Breville Infuser BES840BSS (Stainless Steel) Questions & Answers

No Breville doesn't have them listed. They are nowhere to be found except at bigwarehousespares and on EBay, but the cost of post to anywhere is astronomical. Breville should be admonished for the lack of regular supply of this product.

I have bought them in the past from Good Guys and Bing Lee.

You need a new double wall basket. The coffee oil block the basket...

I would contact Breville asap if I was you, they are good with their warranty if you read the feedback herein. If the warranty has elapsed, you still have some 'statutory rights' under Australian Consumer Laws, lib.

You might need to use more grounds, if it isn't full enough it won't build up pressure. I use the finest grind option as well in my breville grinder, if grinds are too course the water will just flow through. I know you said you tried varying degrees of tamping but you do need to press quite hard. If you still can't get a crema use the double wall basket for the grinds, it will slow down the water and work, but it makes the basket a bit sloppier to clean out. With all this being said, my machine doesn't get great pressure. I was a barrista for 4 years and wish there was some other more commercial feeling machine available for home!

Try adjusting the grind a bit courser.

First off, are you sure you have a leak? Some people have reported leaks when they see water under the removeable trays, but the overpressure valve shoots water into the back of the tray as long as there is pressure left, this can trickle in for a while after operation. If you move the trays during that time, water will end up under the trays, I have had mine since 2013 and have never had a leak per se, besides what i just described which is normal and not a leak.

Does this happen when the machine is cold when you add water to the tank? but not sure what you mean by between water tank and cooling? what is cooling? If its the spring seal that allows water into the machine from the water tank, maybe self fixable. Your best bet is to look on google and youtube.

water tank leaks & empties all over the counter: we have had identical problem twice - we believe it is an engineering flaw that Breville refuses to admit; the first time we had to ship it back to Breville for service; now, 6 months later it is doing it again - we called Breville support they shipped an O-ring; but that did not fix the tank leak; so we shortly will be shipping it back a second time

Look into what can cause low extraction pressure:
- What beans are you using - whole and fresh, whole but older beans, or pre-ground - it's harder to get good pressure with pre-ground and older, more stale beans
- Grind size and amount - if the grind size is too large, then water passes too easily through the coffee in your portafilter, the same goes if you don't have enough coffee in the portafilter, usually a finer grind will get you better pressure
- Tamp pressure - how are you 'packing' the ground up coffee in your portafilter? Tap the portafilter to better distribute the grind, then Tamp with good pressure - that compresses the coffee, packs it, so then it's harder for water to pass through, you'll therefore get better pressure through the grind
- For pre-ground coffee you can get double-walled portafilter baskets to get better pressure too
If you've done everything you can above, then the machine could be broken and you will need to contact Breville whose service is very good when it comes to their Espresso machines.

Thankyou David,
have tried all of the above, but have read reviews from many others about this model and they are all experiencing the same problem- pressure gauge stopped working.
Fault with mode, so will have to get serviced.

Either the pressure gauge line gets clogged, or the gauge itself has failed.

sounds odd. the rubber disc should be inserted in the filter basket, the tablet placed in the center of it, it takes some time to complete the cycle and then the light goes off. If you hit the right keys to start the clean cycle, i think the clean cycle light starts flashing. if it is not, then you have not started the clean cycle. Otherwise call the manufacturer

If you're talking about the shower screen, if it has not been cleaned and it looks all black on the inside that's baked on oils from coffee going through there. get a brush and clean until shiny. also clean around the seal area, change the seal if worn. Otherwise run a whole tank of water through the machine to see if the particles stop, maybe remnants from descaling. The only other thing i can think of is your charcoal filter broke and particles of charcoal are going through somehow. The water path through the thermoblock is stainless steel so there should be no paint or other black coating subject to flaking off. I've been using mine for 4+ years and have never had this problem.

Presuming you are referring to the metal plate behind the chromed steel shower screen, and not the shower screen itself, then I did notice it is black metal. Not sure why its black, but possibly, if its paint, you may have used something too harsh to clean it. See if there are specs of silver or another color on the black metal, and that may be a clue as to where the black specs are coming from. As I really don't think its from a filter or coffee grounds, from the sound of it.

Maybe your grinder is faulty. Grind a small quantity of beans at a fine setting and another small quantity at the coarsest setting and feel each with your fingers. If they feel the same then it would appear to be a fault with the grinder. The beans ground at the coarsest setting should feel a lot more gritty than those ground at the fine setting.
Is the brewing filter cup clean? Can you see light coming through the small holes? Have you tried both the one cup and two cup infuser cups in the porta filter? Maybe also run a cleaning cycle with the infuser - did you get cleaning tablets with your machine? Could be a build up of oil from the ground beans.
Apart from that phone Breville.

Thanks. I did clean it with the cleaning tablet. That helped.
Didn't think to do that because the cleaning light did not come on, and I didn't think it needed it.
Thanks for your help!!!

I had a breville smart grinder for several years. there are actually much better grinders for the similar price (not many but a few, like ascaso i1 steel with the 250w motor). I have the ascaso with an infinitely adjustable worm gear and no dial or display or other inaccurate gadgetry as I only use espresso grind. If you can return your breville, spend a hundred or 2 more and get a better grinder (ascasoc i1, lelit fred, baratza vario or sette). My breville could not produce grinds anywhere near as good as these grinders and it is inconsistent, you can't trust where the dial or marker is at. The grinder is far more important than the machine. Its much easier to get a great shot with a $100 machine and a $400 grinder than a $400 machine and a $100 grinder.

You have to play with bean, freshness, grind fineness and tamp pressure (and amount/weight of coffee) until you get it right. Those are the 4 variables. 18-20g of freshly ground coffee in the non pressurized basket (the one with a hundred holes all across the bottom (don't use the one with 1 hole), tamped at 30lbs which means push down hard, should pour at about 25 seconds for a double shot. You can have a fairly coarse grind that is tamped hard that will produce the right result. The same grind not tamped hard enough will have low pressure on the gauge and run like a tap - too fast, like 6-8 seconds for a double shot volume with no flavor or deep color or crema. The point is you do not want to use talcum powder fine coffee to get great shots. This is not what produces flavor, it is more likely to choke your machine as you have noticed. Better to start coarser, with freshy locally roasted beans and play with tamp pressure. You will probably get a good result with much less "fine" grind than you are using now. Increase fineness incrementally with constant tamp pressure until you get the gauge at 12 or 1 oclock, which should result in a double shot in about 25 seconds, i,e a solid stream but not a huge flow and not drop by drop (too fine, too much tamp or coffee). Also, run a empty shot or 2 with the portafilter in the machine to heat everything up, and if you have time, turn machine on for 20 minutes so that the machine internals is really warm (steady temperature is the 5th variable, a bit more complicated to achieve it has to be at the right value, ideally 93C, and you can play a bit with PID setting on this machine - look at the manual).

Finally bean freshness has a huge impact. Ideally you want beans that are freshly roasted which usually means within a few days at your house. The day I got freshly roasted beans ground with an ascaso grinder, i got luscious thick caramel colored crema out of my infuser. It makes such a big difference that I am trying to roast beans myself. Unroasted/green beans can be kept for months and some say years with minimal deterioration, which makes roasting yourself ideal because you can keep unroasted beans in your basement for a long time and cook up a batch every couple of weeks. Roasted beans lose a large amount of volatile compounds like those oils that cause flavor and crema with a couple of weeks. And its important to note that the fresher the bean, the coarser you need to grind, the older the bean the finer, to get similar results. THat's why its an ever changing thing with coffee, you have to make fine adjustments all the time.

I too was frustrated with the infuser for a long time until i learned these basics that I share with you today, that have made me a lot more passionate about coffee. I never thought I could make a better latte than a coffee shop with a 20K$ machine. But I do every day now. I like the steam wand on the infuser. Its powerful enough and its straight steam, not the turbo wand that a lot of cheap machines have. It gives me microfoam every day that's luscious creamy goodness. I don't know the scientific explanation, but injecting steam into milk properly not only gives you lovely microfoam, but it also, more importantly, removes the acidic aspect of milk. what a difference. I can't go back to simply heating up milk, its jsut too acidic. I start with full fat milk (3.5%) and end up with 2% my guess after steam injection. Learn the proper way to get microfoam - youtube is your friend. Its easy to master, just takes practice.

Hope this helps.

Hi Eryn,
I have experienced that problem too but usually the cup comes off but the (packed) coffee remains in the portafilter.
I think your problem (and mine) could be the result of having too much coffee in the cup which causes the coffee to come in contact with the inside of the portafilter and stick to it. Do you tamp the coffee firmly and do you ensure there is not too much ground coffee in the cup by using the 'razor' tool?
If this does not make any diffeernce there could be a problem with the cup. Run the machine with the cup with NO ground coffee in it? Does it still get stuck? If so the cup has a problem and Breville must replace it. One more thing. Is the cup difficult to remove from the portfilter? It should be fairly tight and hard to remove without a lever. It should NOT fall out when inverted. If it is NOT hard to remove then it is faulty.
Other than that give Breville service a phone call. A word of warning their first question to you will be "what sort of coffee beans are you using" (their favourite question). They will try and get out of any problems by trying to pun it down to you not using freshly ground coffee beans (ie NOT beans purchased in a supermarket). Mind you the it is much easier using freshly ground beans and they give a heaps better flavour. The bag of coffee beans will have a "roasted on" date stamped on them but if you buy direst from a roasting company you will know they are freshly roasted. I have experienced that beans even 4 weeks after the roast date do not taste quite as good. I would not have believed it if I hadn't experienced it myself (I purchased 500grams beans and they took me 4 weeks to use).
If you phone Breville tell them that it gets stuck even without any ground coffee in it. They cannot dispute that there is a problem.
Good luck and post your results.

My name is not Carm This message seems to have been sent to wrong person

At first I was skeptical that using freshly roasted coffee beans would make a lot of difference to getting a good pressure and extraction time but it DOES.
I had been using freshly roasted coffee beans with the grinder set at around 6 (1 being the finest and 20 being the coarsest) and getting good pressure and extraction speed.
I ran out of those beans and in desperation used some old (Vittoria packet opened 4 or 5 weeks earlier) beans and even with the grinder set at 1 (the finest) the pressure is quite low and extraction time too fast.
I have also found that using beans from a supermarket that Lavazza give better results that Vittoria.
If the Bamix results in ground coffee similar consistency as icing sugar and still low pressure it could be solved using freshly roasted beans.
Another grinder may not solve your 'problem'.
Regarding preground coffee from the supermarket remember that it might be ground to a 'general' grind which will be suitable for other (non espresso) machines and therefore not as fine as is best fro espresso.

I use the matching breville grinder with no problems and use the single wall. Tamping down so it is firm might help

I could not get my machine to work properly no matter what i did. I could not get any pressure.
Eventually I dismantled and cleaned my grinder, suddenly I had to back the grind off because the pressure got to high!!
Make sure your grinder is clean, give the burrs a good dry scrub with a stiff brush.
Clean the grinder regularly.
Also but not so important I have found that the fresher the beans the better they grind and of course the taste also is better.

If you are describing the Steam / Frother Arm, then you need to be aware that it takes about 30 seconds for the steam to build pressure, whilst this is happening there will always be about 20mls of water (1 fluid ounce) which drips out then you will get steam towards the end. I always use a small cup to flush this water into but you can just aim it at the drip tray although this can be a bit messy. Make sure you use the nozzle cleaning tool which came with it. This should clear any milk build up. Hope this helps. We've had our for 4 years and it hasn't missed a beat in that time.

No, I am not describing the steam wand. This issue is with the dedicated water dispenser.

Hot water dispenser is blocked. Question is, where is the blockage? I assume you tried poking the hole in the wand with the Breville cleaning tool. I don't have much confidence in the tablets. I would try a proper, good quality descaler, like Cafiza, PulyCaf, etc.

Hi Lilviss, sorry to hear you may have got a brumby too, I hope not. I used the fresh'ish beans specially packaged [????] sent to me by Breville, and even then going through the process over and over again I could not get a result. I truly could not even drink the coffee, so cup after cup went down the sink during my test period, glad I did not pay for the beans. The slow thick pour of golden Crème has never come from my machine.
It seemed to bubble out too quick. Breville said that there is nothing wrong with this machine, so is what we do get the norm and the best we can expect. Or is it that after a year or more and three grinders later I'm still too dumb to be able to pull a good shot. So to answer your question I suggest I'm not the right person to answer you question, sorry. Try downloading the app Instant Barister.
Taff

Thanks very much for the reply breville and taff
The beans were used fresh from the local coffee shop, no roast date but there is a best before date for the end of the year.
I will be buying freshly roasted shortly.
Were you experiencing this issue too taff?
It does seem to be bubbling out at the end of the extraction