Sage Barista - anyone got one?

[oddman]

RobbieTheTruth said:

Yeah, but the pressurised basket essentially masks a problem. It's little hole ensures that the water goes through the puck in about 30 seconds, but you;ll never get a great shot out of a pressurised basket.

I realise that the pressurised portafilter 'fixes' the problem of calibrating grind size but also puts a ceiling on the quality of coffee. Some people would be OK with this. I know I wouldn't

The portafilter is a non standard size 54mm vs 58mm which also put me off

RobbieTheTruth said:

What grinder did you get?

Niche Zero - at £500 it seems ridiculous. However it is very well engineered and I love the dose by dose workflow rather than using a hopper. It retains substantially less than a gram of grinds per use and therefore no need to purge. It is a discreet and compact device next to some of the machines with hoppers. I really love it and the change in quality of brew over my previous blade grinder and porlex is astonishing. I didn't think it was worth going down the espresso setup route without a reliable grinder that I enjoyed using.

[Greshamst]

Ok, so I bought some fresh beans. Ground 18g at grind size 9, put in a double basket and used a distributor and tamper, when I pull a shot, still no change on the pressure gauge.

That’s not right, surely?

[Greshamst]

Ok maybe I just need to do some more reading and more attention to dialling it in. I think I need to go wayyy finer on the grind. Ignore me for now

[RobbieTheTruth]

Greshamst said:

Ok, so I bought some fresh beans. Ground 18g at grind size 9, put in a double basket and used a distributor and tamper, when I pull a shot, still no change on the pressure gauge.

That’s not right, surely?

It's unusual.

How long does it take to get 36g of liquid?

[Moominho]

Greshamst said:

Ok, so I bought some fresh beans. Ground 18g at grind size 9, put in a double basket and used a distributor and tamper, when I pull a shot, still no change on the pressure gauge.

That’s not right, surely?

I think grind size 9 is the issue. Try grind size 2, just for comparison. Really does depend on the beans...

[Greshamst]

Ok I’ve had a bit more time with this thing and now I love it. (Annoyingly my area has 100+ postmen quarantined currently, so my next day allpress bean delivery took a week to arrive)

My rookie mistakes/learnings were...

Just how temperamental the single walled filters are! I thought getting nice beans from the supermarket would suffice... it does not, even on the finest grind could barely get a wobble from the pressure gauge. Freshly roasted beans however satisfy the highly strung machine I thought people were just being a bit snobby when talking about how you HAD to get beans roasted within a few weeks or else.

anyway, now I’ve dialled in the machine and am happy with the results. Getting a grind funnel 3D printed by a friend to help reduce mess, and I’ve bought a nice weighty distributer and tamper... now I’m eying up grind bins, tamping matts, new cups etc. As if the machine itself wasn’t enough of a cost!

[Ranger 6]

Dragging this one up again.....

We've had ours since 2018 and it's just been declared unrepairable by Sage's repair agent.

The fault was that the steam was coming out of the filter connection when the steam wand was switched on. My presumption was that the diverter valve inside the machine wasn't working.

Indicators on social media would suggest that this valve is an issue.

[Semmelweiss]

They are a total piss take. Last June it cost me £300 (mostly their call out charge and labour - grinder was less than £85) to have the grinder replaced, but it was cheaper than buying a new machine. I had to wait about 5 weeks to get a repair slot, too.

Find a broken one on eBay and fix it yourself is my recommendation.

[Lotobear]

I'm retiring my Barista Express - it does makes coffee but leaks under pressure during extraction (water comes out of base of machine) - boiler or pump I'd say.

Complete machine - £50 spares or repair if anyone interested PM me.