Newbie - Breville Barista Express Frustration - Page 7

#61: Post by **slipchuck** » February 21st, 2018, 9:14 am

BillBurrGrinder wrote:Oh really?!?! Thats BS! I understand this isn't a top of the line machine but for $600 you'd think it would at LEAST get to the right temperature to brew coffee. What a letdown. If I burn threw $100+ worth of beans to find out it's the machine I'm going to ask Breville to refund that too. I'm sure I'll find out sooner or later. What method of testing did you do?

Take if for what it's worth, it could be just my machine but the temperature was 170 degrees when the pull was done.
Here is my setup.
Like everyone says try all variables first

#62: Post by **wowzors** » February 21st, 2018, 9:49 am

10 minute warmup with 2 flushes is not enough time. The espresso out was around 135F compared to yesterdays 160F that tasted much different. Yesterday I left it to warmup for 30minutes, it looks like that may be the sweet spot.

February 21st, 2018, 11:02 am

Bret wrote: FWIW, I use the BDB 920, which does have very consistent temp control, and I never got shot that I would want to drink straight from it until I got my Monolith. I did get different results with different roasts, and consistency improved with single dosing, weighing output, working on a consistent tamp, etc. I suspect a very expensive machine at this point might still yield sour shots.

And a sour shot can be GREAT in milk drinks.

Getting everything in the process stable and consistent takes time to achieve, and effort to maintain. I doubt one can achieve this over a matter of a week or three or ten. Getting everything under control is one thing, then varying one thing at a time to get a trend in the right direction for each is a journey. It has been a long journey so far for me, and it will continue. Trick is probably to enjoy the journey. Work with one coffee for a while, get it as good as you can. It ages day to day, as you are trying different things, so it can be like walking a tightrope in a hurricane while harnessed to a deployed parachute.

Things that have helped me so far (in no particular order):
-weighed doses, weighed outputs
-bottomless portafilter
-same coffee for weeks/months
-single dosing
-no preinfusion
-swiping a tiny spoon thru the shot as it pulls, tasting (periodically, not every shot)
-tasting every shot before adding the steamed milk (and attempting to learn latte art in parallel!)
-keeping detailed notes
-leveling tamper (in my case the Kafatek LevTamp)

I got as good as I could with the above, still never quite got a shot that I would want to drink straight. I assumed it was just my taste buds. Then I got the Monolith, and the shot with the provided coffee was eye opening. I'm in the process of dialing in my long-standing roast to achieve the best results (and the burrs are breaking in as I try to do this). I dialed in the Malabar Gold fairly easily, it is a pretty forgiving roast.

So basically hang in there, work to establish process consistency before swinging variables around, and you'll see improvements for sure. And, as you move the variables around, you'll learn the relative effect of each. In my case, temperature didn't make a significant difference in tasted for me until I had a lot of the others under control (and fixed). So I would venture that you can do a lot more to affect the sour results than any temp change is going to make right now. I was well into the sour range, temp changes moved me a little bit around that point, but still in the sour range. Once I got to dancing near the edge of the sour zone, smaller order things mattered, and I can actually taste small changes with small temp changes now. But a year ago, 6 months ago, not a chance.

+1 on Brett's comments.
I too have a Breville 920XL coupled with a less than but adequate grinder in the Rocky...que the violins...it's no Monolith Flat. I hate Brett now...no not really. His checklist is good practice for some of us, it can help us produce a workflow routine that works well with the equipment we have. As for the coffees I use, most benefit from using a long pre-infusion ( 15 s) at the lowest pressure I can get (Slayerish).
Don't think you machine grinder is adequate, it probably isn't. If you like dark roasted beans it is fine, but as you move farther away from this your need for a outstanding grinder will become paramount. There is a Monolith in my future.

#64: Post by **wowzors** » February 21st, 2018, 12:54 pm

Not the most scientific approach but here are my findings.

Machine on 10 minutes two shot flushes through Portafilter and the espresso out in the warmed glass was 130F. Sour.
Machine on 20 minutes two shot flushes through Portafilter and the espresso out in the warmed glass was 145F. Still sour but less.
Machine on 30 minutes two shot flushes through Portafilter and the espresso out in the warmed glass was 160F. Quite a bit less sour, still a hint, maybe just the beans.

Machine doesnt seem to output hotter than 160F after greater than 30 minutes, so I would suggest allowing a 30 minute warmup, after 30 minutes flush a double shot through the Portafilter basket in to your espresso glass. Dry the basket out and fill with your dose, while filling run a second flush with no PF attached into your glass. Empty the glass then put the PF on and pull your shot.

*I should add I had better success doing manual shots as stated above. These were all done with manual pulls. The temperature was set to the default of 200F.

#65: Post by **evert** » May 15th, 2018, 5:50 am

After reading all this I almost feel inclined to get a fully-automatic machine instead.
I've had the Silvia / Rocky combination a couple of years ago but was never really confident in the workflow (the wife never bonded either).
So I thought this Barista Express would be a nice step into the espresso world again.
But since we don't want to do all this testing with all variables, perhaps it's not for us anyway?
How much worse would a good fully automatic shot taste really?

To answer my own question - I went to a local reseller today and got to compare shots from a Jura fully automatic and a manual machine with the same beans.
And there was a BIG difference in taste. I will NOT get an automatic machine!