher based on 105c, i.e. a 20f differential seems like a lot to me, so I wonder if it is actually 105c.

If 93c is the PID temp, then your differential is actually close to mine, around 20f. If it is supposed to be the water temp, then your water temp seems way low. Maybe other people can chime in on what their differential is.

Measuring the temperature coming out of the grouphead, accurately, is not something that is easily done with a simple thermometer.

The readings you get even using the styrofoam cup method will be lower than the temperture actually hitting the coffee. I wouldnt judge the machines ability using these simple measurement methods.


The Scace device is the industry standard, but I believe your machine is a 54mm grouphead and there is no scace device for that grouphead. I may be wrong on the grouphead size here, someone else correct me if Im wrong.

The second best.. and second best by a large margin, is to snake a wire bead thermocouple into the basket somehow, so that you can fill it with coffee and pull a shot like normal, and attempt to get a reading of the temp during the shot. T type thermocouple would be ideal, but I suppose a common K type would also work fine.


Most importantly, how does the coffee taste? Can you pull an even and proper extraction? If yes, how does it taste. What coffee are you using? I would get as close as you can to pulling a truly perfect shot, and if it still tastes totally off, more measurement might be the answer

Actually I'm really a beginner, I bought my machine about 2 month ago (had a superautomatic before). So I don't even know what is a good result. I can get good crema but can't say if the coffee is too bitter or not.

Now I'm trying to identify what could cause inconsistent results from my machine. If my machine brews at right temperature its one piece of the puzzle I don't need to care about.

I'm also wondering for how long I must pre-heat my machine. I don't have much time in the morning and I'm wondering if I can get a good temperature within the first 5 mninutes.

@JmanEspresso : To answer your questions :
how does the coffee taste? Pretty Good (IMO), when I succeed extracting a good espresso
Can you pull an even and proper extraction? About 70% of the time, but somedays my machine seems stubborn
What coffee are you using? Right now I ordered from a micro-roaster. The Colombian Oporapa beans were roasted last week.

Danbord--I own the same machine. To your question about a 5 min. warmup, I'd say no, that is not enough time. I turn mine on as soon as I'm up and can get to the kitchen before the usual morning stuff. Thirty minutes or so does the trick for me. By then, there's some real warmth in the portafilter as well as in the cup or two on top of the machine. One of the company's videos makes the point of allowing sufficient machine warm-up time.
As for factory-set brew temp, a dealer who's in contact with a factory rep says on this machine, it's set at 200F and hopefully held there by the PID.
When you mentioned extraction quality being OK most of the time, you didn't indicate how it looks pressure-wise. Do they consistently hit somewhere mid-scale on the pressure meter during extractions and are they within the desired time-range, color and consistency?
Unlike many others on the forum, I'm still in the newbie category, but wanted to share my thoughts. I'd probably say something about bean freshness, but your statement about beans one week out from roasting shuts my mouth on that topic. As you know, bean freshness is crucial to a good shot.
I'm aware of the shortcomings of the 870XL, but at its price-point of less than half the cost of a double boiler, I am satisfied.

i sent an email to Breville asking the numerical values of the gauge and replied to me that whole bar is 9 bar so likely 9.1 to 9.9.

That's interesting, caffelatte8. That would mean the darker "espresso range" portion of the dial on the gauge equals something like 9.3 to 9.7 bar. On the company's video, it shows a close-up of the gauge during extraction where the needle is just beyond the high end of that darker "espresso range".