Thx for the great vid! My Sage Baristo Pro came with a rubber insert with a small hole in the middle. On the internet I read that the insert should not have a hole in it. Now I'm confused which one to use..
Just a tip. The dual boiler does not count the clean cycle as a shot so you can use that to back flush daily and not add shots to your shot counter Edit. I missed a bunch of words
I would advice asking your local water provider about the hardness of the water. If it's like 5/5 hard you should do that at least once a month, if you make a lot of coffees, maybe even 2 times a month. But if you have the softest water there is and you use a water filter I would advice doing it 2-3 times per year.
Also one good way of getting to know how often to descale your Dual Boiler would be due to a regular electric water kettle if you have one. Like how quickly the scale builds up there and how often you descale that. It's very easy to see the inside of a water kettle and what scale does to it. Not so easy to notice that in your espresso machine
@@moviemaster00000 good shout thanks, the water report is low-moderate hardness, so I'll probably split the difference, but the kettle advice is good as well!
@@laoisefitzpatrick87 no prob mate. If you use a water filter inside your tank, I think you'd be okay for 2, maybe 3 months. You can also do a test with the Dual Boiler like letting 2 months pass and then doing the descale cycle. If you empty the boilers with the screws, look carefully what kind of a water is released from the boilers, if it's really scaly (a lot of white pieces) that means that 2 months could be the maximum time limit between the descale cycles. But if there is not that much coming out of the boilers try with 3 months the next time and see what happens.
Love your accent mate! But actually it does not matter if you use bottled, filtered water or you live in a very soft water area. Scale is inevitable. The only difference it makes is how often you need to do that. Sage customer service has said to descale at least every 4 months even if you use the best quality water there is. Sadly there is no way to skip descaling if you want to have a healthy machine for years. PS. Make sure you descale according to manual and definitely don't just use ANY descaler but only the original one as you have no clue how harsh of a descaler you could put inside your machine.
We'll have to agree to disagree ;-), I've never descaled my espresso machines, I've never had scale build up. I live in a soft water area. My Gaggia classic is 20 years old, the folk I bought it from about 8 years ago hadn't descaled it (they were local to me) I've never descaled it, there's no scale build-up. My advice (if not in a very soft water area) would be to use an under counter or counter top filter or reverse OM system and to just give these machines a proper yearly service (either DIY or via an espresso engineer) and for the boiler to be descaled during this service. Cheers, Kev.
@@Coffee_Kev Unfortunately you have that one wrong my friend. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing, it's about the truth. ANY water contains either some or a lot of calcium and magnesium. This is common water physics. The more amount of minerals inside the water= the more harder the water is. If you think about groundwater for example (in where many people get their tap water) how on earth could all this water avoid the minerals that are inside the ground? Even if the water is very soft, there are still some minerals in the dirt, otherwise we would have no life on this planet. The only way to have scale free water is with distilled water where all the minerals are vaporised but this will destroy your machine for sure because of the lack of minerals will cause corrosion to your espresso machine. The thing that you have used your machine for years and not have descaled it, does not mean that the machine is scale free. To know if it's scale free, you'd need to look inside the boilers and not assume that. Also talking about Gaggia products I can only assume those are well built Italian espresso machines, unlike Sage ones where there's cheap materials used all around the machine. I myself use a very soft bottled water which is filtered by the water provider. I also filter this water once again with the water filter inside the DB and I can see the scale slowly starting to build up month by month. Like I said it's only a matter of time. I commented previously a way of making sure that I'm right. Test this out with a water kettle. Put the same water there which you use in your espresso machine and watch what happens with it. Good luck trying to convince someone that not a single piece of scale will build up on that kettle with the softest most filtered water used in 20 years 😊
The truth is, I've never descaled an espresso machine, in a very soft water area, using tap water, and I've never had scale issues. Anyway, I stand by my advice where the Dual boiler is concerned, which is to use soft water, and for users to only descale it themselves if they're happy doing a bit of DIY if required, and if they're not, to find an engineer to do the descale for them while doing a yearly service, which I highly recommend with these machines. Cheers, Kev.
@@Coffee_Kev I will agree with the service part, as in that way you take away the responsibility from yourself if something happens. But still I advice you to read a bit about water science. Then you would understand better what are minerals, what is scale and how it's all around us. If someone says they have had no issues with the scale it does not mean that the scale has been avoided inside the machine. I have a friend that repairs a lot of home appliances, that includes espresso machines. He has dealt mostly with the super automatic espresso machines and he always tells me that the first cause of an early end of any espresso machine is scale. He has seen some awful pictures about machines that are said to use filtered soft water by the users but still look horrible. He once said to me that an inside of a Jura machine looked like it was mossy, basically a life was going on inside the espresso machine because it was not cleaned for SEVEN years. And I can only guess that a resort like the one inside the machine did not develop within the days the machine started to have issues producing coffee. This probably took years to build up. I would never ever suggest anyone to not descale their water related kitchen equipment. I see there is a huge amount of suggestions to the DB to not descale the machine if they don't want to get a blocked steam sensor. But letting scale build up in an espresso machine, especially the Dual Boiler is a granted finish to your machine. My suggestion would be if you have the softest filtered water to still descale at least once (better twice) a year. That should be a nice effort for a long lasting healthy machine.
Hard water causes limescale, if you're using soft water (low in calcium and magnesium) you shouldn't get scale buildup. When I say I've had no scale issues, I mean literally no scale buildup. Same with kettles and so on, if you're lucky enough to live in a soft water area, or if you're using soft water via other means, you shouldn't get scale build-up. I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't descale kitchen equipment, though. Domestic coffee machines that can be descaled with no problems, via flushing the descaler through the group and the steam wand or the milk system, I think doing preventative descaling is fine. The Dual boiler though isn't built like a normal kitchen appliance, the water circuit works like a commercial espresso machine, descaling is (or at least can be) a much more involved process, so with the Dual Boiler, I recommend anyone who isn't happy taking the lid off, if needs be, to prevent the need to do regular descaling. In my opinion, if someone is using soft water, letting an engineer descale it for them as part of the yearly service should be fine. Yes there's a lot of info online suggesting not descaling the DB. I think descaling is fine, as long as the person doing it is OK taking the lid off, the issues that can happen aren't that big a deal if you're OK with a bit of DIY. Failing that, though (and a lot of people aren't comfortable with DIY) my advice with the Dual Boiler is to find someone who will service it, and give it a yearly service. This way the O-rings can be swapped (to prevent potential leaks which can cause big problems) a descale can be done (and in my opinion a yearly descale should be fine if you're using soft water), and all should be good. These machines should keep on going for years with a yearly service. Cheers Kev
I have a whole house water softener and my refrigerator filters the water. I use this on my Casabrews espresso machine. When I get a Breville Dual Boiler, I plan on using distilled water and Third Wave Water packet for expresso. I'm not going to descale. I'll take my chances with this method.
Yes it does. A "descale" notification will show up before the machine is heated. But keep in mind that those messages are automated and may not mean anything in real life. I once changed a water filter and 2 days after that it messaged me to change the water filter. Also a lot of people like myself have the issue with the descale message. It showed up one day (I think after I did the descale cycle in 3-4weeks) and now it does not disappear no matter how many descale cycles I do.
Thank you for the series! I have a small problem, that I cannot find a solution for. Maybe you came across. My dual boiler works perfectly fine, except for a bubbling/gurgling sound inside the noment i start a shot. It lasts a few second at the beginning od every shot, like maybe warer boiling inside the heat exchanger in the steam boiler. Not sure if it affects the shot quality in any way, but i find it worrying.
If you turn the machine off, then press and hold both shot buttons and then turn on, do you see any error codes flash up on the first screen? Cheers, Kev.
