I’m certainly no expert, so any help is appreciated. In my opinion, shot pulls nicely.. 18g:36g in 30 seconds. And looks fairly decent?
But the pressure gauge is always above the espresso range. I saw a video of a coffee expert in the same machine, pulled a good shot but it was showing bang on in the middle of the ‘espresso range’. Am I doing anything wrong?
by SchoolIndividual3046
24 Comments
Does it taste good? If yes, who cares where the needle is
Taste makes espresso, not looks. Does it taste good to you? If it does, then there’s nothing you need to fix.
These kind of machines have failsafes. If the pressure goes way too high, and the machine is choking because water cannot go through the puck. It will auto shut off.
Bit off the wall, but given the word “pressure” is slightly off centre I wondered if the gauge background is just slightly off, and should be rotated about 10 degrees clockwise… so the pressure is fine, the reading is just off…?
I am pretty sure the pressure gages on this model are not 100% accurate.
On my dual boiler I use it as a rough guide but as long as the shot tastes good I dont mind being a bit under or over the indicated range. Taste is all that matters and purely from the video the shot looks solid!
The pump pressure on the barista express runs at around 15 bar, so good dialed in shots usually at a pressure too high. You can change the pressure with the opv mod if you want a 9 bar extraction and don’t care about voiding warranty/your warranty ran out. It will improve results considerably.
But otherwise the shot looks good.
I have the same machine, nah it’s fine.
Nah, when not sure always look at the flow. This is pretty much what you want to see so you are pretty good right there.
I have nothing to add to what everyone else has said, but I’d like to commend you on your cups! I have the same ones in the same color and I love em!
I had this machine and that was normal for me, don’t worry about it
I never got the pressure of my machine (I have the same) that high. It always stops at 12 o’clock. And if I grinded to fine the pressure stops at 12 and only drops come out. I think a higher pressure would help here in my case. So my question is: Did you do some modification that increased your pressure maybe?
When I had that machine the needle was always so far to the right it would’ve voted for Trump!
She’s running fine.
The flow seems good so no, the pressure is not too high.
However; the sage/breville machines run at around 14 bar put of the box, which is kind of high.
At around 9 bar you get the best extraction for espresso (Goes for most beans/grinds).
You can change your overpressure valve to get it down to 9 bar, but you will need to do some tech work on your machine.
I did it with my barista express and the shots are more balanced, I can taste the difference. But in all honesty; before the change it made fine espresso too.
I have the same machine and my best shots come from the pressure being on the higher end of the gauge. From what I’ve gathered from the sub, this machine runs closer to 15bar and that’s completely normal. The shot looks to have poured well so as long as you like the taste, I wouldn’t change a thing.
The pressure gauge on the Barista Express is meaningless. I used to own one. If it tastes good and you like it then that’s all that matters.
A pressure gauge with no pressure indication seems a bit useless to me. What is their “espresso range” in terms of bar? Somebody knows?
Focus on extraction time and of course taste. That pressure gauge doesn’t mean anything to me. How much are you dosing and what’s your time and output?
I have a solis barista perfetta (bambino equivalent) and it did a similar thing. Coarser grind will lower the pressure, but pulls too fast and never tasted as good. Eventually I opened it up and adjusted the opv and now it tops out at around 10/11 on the gauge, though no idea if it’s accurate. Shots got substantially better after the adjustment…really wish they made the OPV easier to get to (mine is inside a tube deep in the machine….) so it wasn’t such an ordeal to adjust.
Just go by taste… My shots were always a little bit harsh before the adjustment, after they tend to be sweeter and significantly easier to dial (a wider range of grind settings will still extract properly, while it used to easily choke or run super fast). Overall a good improvement, but a pain to do. If I didn’t think the higher pressure was making things worse than they could have been I wouldn’t have bothered with it.
Not really. I have a Sage Infuser and the pressure goes pretty high but from my experience a 1:2 ratio never tasted good to me. I’ve been doing 1:1-1:1.75 and a longer drip time, roughly over 30s
I adjusted mine to be 9 bar because it was spraying out of a bottomless porta filter. I linked to the guide I used on somebody else’s post here. https://www.reddit.com/r/espresso/s/FvnEyQpgib
Odd that they didn’t numerically mark bars specifically
Same brand machine, try less pressure on your tamping
Mine usually goes there, no problems, I judge more by taste. How does it taste?
I don’t follow the markings on my pressure gauge. By trial, error and time, you will see where the needle should approximately be in order to have a good shot
(1/2)
I’m using the (Sage) Barista Express since Nov’19 now, and always pulled shots with this high pressure. Since 2 weeks ago, but first some background on the machine…
Generally the high pressure not a bad thing as others have written already.
The built in Ulka pump is running at ~15bar, there is no needle valve which is lowering it to the common 9 bar extraction pressure. So the OPV (over pressure valve) setting is currently limiting the pressure of your shot.
The pressure gauge is not 100% precise, but you can roughly say that every black line is approximately 2 bars.
Source: [https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/breville-barista-express-brew-pressure-and-channeling-issues-t73646.html](https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/breville-barista-express-brew-pressure-and-channeling-issues-t73646.html)
It doesn’t matter if you have a Breville or a Sage, as they seem to be the same machine.
Basically you can choose from a lot of different options to show you that there are alternatives:
1. Keep pulling your shots as you do now, if the espresso tastes good for you.
I did it the last 5 years without any issue.
2. Try PI (Pre-Infusion) shots.
For this you need to manully start the extraction and hold the one or two-cup button during the full extraction.
the pressure will stay low, for stopping the extraction, you need to double press the button again. (PI –> Full Power –> Stop extraction)
Source: [https://espressoaf.com/manufacturers/breville/preinfusion.html](https://espressoaf.com/manufacturers/breville/preinfusion.html)
Pro:
– works without doing any changes to your machine
Con:
– Unfortunately, this requires manual work for each extraction and I’m not sure if you can program the machine like that. Let me know if it is possible 😉