Breville Dual Boiler, five+ years on - Page 48

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pcrussell50 (original poster)
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#471: Post by pcrussell50 (original poster) »

Re ^^^

I added the bit about the brass OPV and brass pump to the "Mods and Maintenance" thread: Breville Dual Boiler Mods and Maintenance

I also just now finished swapping OUT my brass pump and OPV and put the stock ones back. Not because they weren't working perfectly, but because I've been using a rotary pump and no OPV for some time now. And by returning back to stock, it's more ready to be sent back to Breville to exchange for a new machine if it should ever become necessary.

-Peter
LMWDP #553

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lancealot
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#472: Post by lancealot »

I am aware of the situation that Ryan encountered. Last Christmas I bought both the Crem and Vibimme OPV's and tried them both out in my BDB. I learned from searching forums that the male threaded input to the Crem OPV may be too long to be threaded into an ULKA pump resulting in a damage to the pump. I found the same thread that Ryan linked to re; the Ulka and the Elektra. I ended up carefully trimming the male threaded portion with a dremmel and cut-off wheel. You got to do this carefully do you don't damage the threads. Alternately you could handle this by fitting a 1-2mm spacer between the pump neck and the OPV body.

Also, the output of the Crem OPV has a recess before the threads making it so that many nipples or elbows will not reach down to the threads. There are 2 fixes for this. 1) is to trim the recess off the OPV with a hacksaw or dremmel + cutoff wheel. The more elegent solution is to 2) contact Whole Latte Love and buy the correct elbow for the OPV. The correct elbow is push fit for teflon tubing and fits in the Crem OPV without modification to the elbow or OPV.
The correct elbow for the output of the Crem OPV to the teflon tubing in our BDB's is sold in a kit that Whole Latte Love sells as a replacement / repair part for the Expobar Brewtus. The kit comes with 2 elbows, a reducer and some teflon tubing and costs too much. If you contact Whole Latte Love on the phone, their parts department will sell you one of these elbows for around $7. I would buy 2 because the o-ring on the elbow can get messed up easily. Again, if you want to just buy the elbows, you need to talk to the parts dept at WLL. I know, talking to others on the phone can be scary, but your efforts will be rewarded.
Here is the page where you can buy the kit, it shows the elbow: https://www.wholelattelove.com/products ... cement-kit

So what are the benefits to going the Crem OPV route? I don't know. Having run both the Vibimme OPV and Crem OPV, I run the Vibimme in my machine. The Crem is smaller and takes up less room in the machine. The Vibimme is heavier and has more of a dampening effect on the sound of the machine. That is all I know.

pcrussell50 (original poster)
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#473: Post by pcrussell50 (original poster) »

Great write up.

I went with the Vibiemme because "cuppajoe" did, when he pioneered this mod. Guess I got lucky by choosing that path. I had it all done within 30 minutes, no leaks. Never looked back until I converted to rotary.

So if not the easy Vibiemme route, I imagine it would be worth one's while to find one that screws down _directly_ to the brass Ulka.

-Peter
LMWDP #553

JayThree
Posts: 17
Joined: 6 years ago

#474: Post by JayThree »

I also finished switching to brass recently and feel that the whole thing wasn't worth it. Yes, my machine is a lot quieter now when pulling shots, but the noise never bothered me in the first place. Overall it was a good learning experience but in general I wouldn't recommend it unless you're very concerned about noise with this machine.

After switching to brass I found that I would rarely get up to a full 9 bars of pressure when pulling a shot - I'd typically be around 5-7 bars, despite consistently getting 9.5 bars with a blind basket. I spent some time thinking about this and realized that this was because I was still targeting a 30 second shot time, but with brass it takes significantly longer to reach full pressure (an extra 6-8 seconds in my experience). So I was effectively pulling shorter shots despite my shots still technically pulling for 30 seconds, and I must have made my grind coarser to allow that (I don't remember adjusting my grinder but I do it so often that I rarely take note of it). I decided that setting my grinder to pull 30 second shots doesn't make sense with brass, so I adjusted my grind to be a bit finer (targeting about a 38-second shot) and that has helped significantly. The result in the cup is better too :)

I also made a video showing the whole process of installing a brass pump and OPV, to help others who may be interested in doing this. I would appreciate feedback in case I provided bad/incorrect instructions somewhere :) The video is currently unlisted on YouTube, but once I get some feedback I plan to publish it. Here it is:

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lancealot
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Joined: 7 years ago

#475: Post by lancealot »

JayThree wrote:I also finished switching to brass recently and feel that the whole thing wasn't worth it.
I'd have to agree with you. Like you said, unless you are trying to quiet the machine, I don't think it is worth it either. I have installed and played with 3 OPV's: the stock one, Crem and Vibiemme.

Both the Crem and the Vibiemme have a slower ramp up to full pressure as you describe. People may argue the merits of a slower ramp up vs. a fast one but I don't think that for what I am doing - medium roasts, and for my tastes, it makes too much difference.

I also experienced that if you set the stock OPV at 9 bar with the blind basket, when you operate it with coffee, the OPV opens around 9 bar. The Crem and the Vibiemme have a different behavior. When they are set to 9 bar on the blind basket, they open around 7-7.5 bar. I found threads on this phenomenon elsewhere on HB regarding how to set OPV's - not related to BDB's.

BTW: nice video. I think someone will find it helpful in the future! I like that you used a compression fitting at the OPV outlet. Last year I had one of the cheap plastic push elbows blow out on me. The collar let go of the teflon tube and it sprayed all over the machine. Good thing it happened while I was doing a pressure test before I buttoned things back up. I don't think that just cause it happened once, that those kind of fittings are bad, I just feel more comfortable with a standard compression fitting over the push fit ones.

pcrussell50 (original poster)
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Joined: 15 years ago

#476: Post by pcrussell50 (original poster) »

I imagine the cheap plastic elbows are hit or miss then. Mine was a little more expensive and never had a problem. All the way up until I switched to rotary. These fittings are used for pretty sophisticated pneumatic systems. So quality ones are out there. IF you go with a compression fitting I would do fairly frequent inspections of the compressed portion of the tubing to check for cold flow thinning. AFICT the tubing is PTFE, which acts as a thick liquid. Sustained pressure on it could result in a pinch-failure. If it were nylon tubing I would not have this concern.

I noticed the laggy pressure buildup when I started with the Vibiemme OPV. But it didn't bother me. Most of my coffees that I like benefit from this. I was doing 15-30s pre infusions at minimum PP setting. Then I did the "Slayer mod", and did 15-60s super low flow pre infusion through the needle valve. The slow ramp of the Vibiemme never bothered me. And I had it set so it would reach at least 9 bar. Though again, the profiles I used only called for a few seconds at 9bar before tailing back down for the final third of mass.

-Peter
LMWDP #553

BaristaBob
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Joined: 6 years ago

#477: Post by BaristaBob »

Gentlemen,

It appears eReplacement Parts has the steam ball valve assembly back in stock. Just received my backup replacement for the one I replaced about 5 months ago. That's how long it took to receive this bad boy!

I know Peter likes to refurbish them by flipping the seals, but for $40 I'll start new. The original lasted about 3 years anyway, so $40 every three years is not a bad investment.

Bob "hello darkness my old friend..I've come to drink you once again"

pcrussell50 (original poster)
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#478: Post by pcrussell50 (original poster) »

Huge news Bob, thanks for sharing. I had all but written that path off.

Notwithstanding this great news, don't throw away your original leaky valves, gang. They are easily re sealed and re used and you don't know when ereplacementparts will run out again.

(The "green" part of me recommends re sealing the original, AND if you don't like flipping and re using the original seals, you can buy a sack of 100 new seals for under $10 delivered. I have plenty of dirty hobbies too, so you know.)

-Peter
LMWDP #553

BaristaBob
Posts: 1866
Joined: 6 years ago

#479: Post by BaristaBob replying to pcrussell50 »

Absolutely, Peter!

You are right, I refurbished my original leaky ball valve based on your posts, and it sits in the bin with all my other BDB replacement parts. I fear too that one day out in the future this part will no longer be available. As you said, never throw the old one away.
Bob "hello darkness my old friend..I've come to drink you once again"

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lancealot
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#480: Post by lancealot »

Inspired by Bob's success, I just ordered one. Site said backordered, so we will see!

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