I have a Breville Dual Boiler and have always used the double wall basket because let’s be real, I’m a fraud and need some dialling in help.
I’ve decided I no longer want to be a fraud. I got sucked in to the Normcore Black Friday sale and bought a scale, portafilter, WDT tool, puck screen and tamper. Alas, I still have all the gear and no idea.
It’s just no matter what I do, my pour is like piss. So watery, bitter, 18g of beans/25 seconds gets me 84 fucking grams of espresso. I’m only reaching 2/3 on the pressure gauge. “Grind finer” you say, I am grinding on the finest setting of my Breville Dose Control Pro.
Could it be my beans? My machine? What am I doing so horribly wrong.
Video for attention in case anyone wants a laugh.
by Chocchipmclaren
28 Comments
Is there an internal adjustment on your grinder. I find with my Breville smart pro grinder I had to adjust the internal burr down to a 3 and the outside setting now works well at a 7 or 8 for espresso. It should be in your manual if it is adjustable.
[https://assets.breville.com/Instruction-Booklets/ANZ/BCG600_instruction_manual.pdf](https://assets.breville.com/Instruction-Booklets/ANZ/BCG600_instruction_manual.pdf)
You’re doing like 90 grams and it comes out fast. Use that timer and grind finer. Shoot for 17-20 grams of coffee in. 17 or 18 for the darker beans and up to 20 for lighter beans. 19 for a solid medium roast.
Using the scale, once you feel the pump running, start the timer. A good starting point is twice as much espresso out as the grams of coffee put in, all within 25-30 seconds. You’ll have to either stop it manually or program your machine.
If too fast, grind finer, if too slow, grind coarser. If you can’t go fine enough, look up guides on your machine. Most breville built-in grinders have a sorta clip thing that lets it go finer.
Find Grinder.
Besides adjusting the internal setting on the upper burr of your grinder in order to grind finer, make sure your basket is adequately dosed by volume. The top of the puck screen should just clear the Razor tool that comes with the BDB.
You have a bad grinder but also you likely need to adjust the upper burr to grind finer.
Coffee flowing too fast means grind finer pretty much. Just that simple.
Up the dose or grind finer. These are your main options.
Try taking it up to 20g at the same grind setting if you can’t get it finer. (Yes, that’s a big jump but see what it does to your extraction ratio and tailor from there).
Lots of trial and error. Change one thing at a time and do it incrementally.
Keep at it- it’s worth the effort!
You need to grind finder my dude. I have the same machine with an IMS basket. 18g in, 36gs to 40gs in about 26-34 seconds depends on which beans I decide to use. But it’s definitely your grinder.
Sorry to say, Those breville grinders are big time mids my friend. Get a nice set of flat burrs, or a conical like a varia. Do some research they have different flavor profiles, get one that suits your taste for espresso.
You won’t regret the decision
What scale is that?
GRIND IS THE WAY
It’s the grinder. I switched to a Niche and it made a massive difference.
Scale is kinda pointless if you don’t stop the shot when you hit weight
Better grinder really, that’s all there is to it.
It’s not even getting past 2 bars of pressure. You need a finer grind.
If your beans are fresh then yes you’ll need to grind finer. It’s coming out pretty evenly so you could still go finer. If your beans are older then there may not be enough co2 in there to slow down the shot for that grind setting. Good luck
That grinder is shit. I bought the dual package of the BDB and SMG pro. That grinder bogged down on medium dark beans and wouldn’t grind past a setting of 7 before you could hear the motor struggling.
You need to get a better grinder IMO
A couple of things I’d check
-I owned a BDB and smart grinder for a while, I expect you should be able to grind fine enough, assuming dose control has a similar adjustment range to the SGP. Make sure there’s not beans or similar stuck under the top burr collar, I’ve had this and it forces the burrs apart because it doesn’t lock into the correct position.
-Check your dose. Depending on your beans you might need to dose more into the basket. You can use the puck razor tool that comes with the machine.
-You should be using freshly roasted beans. If you just bought stuff from the supermarket there’s a good chance they’re very stale and just won’t pull a good shot.
-Make sure you’re tamping hard enough. Light tamping might not be compacting things enough and causing channeling.
-In the long term you’ll just want a better grinder than the dose control pro.
It’s your grinder. Get rid of the screen and the wdt and get a quality grinder. If you are able to dial in your grinder, you will never need that stuff. I call them bandaids that make good baristas suck. Yeah, I know, I am just being an ass here. I just hate to see people use bandaids instead of learning how to solve the issue without them.
Off that high horse.
Seriously, get a good grinder, learn how to calibrate, and adjust the grinder for optimal performance, you will be solid. I can’t stress this enough.
When you grind the beans the particulate size should be small enough to bind, but large enough to crumble with slight agitation. In other words, put some grounds in your hand and pinch some grounds together. The grounds should hold together when you release, but then crumble back down when you move your hand a bit or lightly touch the clump.
If the clump holds after you touch it, too small. If the grounds won’t clump, too large.
Grind Finerrrrr make it come out like honey!
Lots of good suggestions here, I just wanted to spell it out extra clear that when you’re making espresso, final weight is the goal, not time. If you put in 17g of grounds, you should be looking for approximately 34g of coffee. If that takes you 30s, that’s a very normal shot of espresso. But if it takes 10s or 50s? I’d be suspicious, but if it tastes good then it tastes good.
You can end a shot manually by pressing the button again while it extracts.
Is there any way to recalibrate your grinder so that you can grind finer? If not you might just need a better grinder.
What kind of beans ? Tamp harder for sure id try anyway. I read alot that says 30-32 seconds, harder tamp should help achieve this, but ive also read 30-32 seconds is not the be all end all, that being said when i went to wdt, new tamp, bottomless portafilter i must have gotten lucky, i only had to change my does to a gram over, not sure why but it is about perfect to my taste
Try buying fine grind/ expresso grind powder for testing
Don’t blame the machine for the failures of the grinder
Holy heck. 84 grams in 25 secs?! That’s like a new record.
Up the beans to 19g? What does it do?
Next what kinda beans are they?
What spring is in the tamp? I have a normcore that came with a 25 lb preloaded.
Adjust/modify your grinder. Or upgrade the grinder. Nothing else can fix a grind that’s too coarse.
What beans are you using? If you have a local coffee shop maybe buy their beans. If you like their coffee. I tried big name beans and they just dont taste good in comparison.
And try dialing in a shot with your current grind setting with new beans and go from there. It doesn’t need to be a 30 second shot if it tastes good to you. But it’s always a solid starting point.
Professional here! (I work in a roastery) Adjust the inner burr setting much finer, the breville grinder will be your biggest bottleneck in making great espresso. Its one of the machines I recommend people to get when they ask me what machine to get when they want to get into the hobby, but always comes with the recommendation that you will outgrow the built in grinder in a couple months time. If its really something you cant get past, I recommend upgrading to a nice hand grinder (1zpresso jx, Kinu x47) or if you really want to go electric, the baratza encore esp is the first grinder I, and many other recommend, but know you will also outgrow this grinder. A good hand grinder can perform just as well as an electric grinder in the $1000+ range, and will save you a whole lot of money in the long run.