# Barista express pressure problem



## Coffeenoobster

So I got my new barista express and whatever I do the pressure gauge stays at 0, I've tried using the dual walled baskets and the cleaning disc on the back flush cycle and nothing so is it safe to say my machine is broke?

It doesn't even push through all the water when I use an empty double pressurised basket. Or please tell me I'm being a noob again.


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## MediumRoastSteam

Coffeenoobster said:


> So I got my new barista express and whatever I do the pressure gauge stays at 0, I've tried using the dual walled baskets and the cleaning disc on the back flush cycle and nothing so is it safe to say my machine is broke?
> 
> It doesn't even push through all the water when I use an empty double pressurised basket. Or please tell me I'm being a noob again.


What's the reading with coffee in it?


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## jonnycooper29

Coffeenoobster said:


> It doesn't even push through all the water when I use an empty double pressurised basket. Or please tell me I'm being a noob again.


Sorry, I don't quite know what this means?

Are you getting zero water out? What about not putting the PF in and pressing the espresso button?

Are you grinding beans yourself or using pre ground? If your grinding fresh, with a decent grinder, you shouldn't use the pressurised basket!


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## Coffeenoobster

MediumRoastSteam said:


> What's the reading with coffee in it?


0 as well, but I had hoped that's because I didn't know how to tamp/dial in etc. But I would've assumed with the dual walled baskets I'd still see some movement of the gauge.


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## MediumRoastSteam

Coffeenoobster said:


> 0 as well, but I had hoped that's because I didn't know how to tamp/dial in etc. But I would've assumed with the dual walled baskets I'd still see some movement of the gauge.


Could you post a video of you making coffee, focusing on the output and the gauge?

By what you are saying seems to me it's broken.


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## Coffeenoobster

jonnycooper29 said:


> Sorry, I don't quite know what this means?
> 
> Are you getting zero water out? What about not putting the PF in and pressing the espresso button?
> 
> Are you grinding beans yourself or using pre ground? If your grinding fresh, with a decent grinder, you shouldn't use the pressurised basket!


sorry yes the water is coming out but after the shot is finished the pf is full of water.

Well I thought that the dual wall would fix any noob errors I was making. I'll try the single walls tomorrow and see what happens.


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## Coffeenoobster

MediumRoastSteam said:


> Could you post a video of you making coffee, focusing on the output and the gauge?
> 
> By what you are saying seems to me it's broken.


I will try, have already messed around with it a lot after work so I'll do it tomorrow.


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## hotmetal

Long shot here (no pun intended). You say it is new. Has it ever produced a normal shot or have you literally just unboxed it and this is the first try? I'm not very familiar with them, a mate of mine has one that I've used a few times but that's it.

I was just wondering if it's not something silly like some kind of blanking plug or kink in the water tube? Or if something needs configuring in the settings? Assuming there's enough water in it, and no obvious blockages, does it sound healthy when running?

If you're running it with an empty basket I would expect some water to remain in the basket as there's nothing to push it through, apart from gravity. But when you say you've run it with the blind basket/ backflush disc in place and still aren't getting a reading on the gauge, that does sound suspicious.

___

Eat, drink and be merry


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## Coffeenoobster

hotmetal said:


> Long shot here (no pun intended). You say it is new. Has it ever produced a normal shot or have you literally just unboxed it and this is the first try? I'm not very familiar with them, a mate of mine has one that I've used a few times but that's it.
> 
> I was just wondering if it's not something silly like some kind of blanking plug or kink in the water tube? Or if something needs configuring in the settings? Assuming there's enough water in it, and no obvious blockages, does it sound healthy when running?
> 
> ___
> 
> Eat, drink and be merry


It it was literally brand new and unboxed yesterday. I am a little unsure about the sound because it does sound really loud sometimes but I'm thinking that's because it's not warmed up properly. Also made sure to top up before my experiments.

The sound isn't electric in nature from what I can gather though which is what YouTube tells me to look out for if there's a fault.


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## ajohn

If you fit an empty dual wall basket you should get something like a shot out, circa 30ml from the single and circa 60ml from the double with the default settings - maybe read the manual to see how to set everything to default just in case.

Pressure gauge should swing up to close to 12 o'clock before the shot ends. There is 10 secs of slow pressure build and then it should move up rapidly.

Shouldn't really matter if the double or single dual wall basket is used but I've done this more often with the single. Look carefully at the base of both and you will see a small hole - I think the pricker that they supply should fit it but just check that the hole is there - it's rather small.

You can check the volumes by weighing them 1ml is 1g as near as dam it.







If you have no scales well you are likely to need them. I'd say decent sized platform say 100mm square or bigger, 1kg range with 0.1g resolution. There are ways around not using them but eventually you will probably want to.

There is no point at all running with an empty single wall basket.

If it doesn't work as I have just indicated something isn't very well.

John

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## Iris

how much coffee are you putting in the portafilter? zero pressure and a lot of water left over in the puck when the extraction is complete might be due to underdosing, i.e you might not be adding enough coffee to the basket.

Can you post a video?


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## MediumRoastSteam

Coffeenoobster said:


> It it was literally brand new and unboxed yesterday. I am a little unsure about the sound because it does sound really loud sometimes but I'm thinking that's because it's not warmed up properly. Also made sure to top up before my experiments.
> 
> The sound isn't electric in nature from what I can gather though which is what YouTube tells me to look out for if there's a fault.


Is the pump / circuit primed? Have you followed the instructions? Maybe you have air in the circuit?


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## Coffeenoobster

MediumRoastSteam said:


> Is the pump / circuit primed? Have you followed the instructions? Maybe you have air in the circuit?


When you say primed do you mean have a I ran a cycle of brew, steam then water? Then yes.

If if I have air in circuit what's best way to get it out?


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## MediumRoastSteam

I don't know how it works on the dtp, I'm sorry.

I think a video will be the best option for you so we can know what's going on.


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## M_H_S

It could just be a faulty guage. But please do post a vid.


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## MediumRoastSteam

How much water do you get after running the pump , no portafilter in place, for 15 seconds?


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## Iris

Have you actually used any coffee yet? sorry if that sounds like a stupid question but the way your post read, it seems to me you are testing the machine on the basis of running water through empty baskets.


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## MildredM

Is it thoroughly warmed up?


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## Iris

MildredM said:


> Is it thoroughly warmed up?


Its a thermocoil machine, doesn't need a warmup time except for a maybe 20 seconds when you first turn it on and the lights flash, you cant pull a shot until the machine is ready for operation and the lights stop flashing, think around 20 seconds.

only know because I have one of these machines.

One day hopefully I will get a setup as impressive as yours Mildred, upgrade my little cheap sage machine


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## jonnycooper29

Iris said:


> Its a thermocoil machine, doesn't need a warmup time except for a maybe 20 seconds when you first turn it on and the lights flash, you cant pull a shot until the machine is ready for operation and the lights stop flashing, think around 20 seconds.
> 
> only know because I have one of these machines.
> 
> One day hopefully I will get a setup as impressive as yours Mildred, upgrade my little cheap sage machine


You're right in that it technically only needs 20 seconds ish, but with my DTP, I leave it longer with the PF locked in get everything up to temperature.

If you don't, because of the cool PF, grouphead and everything else, the temperature won't be correct by the time it's extracting! There is another thread regarding this matter, and I think it states around 87 degrees C if you only wait 20 secs.


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## Iris

jonnycooper29 said:


> You're right in that it technically only needs 20 seconds ish, but with my DTP, I leave it longer with the PF locked in get everything up to temperature.
> 
> If you don't, because of the cool PF, grouphead and everything else, the temperature won't be correct by the time it's extracting! There is another thread regarding this matter, and I think it states around 87 degrees C if you only wait 20 secs.


I just run a couple of flushes before use, and run hot water through the portafilter to bring it up to temp.


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## ajohn

If the OP did what I suggested earlier they will know if the machine is working correctly. I used a flush through an empty single dual wall basket to preheat the portafilter 100's of times as it would take a rather a long time to get the portafilter as hot as that does by leaving it in and that will alter the taste of a shots especially if several are made on the trot,.

The whole idea of the dual wall filters is to control the flow rate and pressure obtained when brewing with coarser grinds than would usually be used in an espresso machine. The gauge should go up into the 12 o'clock region even when the basket is empty. If it doesn't something is wrong.

I video may be useful if it includes the noise the machine makes.

John

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## DavecUK

My point made again 3 pages of replies, no Video....our modern world, smartphones internet, youtube etc.. etc..and we still don't post Video?


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## MediumRoastSteam

To be fair to the OP, this was late at night yesterday. So let's see what we get after 6pm today.


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## DavecUK

MediumRoastSteam said:


> To be fair to the OP, this was late at night yesterday. So let's see what we get after 6pm today.


Your missing my point....this thread is just an example. I understand what your saying exactly, of course. My point is, we need to immediately help people to help us help them. Rather than 3 pages of response which may or may not be helpful, may even make an inexperienced user do something unwise. If we waited until the video was posted, it might be something so simple that the post after a Video solves it easily. We do need to help people understand the most efficient way to shout for help. This is often photos and a video for certain problems. I don't think it's hard to use phone to grab 60s of vid and push it to youtube then link to it. We really need to encourage this and perhaps a sticky in how best to get help for problems as guidance for new members...and not so new.

I've got to the point with a lot of these threads where if there is no information, no photos and no video when plainly it would help, I let others reply first....often when more information does come it shows there wasn't a problem in the first place, or the problem was completely different to that people thought.

P.S. I know you did actually ask for a Video first post you made


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## Coffeenoobster

Thanks guys for all your help so I think the wording of my original post threw some people off. So the coffee machine is what I expect to be working as normally in the fact that it does pull a shot. But the issue was that no matter what I did the pressure gauge did not move.

As aJohn said even with an empty dual walled basket I expected some movement in the pressure gauge even if it was slightly, I then tried the same test with a single shot dual walled basket with cleaning disk in as I saw the same test moved the pressure gauge a substantial amount. And still no reaction.

So this morning I set about pulling the biggest shot in all of Christendom made sure to overdose the basket and to tamp the **** out of it. Ensuring that I would get an overextracted coffee and therefore a very high pressure, but alas still no reaction in the pressure gauge.

Apologies I never posted a video but as mediumroaststeam said it was late last night and I had spent about several hours on the thing trying to get a reaction, actually got more of a reaction from my wife than the machine but alas it was all in vain. And since my morning experiment saw no signs that the gauge was working that was confirmation for me.

Apologies again and please don't feel I ask for help just to ignore it and do my own thing, I did read every post and utilised the information accordingly.

edit: so I have contacted the seller and luckily they have one in stock to exchange tomorrow so will update, unless I don't in which case assume I have ran away tail between legs in noobish disgrace.


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## Iris

at least its still within the first 28 days of purchase, you can return and get a full refund or exchange for a new one.


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## DavecUK

Coffeenoobster said:


> Apologies I never posted a video but as mediumroaststeam said it was late last night and I had spent about several hours on the thing trying to get a reaction, actually got more of a reaction from my wife than the machine but alas it was all in vain. And since my morning experiment saw no signs that the gauge was working that was confirmation for me.
> 
> Apologies again and please don't feel I ask for help just to ignore it and do my own thing, I did read every post and utilised the information accordingly.


No need to apologise, the Video comment wasn't directed at you, it was directed to all well meaning members who try and help people with very little information to go on. I can imagine on occasion people who are new will get advice that's misinterpreted and do something silly to their machine. The first thing we should all be saying is tell us more, have you a video or photo and then giving a quality (considered) answer actually based on better information. It's super easy to cost people a lot of money with the wrong advice and often with a Video it's really obvious what the problem is. Our problem is people keep responding and responding trying to help for pages and pages.....in the absence of good info, this helps no one.


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## MildredM

DavecUK said:


> No need to apologise, the Video comment wasn't directed at you, it was directed to all well meaning members who try and help people with very little information to go on. I can imagine on occasion people who are new will get advice that's misinterpreted and do something silly to their machine. The first thing we should all be saying is tell us more, have you a video or photo and then giving a quality (considered) answer actually based on better information. It's super easy to cost people a lot of money with the wrong advice and often with a Video it's really obvious what the problem is. Our problem is people keep responding and responding trying to help for pages and pages.....in the absence of good info, this helps no one.


Could we draw up a checklist to ask folk - first responder could copy/paste under each query. If it was a sticky and aptly titled maybe some new joiners would spot it too









Sorry to jump on your thread, OP!


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## Coffeenoobster

MildredM said:


> Could we draw up a checklist to ask folk - first responder could copy/paste under each query. If it was a sticky and aptly titled maybe some new joiners would spot it too
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> Sorry to jump on your thread, OP!


no worries jump away.


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## ajohn

MildredM said:


> Could we draw up a checklist to ask folk - first responder could copy/paste under each query. If it was a sticky and aptly titled maybe some new joiners would spot it too
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry to jump on your thread, OP!


The problem when it;s a BE is that there are several differences to most other machines. For instance it is full auto as it does have a flow meter and last but not least the OPV is set to circa 15bar, Then comes what the manual says about brewing with it. People might in some instances have difficulty achieving what it suggests and if they don't usual double dammed - over or under extracted.

John

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## MildredM

ajohn said:


> The problem when it;s a BE is that there are several differences to most other machines. For instance it is full auto as it does have a flow meter and last but not least the OPV is set to circa 15bar, Then comes what the manual says about brewing with it. People might in some instances have difficulty achieving what it suggests and if they don't usual double dammed - over or under extracted.
> 
> John
> 
> -


I kind of meant a catch-all list - machine/age/equipment/beans/problem/photos/video etc etc


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## Coffeenoobster

Hoping this to be final update, got the new machine and popped the dual walled single shot in with cleaning disk and pressure gauge shot up like a dream.


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## Coffeenoobster

Deleted double post


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## Iris

did you get a replacement machine then or get the original one working? glad you got sorted either way


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## Coffeenoobster

Iris said:


> did you get a replacement machine then or get the original one working? glad you got sorted either way


Thanks a lot yer, got a new machine. Delivered the next day so can't complain.


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## hummel89

I get 0 pressure on gauge with coffee (mostly if coffee is from local supermarket). They are just not the same. Dont measure extraction on an empty basket. Use freshly ground coffee (fresh coffee too) and then set your extraction.


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## yair

Hello, I cleaned the machine, I replaced coffee beans. Since then, two things have happened:

1. The water pressure is always too high, I have tried every step of the grinding of the beans, but it is not so impactful.

2. Although I reset the one shot and double shot buttons. The machine never stops pouring water until I press again ...

The new machine! She's only been with me for 3 months. Attaching video of the problem.






Thanks,

Yair


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## lake_m

I'm only guessing here but you pressed and held the single button - does that not put it into programming mode? The fact it beeped makes me think that. Surely you only need to press once and it should start the pump??


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## ajohn

It looks like you pressed the program button first to me so it did what it's supposed to do. So the answer is don't unless you want to program it,

John

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## ajohn

If you want to work to some particular ratio of grams of grinds in and grams of shot out you need scales and could use the machine as you have stopping the shot when the weight out is what you are aiming for.

Or you can use the default button settings and alter the grind to change the ratio.

Or some combination of the above as needed.

Sage make too much use of the needle position in the manual. Don't worry too much about it but stop in the blue sector on the gauge. Or even a bit past it if really needed. Stop short of the reading a back flush / cleaning cycle reaches.

Shot time. This is usually quoted as 25 to 30 sec but only god knows on what machine. Even he might not. Some people use 40sec. I regularly produce drinks for my wife with a 20 sec shot time using the same grinds etc as I drink from a 30sec shot time. All can change taste.

Last thing is the ratio. 1 to 2 is always mentioned. As some beans can have a rather distinct taste I find that more than a bit odd as I have generally found it needs a higher ratio to get them to taste as they should. Sage's manual in a round about way suggest a ratio of 1 to 3. It's worth tasting as is 1 to 2 and some way in between. Commercial fresh but not fresh roasted beans might be better at 1 to 4.

The aim is to produce a taste that you like.

It's a stepped grinder so it may not be possible to hit some specific target. That can be fixed by moderate variations in shot time or changes to the weight of grinds - rather small ones. I found exceeding 30sec was often the best option maybe also with a dose increase over what the razor tool leaves.

When the buttons are used the machine works in a volumetric mode. It tries to keep the shot weight constant. This means that shot time will vary. Usually not by much but odd ones may. I found it could hold this rather well but a change in grind weight for instance will cause the shot time to change so there is a need to keep an eye on what the grinder is producing. Always using the same beans I found that to be pretty constant once the grinder had settled down. Adjustments when needed only involved tiny touches to the timer knob. Change the grinder setting and the output will change so personally when tuning a bean I used the razor tool. Some people have problems with the puck turning. Maybe a solution is a rather light tamp, razor and then a full tamp. They were probably trying to remove too much. I always tamped it again after using the razor anyway.

These scales from various sources are pretty popular

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Electric-Back-Lit-Features-Stainless-Ingredients/dp/B01DGLFVS0/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=2kg+scales&qid=1572433104&refinements=p_76%3A419158031&rnid=419157031&rps=1&sr=8-3

When weighing grinds in the portafilter try and balance it evenly on them to get consistent readings.

Edit - Bit more

I like dry pucks that knock out cleanly. If the weight of grinds is increased slowly the puck sticks to the shower screen. A touch more stops that. Too much makes it hard to knock the puck out and also reduces extraction. Sage demonstrators generally do overload the baskets so suppose that is an option as well. At lower weights the puck will be dry anyway but too low and it will be wet.

Working past the sticking point can have another advantage. *ON SOME BEANS *the dose of grinds will cause a small pip to appear on the used puck in the centre. It's the hole in the shower screen fixing screw. If things are adjusted so that it's a small pip it can be used to check the weight of grinds. if it gets bigger, tiny reduction of the grind time down. If it gets smaller a tiny increase. The changes are so small it takes a bit of practice. The other problem is that the grinder needs to have settled down to the bean that is being used. That can take some time - several days. maybe even a week. A very distinct signs of the pip and shower screen fixing screw is very likely to be too much. Unfortunately it only seems to work well on beans that need finer than usual grinding but every bit of info helps get it right.

John

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## callummu

I recently joined the sage community with a Barista Pro coffee machine. BES765. It seems I might be experiencing the same problem. Over the last five days or so I've noticed the pressure gauge hasn't moved on the machine. It produces really lovely coffee. It's such a shame it doesn't work anymore. I'm going to over tamp tonight to see if a increase dose works. Waaaaaaaa!


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## Vincenti

Hi. I had exactly same problem as OP. Solved by purging the group head through running a single shot of water prior to mounting the portafilter.


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## Ian Barnes

I recognise this pressure problem too. I have been successfully using the Sage for 2 weeks making great coffee. This morning I just repeated what I do every day and the gauge stayed at 0. Note that I now don't get any crema No so the pressure is wrong. This makes me think there is something wrong with the water pressure and not the fault of the gauge. I have tried every combination to increase the required pressure. The gauge remains at 0. Can anyone help?


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## Bonavventura

With the pressure problem , did all coffe is fresh grinded ? What number have you got on side of mashine (to corse not fine enough?) Is the coffee level correct in hand ?


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## Thirstyvix

I have the same machine and same problem! Followed the instructions to a T, using fresh, recent, non supermarket beans and zero pressure no matter what I do. Seems to be such a common fault?? But the company we purchased from are sold out  Is it worth trying to fix - as surely if it's got an issue at brand new, it could easily come back?


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## Greg66

.


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