# Sage Oracle - 8s drop time - cannot get within recommend 9-14 seconds?



## Schumy (Apr 29, 2019)

I've been using the Sage Oracle for the last month on factory default settings. 7s pre-infuse time, 30 seconds total extraction. Tried various grind settings from 21 to 25 with different beans and can never increase/slow the drop time above 8s. If I lower the grind too much, the flow intermittently stops or slows right down. I can get 30ml extraction x 2 shot and honey colour crema flow usually between 7-8 seconds drop time. Just curious why the recommended drop time is 9-14 seconds and why I cant get within this range?

Only tried various supermarket beans so far including Lavazza Rossa. I'll get round to buying some local freshly roasted beans soon, but would like to confirm if the above sounds normal with Lavazza? Or a workflow/ procedure how to go adjusting pre-infuse and extraction times to get the optimum extraction for the bean whether supermarket or local freshly roasted date.

I bought the machine second hand, everything appears to work fine, but wonder if any issue with the machine or inadequate cleans and descales in the past may or may not contribute to the above?

Any guidance appreciated or please share your experience with the same machine and supermarket beans, thanks.


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## ronsil (Mar 8, 2012)

Look for improvements in speed of output by changing from supermarket beans to a good roaster.

Plenty of them on the Forum. Do you prefer lighter roasts or bold darker ones?

The Oraclle performs excently with better beans.


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## Schumy (Apr 29, 2019)

Thanks Ron for the quick reply. I certainly intend trying fresh roasted beans but for convenience and cost reasons, was hoping to continue to use supermarket beans from time to time and understand if my experience is normal and if worth adjusting the machine tamp, infuse and extraction time settings etc. Or whether that would be going down a pointless rabbit hole.

I'm no connoisseur, my partner and I drink flat whites. We dont have a great experience with bean roasts.

TBH, Lavazza Rossa and the Oracle is a big improvement to what we've been used to and when we get the grind right, tastes fine for us. Will be curious to taste the difference when we try better beans.


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## lhavelund (Dec 28, 2018)

Schumy said:


> Thanks Ron for the quick reply. I certainly intend trying fresh roasted beans but for convenience and cost reasons, was hoping to continue to use supermarket beans from time to time and understand if my experience is normal and if worth adjusting the machine tamp, infuse and extraction time settings etc. Or whether that would be going down a pointless rabbit hole.
> 
> I'm no connoisseur, my partner and I drink flat whites. We dont have a great experience with bean roasts.
> 
> TBH, Lavazza Rossa and the Oracle is a big improvement to what we've been used to and when we get the grind right, tastes fine for us. Will be curious to taste the difference when we try better beans.


The problem you'll find is that Lavazza beans will grind and extract very differently than freshly-roasted, high quality beans. If Lavazza beans work for you, however, nothing wrong with that -- you can stick with it. I'm confident once you try nicer stuff, you'll find it hard to go back, however!


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Schumy said:


> I've been using the Sage Oracle for the last month on factory default settings. 7s pre-infuse time, 30 seconds total extraction. Tried various grind settings from 21 to 25 with different beans and can never increase/slow the drop time above 8s. If I lower the grind too much, the flow intermittently stops or slows right down. I can get 30ml extraction x 2 shot and honey colour crema flow usually between 7-8 seconds drop time. Just curious why the recommended drop time is 9-14 seconds and why I cant get within this range?
> 
> Only tried various supermarket beans so far including Lavazza Rossa. I'll get round to buying some local freshly roasted beans soon, but would like to confirm if the above sounds normal with Lavazza? Or a workflow/ procedure how to go adjusting pre-infuse and extraction times to get the optimum extraction for the bean whether supermarket or local freshly roasted date.
> 
> ...


It's your beans ...

I have the same machine


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## Dumnorix (Dec 29, 2017)

If you have a Waitrose near you they sell beans from Union with a roast date.


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## lhavelund (Dec 28, 2018)

Dumnorix said:


> If you have a Waitrose near you they sell beans from Union with a roast date.


Look for recently-roasted... you'll probably want to tip the majority of the shelf onto the floor to grab at the bags in the back!


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

Schumy said:


> I've been using the Sage Oracle for the last month on factory default settings. 7s pre-infuse time, 30 seconds total extraction. Tried various grind settings from 21 to 25 with different beans and can never increase/slow the drop time above 8s. If I lower the grind too much, the flow intermittently stops or slows right down. I can get 30ml extraction x 2 shot and honey colour crema flow usually between 7-8 seconds drop time. Just curious why the recommended drop time is 9-14 seconds and why I cant get within this range?
> 
> Only tried various supermarket beans so far including Lavazza Rossa. I'll get round to buying some local freshly roasted beans soon, but would like to confirm if the above sounds normal with Lavazza? Or a workflow/ procedure how to go adjusting pre-infuse and extraction times to get the optimum extraction for the bean whether supermarket or local freshly roasted date.
> 
> ...


They seem to have added similar times to the manuals of other machines fairly recently. I assume they mention ratios - grams of coffee in and grams of shot out but they use ml of shot out. Most people use grams out rather than ml as in practice there isn't much difference. The double basket holds 18g so I would assume that is what the Oracle doses. A double is 60g. A single 30g. Shot time is usually 30sec.

What I would be inclined to say is that if you are using 18g in 60g out in 30sec with 7 secs of pre infusion there is no way you will get flow to start as late as they are suggesting what ever beans you are using. The machine is more or less the same as the Dual Boiler except default infusion time it 6 secs. Once the machine comes out of infusion pressure will go farily swiftly up to 9 to 10 bar.

What tends to happen is that flow out starts very close to the point where infusion ends but the longer the infusion time is the higher the pressure will go so if you set that to 10secs flow may well start before infusion ends at the sort of ratio mentioned. Decent ratios usually crop up somewhere between 1 to 3 and 1 to 2 in 30secs and personally I don't think anyone will get flow to start at the higher end of the figures Sage have given you and very probably wont reach even 9secs. Play with the pump power and shot time and it may be possible to. Some people do this on a DB by setting the infusion time to greater than the shot time and extend that as well.

:exit:When ever this sort of thing crops up people are inclined to say beans. Well I've tasted a number of none fresh roasted beans and haven't had any problems tuning them in. Worse or better depending on how some one looks at it a number of them were run through a Barista Express with the brew pressure going up to 15 bar. The grinder on that is very similar to the one built into the Oracle.

I expect some people to comment on that. No point - I have tried a number and they didn't cause me any problems. Even 2kg of the cheapest beans Amazon sell bought to run through a grinder. Taste nvg in my view. I call it a super market taste that I don't think really relates to coffee. Having said that though some fresh roasted beans can have unusual tastes.

Taste is something else though. One pure supermarket bean was sort of ok but that's a one off. I found that Lavazza beans that are also available preground didn't taste the same out of an espresso machine so only tried a couple. They also do 1kg commercial packs that can't be bought pre ground. One of them was rather nice in the fresh roasted ratio range. Another was best as stated on it's packet 14g in 60g out. I needed to up the 14g and cut back the ratio a bit but still much higher than I usually use.

Forget it and enjoy your coffee. You do need to try a range of ratios with any bean though and see which one suites you taste wise. Time can be adjusted as well. I may do that usually by cutting it for a weaker drink for some one but one day a bean may turn up where extending it would be better. Personally I suspect this will usually result in fruit notes that the bean shouldn't have - read that as odd bitterness. It can be obtained from most beans. The taste can also get rather blurred.

John

-


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## Schumy (Apr 29, 2019)

Many thanks John for taking the time to share your experience and thoughts.



ajohn said:


> What I would be inclined to say is that if you are using 18g in 60g out in 30sec with 7 secs of pre infusion there is no way you will get flow to start as late as they are suggesting what ever beans you are using. The machine is more or less the same as the Dual Boiler except default infusion time it 6 secs. Once the machine comes out of infusion pressure will go farily swiftly up to 9 to 10 bar.
> 
> -


In this video of the Oracle





 he demonstrates various drop times for correct, over and under extraction - even as much as 17 seconds drop (thus 10 seconds after pre-infusion)

I cannot replicate anything like his 12 secs drop time for correct extraction, my experience is 8s to 9s at most to get 2 x 30ml. Will be interesting to see if a change in drop times when I get round to trying fresh roast beans. You'd think the main variable that determines drop time with this machine is the grind setting regardless of how "fresh" beans are, but I am interested to learn otherwise.


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## Nicknak (Aug 10, 2018)

@Schumy ... I had an Oracle for about three months and it is capable of making very good drinks .. Using freshly roasted beans from the start it was an easy learning curve ..

Sage themselves recommend using freshly roasted beans .

There have been several other Oracle users starting threads on here that have had "Eureka" moments when they have gone from supermarket to freshly roasted beans .. Please give it ago it helps the learning curve .

The Oracle does NOT deliver a set weight , If it has to grind finer the weight will go up in the basket , coarser and it will go down ... As a general rule it will put 20 to 22 grams in the basket ..On a decaf I used it went up to 24g..

If you have time search recent oracle threads ..


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

> Many thanks John for taking the time to share your experience and thoughts.
> 
> In this video of the Oracle
> 
> ...


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Schumy said:


> Many thanks John for taking the time to share your experience and thoughts.
> 
> In this video of the Oracle


Nope....

Once beans are not fresh not amount of grinding will help.

Try not to stress over a drop time, safe give these visual clues as people are not weighing or using brew ratios. They are trying to make coffee simple to sell their machines.

Under and over extraction or taste imbalance is more a function of ratio of coffee used to espresso made..


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## Milu (Nov 17, 2020)

I have the same problem, kind of.

Just got the machine, also second hand, and I'm a bit paranoic as to it might be not working well: even at a ground setting of 1, I get over extraction (90+ ml), and that's crazy.

I have reason to suspect 2 or 3 things. I know that with a harder temping (done manually) the flow is restricted a lot. I'm using supermarket beans and will change them soon and let you know - thanks a lot for the advice. And finally, if it all fails, I'll consider having a closer look at the machine (maybe it's broken)


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## earthflattener (Jul 27, 2015)

Milu said:


> I have the same problem, kind of.
> 
> Just got the machine, also second hand, and I'm a bit paranoic as to it might be not working well: even at a ground setting of 1, I get over extraction (90+ ml), and that's crazy.
> 
> I have reason to suspect 2 or 3 things. I know that with a harder temping (done manually) the flow is restricted a lot. I'm using supermarket beans and will change them soon and let you know - thanks a lot for the advice. And finally, if it all fails, I'll consider having a closer look at the machine (maybe it's broken)


 It's the same pattern ... supermarket beans. It really is step no 1. Stop using old supermarket beans.

If cost is a concern, you can find some fresh beans at a reasonable price. For example Coffee Compass do a Mystery roast, which is something like £14 per kg. This is more or less the same as fairly standard supermarket bean price. It will be a marked step up. That said, I'm not completely blown away by their current Mystery. From a personal perspective, I think it is well worth spending a few extra quid to get something like their cuban. Once you are that price then there are lots of good companies with a nice blends at £5.50-£6 for 250g. For specialty, you need to add another 2 or 3 quid again, but at that point things begin to get very interesting with options of light roasts - a bit trickier to get right, so often good to start with the darker beans.


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## Milu (Nov 17, 2020)

earthflattener said:


> It's the same pattern ... supermarket beans. It really is step no 1. Stop using old supermarket beans.
> 
> If cost is a concern, you can find some fresh beans at a reasonable price. For example Coffee Compass do a Mystery roast, which is something like £14 per kg. This is more or less the same as fairly standard supermarket bean price. It will be a marked step up. That said, I'm not completely blown away by their current Mystery. From a personal perspective, I think it is well worth spending a few extra quid to get something like their cuban. Once you are that price then there are lots of good companies with a nice blends at £5.50-£6 for 250g. For specialty, you need to add another 2 or 3 quid again, but at that point things begin to get very interesting with options of light roasts - a bit trickier to get right, so often good to start with the darker beans.


 So I tried some good beans roasted a few days ago. With the default settings of the Oracle (Touch), and grind size 23, I noticed the following:

- packed 10% heavier (22 g instead of the 20 g I was packing with the supermarket beans)
- started pouring at 9 s (promissing)
- nice little pour, "like mouse tails"; slight turbulence / frothing now and then
- stopped at 27 s (including preinfusion) and got roughly 55 ml)
- took the shots away and did a further 3 s extraction and tasted it - not bitter, not sour, still tasting good, so I could've left it the whole 30 s

Conclusions:
- will try a slightly smaller grind
- the beans were very important in this case


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## earthflattener (Jul 27, 2015)

Sounds like you are 'en-route'. Excellent! I hope the coffee tastes better already as that really is the purpose of the whole thing!

You don't saw what coffee you are now using and if it is dark roast or light but a couple of things that

1) 22 is quite a lot. Many people (including myself) tend to go with 18g-20g (personally, I use 18g most of the time)

2) You get a lot more control by measuring by weight rather than by time. Most people on here have a little scales to weight the coffee on the way out. So you will often see things like 18 in 36 out, meaning 36g of coffee weighted out of the machine for 18g of ground going in (18/36 is a good base, but depending of the coffee for the same 18, you might end up with 24 out or even 72 out...that will depend on taste and the coffee characteristics)

You, I agree with you, a slightly finer grind to get your 'base' at 18/36 or 20/40 and then see where the taste brings you from there.

Glad it's working better!


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