DaveB wrote:I would MUCH rather descale every few months than deal with the hassle and expense of bringing home countless gallons of distilled water and then altering - unless there was a significant taste improvement over my untreated, soft water that tastes great out of the tap (courtesy Marin Municipal Water District / Mt Tamalpias watershed). To each his own I suppose.

I was worried about the hassle as well, but now that I have a routine, it takes about an extra 30 seconds for me to prepare the water when I fill the tank. Since I personally had post-descale issues with the machine (dreaded 3 beep issue), I would much rather never descale.

I have a RO filter in my kitchen, so I don't have to deal with buying distilled water - that would be an extra hassle, I suppose.

BaristaBob wrote:The "descale me" prompt after 3 months with a water hardness of 1 is highly unusual. I have a water hardness of 1 too, and my machine didn't do this until about six months ago. Most people recommend that if you have hardness 1 (very soft) water, there is no need to descale. I just reset my machine (did not descale it) and it has not come back on yet and that was six months ago as I mentioned. I do check to see how long it takes, first thing in the morning, to come up to 201F and it has always been around 8 minutes. I'd just reset it and see what happens.

After ignoring the descale prompt for a couple weeks, I was fiddling with the settings a couple days ago and I accidentally reset everything. While I lost my custom settings, I was rather pleased to see the descale prompt has disappeared - at least for now.

Since I have a brand new -920 on the way, courtesy of the Breville $350 repair or replace program (first time I've used it in seven happy years with the BDB), I got to wondering... Don't they come with some test strips where you test the water and then set a hardness figure in the display? Well, for guys like me who use scale-free water anyway, what if I set the hardness figure to "0" or whatever the lowest setting is? Would it still eventually bug me to descacle?

-Peter

pcrussell50 wrote:Since I have a brand new -920 on the way, courtesy of the Breville $350 repair or replace program (first time I've used it in seven happy years with the BDB), I got to wondering... Don't they come with some test strips where you test the water and then set a hardness figure in the display? Well, for guys like me who use scale-free water anyway, what if I set the hardness figure to "0" or whatever the lowest setting is? Would it still eventually bug me to descacle?

"!" is the lowest setting you can choose. Apparently I was backflushing enough to make the prompt come up in only 3 months (6 flushes per session 3 to 4 times a day). After speaking with a Breville tech and consulting with Barista Bob, I am changing my strategy to do a single 20 second backflush once at the end of the day. Will be interesting to see how long till the next descale prompt.

pcrussell50 wrote:Since I have a brand new -920 on the way, courtesy of the Breville $350 repair or replace program (first time I've used it in seven happy years with the BDB), I got to wondering... Don't they come with some test strips where you test the water and then set a hardness figure in the display? Well, for guys like me who use scale-free water anyway, what if I set the hardness figure to "0" or whatever the lowest setting is? Would it still eventually bug me to descacle?

-Peter

Starting new for $350 after 7 years... I'm impressed with Breville's customer service. Let us know what the serial number is...mine is an early 920xl with a serial number of 1415.

As far as hardness goes, lowest setting is 1. And as I reported somewhere here my "Descale" did not flash for a year and a half. The default setting is 3. So make sure you reset it to 1.

It was supposed to be a refurbished, but they were out of those. so they are sending me a brand new one. Darn the luck. I should say that they still have my sales record of having bought it brand new from a high end retailer back when the first came out in fall 2011, and they have always seemed to treat me well because of it. IOW, it's not like I found it in the dumpster and now I want to send them $350 for a new one, and they know it because they have confirmed record of it.

Thanks for the tip on the descale setting. I will definitely do it. And I will definitely report back the serial number. I wonder if it will have the new new group collar with the bolts around the bottom rim of the group.

Another thing I've been "cooking Up"... See even though we don't have a GS/3, I try at least not to miss out on GS/3-level performance in the cup, we already have what is likely to be it's match in temperature stability, so we do other things like the profiling mod, which gives us full command of the extraction pressure form beginning to end, or we can play around with low pressure extraction by setting the pump to run at a lower pressure, etc... Well, unrelated to system things, people in the GS/3, Slayer, world etc... have been talking a lot lately of IMS shower screens. Well, I was perusing their web site and they make dozens and dozens of different sizes and shapes, including ones of varying diameter with countersunk center screws like the BDB uses. If we can find one with the right diameter, we are in business for IMS shower screens like the big dog like to bark about. Unfortunately, I am BDB'less right now or I would have my dial caliper on it, yesterday getting a measurement of it's diameter. If anyone else out there wants to take off his shower screen and measure it, that might give us a starting point.

-Peter

I just saw these two threads that talk about the same shower screen that will fit the bdb.

Competition Shower Screen for Breville Dual Boiler?

Breville Dual Boiler Shower Screen/Dispersion Plate Mods?

Also thanks for all your knowledge about the bdb. I am looking at getting it as my next machine and the wealth of info you have provided makes me confident not only in the performance but also making it last for years

pcrussell50 wrote:
Another thing I've been "cooking Up"... See even though we don't have a GS/3, I try at least not to miss out on GS/3-level performance in the cup, we already have what is likely to be it's match in temperature stability, so we do other things like the profiling mod, which gives us full command of the extraction pressure form beginning to end, or we can play around with low pressure extraction by setting the pump to run at a lower pressure, etc... Well, unrelated to system things, people in the GS/3, Slayer, world etc... have been talking a lot lately of IMS shower screens. Well, I was perusing their web site and they make dozens and dozens of different sizes and shapes, including ones of varying diameter with countersunk center screws like the BDB uses. If we can find one with the right diameter, we are in business for IMS shower screens like the big dog like to bark about. Unfortunately, I am BDB'less right now or I would have my dial caliper on it, yesterday getting a measurement of it's diameter. If anyone else out there wants to take off his shower screen and measure it, that might give us a starting point.

-Peter

Ha...I beat you to the gun here.

One poster gave me the hot lead...The IMS CI 200 IM integrated shower screen fits perfectly.

Will be dropping down the shower screen tomorrow to verify the actual diameter. Will let you know.

The video link from Chris65 is very insightful.

I just pulled my shower screen off to clean things. My vernier caliper says 52mm wide. Because of the way it sits against the plastic dispersion block, which is 57.9mm wide x 10.8mm thick, you could probably get away with a screen that is a little smaller or a little larger. Maybe +/- 1mm. Do your own measurements before you buy stuff though!
I am excited to see how this goes. I love this kinda stuff.

IMS CI 200 IM integrated shower screen is 51.5mm in diameter. On Amazon for $30