5 Most Common Breville Espresso Machine Issues

Intro

In this Blog post, I’m going to be talking about the 5 most common problems with Sage or Breville espresso machine issues and how to fix them.

if there’s a problem you’re having that I’ve not dealt with here, please leave it in the comments, and if needs be, I’ll do another blog post covering any other common issues.

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Some of these issues are universal for all espresso machines, but a few of them are specific to sage or Breville machines.

Breville Espresso Machine Issues: No espresso flowing

This one applies to all espresso machines. I get many emails from people who think they’ve broken the machine, or they’ve received a thud because no espresso is coming up, or maybe just a few drips or a trickle. But fear not.

That’s it. If you’re getting this with pre-ground, then, unfortunately, this is one of the downfalls of trying to use pre-ground coffee for espresso.

Breville Espresso Machine Issues: Loud buzzing noise

And this tip applies to any machine with a water filter installed.

This is another common one. All it means is that the machine is trying to prime, but it can’t get any water from the water tank.

Sometimes this can be because the tank isn’t seated properly, so just try removing it. If you forgot to fill the tank,

The most common cause of this is that the water filter has dried out and needs a much longer soak before first use.

You can test this by letting it find without the filter in place, and if it works, then you know it’s the filter.

Breville Espresso Machine Issues: loud clicking sound

This issue is specific to Sage machines with a lot of grinders. Instead of clicking, your grinder will break, the gears will strip, for example.

So this clicking sound isn’t a bad thing. This is the sound of the slipper clutch,

which is a safety feature to stop and becoming damaged if something harder than a coffee bean ends up in your hopper

This is the same as a clutch in cordless drills, which allows you to control how much torque the drill will apply, because obviously you want less torque if you’re screwing than if you’re drilling.

So if it sounds like this, this is a sound slipper punch. What that means is that the torque that needs to be applied to the beans you’re using to grind them for the grind.

Size you’re trying to grind about is too high. In other words, the beans are too hard for the grinder.

I’ve experienced this myself a few times, and it’s simply that some lighter roasted beans, particularly high-grown single origins, are less porous and are much more dense and harder to grind.

It basically means you’re working with a bean which really isn’t compatible with entry to mid range grinders.

If you want to be able to work with all beans, you really need a higher-level grinder with a much bigger motor, with the grunt to grind anything you put in it.

This is one of the reasons that I’ll always recommend espresso blends for entry level setups and integrated grinding machines.

So if you have a filter machine or a Cafetiere, for example, you could use these beans that way, but for espresso, it’d be a case of switching beans.

Breville espresso machine issues after cleaning disc has a hole

your cleaning disc has a hole in it. This is specific to Sage or Breville machines.

If you’ve seen my previous blog post on back flushing, you’ll see that I said to ignore the instructions when it comes to putting a bowl on the drip tray,

because the point of back flushing is that the water back flushes through the brew path, through the solenoid valve, into the drip tray.

But I’ve been hearing from people because they’ve been sent a machine with a cleaning disc with a hole, and one of the demo machines I received recently came with one of these holey discs.

And of course, if your machine comes with a disc with a hole in it, you’ll need to put a bowl under the portafilter, as a drip tray will probably overflow. Otherwise.

The reason saw levels have been sent with these holy discs is something to do with a certain software version in which the prolonged high pressure of back flushing with a blank disc could cause the machine get its knickers in a knot. That’s a technical term.

So if your cleaning disc does have a hole in it, put a hole under it when you’re back flushing. If you’re thinking that back flushing with a blind disc with a hole in it, seems counterproductive,

Breville Espresso Machine Issues: The espresso tastes bad

There can be many causes for this, one of which is simply using poor-tasting coffee beans or coffee beans you don’t like the taste of.

But the biggest two causes of this are ratio and Rose profile.

Let’s talk about the ratio. The first ratio is the weight of espresso versus the dry weight of ground with coffee.

So 18 grams in 36 grams out is a one-to-two ratio. Many people just press the stop button and let the machine stop.

When it stops. If you do that, you have no control over the ratio.

Once you understand ratio and it becomes a variable you’re in control of you’ll have a much better chance of pulling great shots of espresso