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.

 

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.

 

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!

 

It's your beans ...

I have the same machine

 

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

 

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!

 

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

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.

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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.

 

@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 ..

 

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

In this video of the Oracle

I suspect most would see 21g in as over dosing. That along with something that is rather unusual about Sage machines might explain how longer times could be achieved. I doubt it though. The DB, Barista Express and I would assume the Oracles all have flow meters in them. These can be used to measure the volume of the shot that is produced and give the same shot size each time the button is pressed. When people tune in the normal fashion they don't work very well at all on a Sage. The reason for this is the valve that limits brew pressure to 9 bar on all but the BE where it's set at 15bar. This dumps water to limit the pressure. For some reason Sage uniquely put the flow meter before this valve. Net effect is that the meter looses it's accuracy as too much water is going out of the valve. They seem to expect people to tune so that the valve scarcely opens. That may be possible if people over dose the basket. When that is done it results in a coarser grind. As grinds expand as soon as water goes in that limits flow. If that didn't happen lots would come out. My view of the Barista Express is that it can only be used with the flow meter. It doesn't have the ability to set a shot time other than manually. Providing I was very careful to limit how high the brew pressure went it did produce consistent shots. I was also over dosing slightly but not by as much as Sage seem to use.

So if you want to try that I would suggest increasing the dose in 0.5g steps and tuning for say 1 to 3 at least initially and see what happens. At some point used pucks will probably stick to the shower screen. More in will probably fix that. With normal doses less often fixes that but the actual weight is becomes pretty critical.

I haven't actually looked in any of these machines to see where they have put the flow meter but it explains why when in volume mode they work as they do and also a sketch on the web showed that it is in the wrong place. As my DB isn't under warrantee I do intend to look and maybe replumb it to see what happens. I have thought about using my DB over dosed but lots of beans will get wasted sorting it out. It's not the sort of thing that can be sorted out in a reasonable time at 3 shots a day. Once some one is used to using their gear they are unlikely to produce a drink even with a bean they have never used before that must go in the sink unless they just can't tolerate the taste the bean has. Those are the ones where people should try wild variations to see what happens. Much smaller variations otherwise.

It's easier to concentrate on taste and brew as most do. Taste is the important thing and some rigid rule wont always get the best out of a bean from the drinkers point of view. Unfortunately the web would have people believe otherwise. Time to flow is just another one that I suspect is aimed at getting a method to use when machines lack a pressure gauge and they over dose as well. Only way to find out is to try it and assume it can have the desired effect.

Suppose I could buy another 1kg pack of those Lavazza beans and find out. Not at the moment though but I am tempted.

John

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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..

 

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)

 

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.

 

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!

 

you will find it really difficult to get a consistent drop time with pre infuse using the oracle grinder my oracle is only a month old and I have had to resort to buying a decent grinder to use with it, since using a separate grinder,I do now get consistent shots. the inbuilt grinder is horrible had I known that I now realise I should have bought something like a lelit Bianca 3 the only saving grace for me with the oracle touch is that the milk it does is really good and the espresso made with the separate grinder is now really nice, when this machine goes bust I most certainly will not buy another sage.