sn_85 Senior Member Joined: 1 Dec 2011 Posts: 131 Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Quick Mill Andreja Premium Grinder: Baratza Vario
Posted Sun Dec 2, 2012, 10:37pm Subject: Re: Breville Dual Boiler BES900XL Owners Thread
For those that are interested in the machine Williams & Sonoma is running 25% off this machine right now. Makes it $899 + plus tax with free S/H. Use coupon code SAVENOW at checkout to get the savings. They had the same deal last year and I know a lot of people were waiting for it to come back, well here it is. Makes a high value dollar machine even more of a bargain. If I didn't already have a machine this one would be pretty high on my list.
I've had my BES900XL for almost a week (SN ending in 007554 us/can). I have read a lot of the 114 or so pages in this thread (Yikes! my eyes are tired). I have a few "amens" to the posts here, in particular, I was impressed by "9Bars'" early post
I have had almost all the exact same comments so That's why the link to his post. It is worth reading (as are quite a few others JMHO).
About the only thing I wanted to add was this observation (YMMV):
I am using the Breville single walled double shot basket with very good success. I have achieved this by paying attention to some (to me) critical details.
Now, in future, I will probably try some of the other baskets mentioned in the thread, but, you should (IMHO) be able to achieve very good results using the supplied single wall baskets.
From a purely mechanical viewpoint the supplied basket is a good place to start. I am going to see what the other baskets can bring in the future to better extraction, etc. etc..
FRESH BEANS! Did I mention FRESH BEANS? (Basic but so true) I live in the Chicago area so I am lucky to have some good roasters close by. However, UPS and FEDEX et al. can put the roasters close by to almost all of us.
I was out of fresh beans when the unit arrived so I went to (please don't flame me I was desperate lol) a "Big Box" Coffee store (which shall remain nameless but you know who it is lmao). I wasted about an hour fiddling with their beans. Results? Almost no creme and very little taste. Not completely terrible but not really good either.
The next day I received my shipment from a local roaster that I respect. Yeah Babyy! That's what I'm talking about!
All the difference in the world. Second shot was "dialed in". So you probably guessed that the only use, to me, for the double-walled baskets is to use them for cleaning, since the manual says that the double-walled baskets are for pre-ground coffee. I will never ever buy coffee beans with no "roasted on Date" on the bag!
So the "Drill" (for me YMMV)
1.) I always weigh my beans (17g per basket) and grind.
2.) I distribute the grounds using the E,W,N,S method (ala Tony @ Metropolis, and Gail )
3.) As Tony at Metropolis Coffe mentions in his video, "Flush, and wipe"! (Group head flush and wipe off top rim)
4.) The tamper gets pushed down until it is just even to the top of the basket. I rotate the tamper 90 deg (2X) to polish the load.
3.) It took me about 6 pulls to achieve very good extraction and the pucks are firm and come out very cleanly.
In closing, I have to thank the guy at Breville who did the tamping/pull video, Gail and Kat for their series of videos, Whole Latte Love's videos, Metropolis's videos, and this forum, in particular, for making this an easy "start-up".
Cheers,
Dave
Don't forget to stop and smell the coffee...... er flowers!
For those that are interested in the machine Williams & Sonoma is running 25% off this machine right now. Makes it $899 + plus tax with free S/H. Use coupon code SAVENOW at checkout to get the savings. They had the same deal last year and I know a lot of people were waiting for it to come back, well here it is. Makes a high value dollar machine even more of a bargain. If I didn't already have a machine this one would be pretty high on my list.
folks, do NOT ignore this deal. the WS sale was 30% off last year, so i got my BDB for $839. AFAICT there were no greater deals the rest of 2012. if 2013 turns out the same, you will either pay too much for a new BDB, or you will wait a year to get one. don't get caught out looking for something else.
oh, and do what i didn't do... buy it with a visa card that automatically doubles the length of the factory warranty. i used discover card, which does not do this, even though i have a high-roller visa that would have given me the double warranty. doh!
Alas, I have parted ways with the BDB. I still think that it is a great machine and the 899$ deal is increadible. I just noticed the Breville Canada site advertising the BDB for 1399$.
Anyway, I am selling off my accessories so I wanted to draw your attention to this posting regarding the accessories that I am selling (naked PF, VST baskets and free water filters).
Thank you BDB owners forum. It was a great help and I greatly appreciated the interactions. Keep enjoying making exceptional espresso.
Alas, I have parted ways with the BDB. I still think that it is a great machine and the 899$ deal is increadible. I just noticed the Breville Canada site advertising the BDB for 1399$.
Anyway, I am selling off my accessories so I wanted to draw your attention to this posting regarding the accessories that I am selling (naked PF, VST baskets and free water filters).
Thank you BDB owners forum. It was a great help and I greatly appreciated the interactions. Keep enjoying making exceptional espresso.
If any Breville company associates are "lurking" a thing that would be handy would be to program in a function to display the numbers of shots pulled on the LCD.
You're saving the number, so it could be displayed via a program change.
Of course that would mean a "re-flash" of the program "memory". Any way to do that in the field? (I think I know the answer to that lol)
Just a wish list item.
Cheers,
Dave
Don't forget to stop and smell the coffee...... er flowers!
If any Breville company associates are "lurking" a thing that would be handy would be to program in a function to display the numbers of shots pulled on the LCD.
Its already there. just press all 4 buttons and the on switch at the same time - then multiply the shown figure by 10 and you have the shots pulled - over 7 seconds thought.
nothing wrong with daily back flush, if your using the simple wiggle thing setup, its to get those little grinds off the group head and cleans the pipes
you do the tablet once clean me happens prompts
good for you to have so much coffee, me i dont have much coffee to play around with
If any Breville company associates are "lurking" a thing that would be handy would be to program in a function to display the numbers of shots pulled on the LCD.
You're saving the number, so it could be displayed via a program change.
Of course that would mean a "re-flash" of the program "memory". Any way to do that in the field? (I think I know the answer to that lol)
1 cup 2 cup is counted, manual and a 25sec shot is still a shot as well as a 56sec shot
so when is a shot a shot? once a trigger in on and then turned off? so a flush is a shot in this case - some said here the computer starts to count when it reaches 7sec that is when i declares a shot will be counted until it says clean me
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