How to Lower the Dose Level on your Breville Oracle Espresso Machine

Oracle Dose too high

The Problem: Breville Oracle doses too much!

I have just recently started playing with the new Sage (Breville) Oracle Jet, and I am having a good time, except for one thing: the dosing!

I have found that the machine does a good job at distributing the grounds, tamping, and polishing the puck, but the doses are too high for me. In fact, in the default configuration, the Oracle Jet was dosing 22 grams for me in the double basket! I prefer 16-18 grams.

Of course there is a single basket as well, which was dosing 12 grams for me, but that is too little. Again, my sweet spot is 16-18 grams for a nice double espresso or for my cappuccino.

Another issue with dosing so high is that there is too little head space above the coffee puck, for the water to sit on. This leads to the puck not being able to expand enough during the extraction, and I believe the puck does not get fully saturated. Plus, the puck is harder to knock out.

The Solution: Turn out the threads on your Tamper Fan Connector

The easiest way to reduce the dose is to remove the tamper fan with the magnetic tool included with the machine, pop out the tamper fan connector, and turn out some threads. Here’s the directions step by step:

  1. Remove the tamper fan by pressing the magnetic remover tool on the center of the fan. It will drop out.
  2. Simply pull the connector downwards to release. It’s on a spring loaded bearing.
  3. Unscrew the 2mm set screw a bit.
  4. Unscrew the connector bottom from the top, until some threads show. I’d say it’s nearly 1 gram per showing thread that can be reduced. I am at 4 threads showing, and this reduces the dose by 3 grams for me.
  5. Tighten the set screw
  6. IMPORTANT: push the connector back up onto it’s rod. Fiddle with it, and press it upwards until you hear and feel it definately click into place. Otherwise, it may not recognize when the basket is getting full.
  7. Pop the tamper fan back on its connector.

Is the dose still too high?

With the above method, I was able to reduce the dose from about 22 grams down to 19 grams. But, this was still too much for my taste. I dared not turn any more threads out of the connector, as the set screw needs enough meat to press against.

Therefore, I bought a new basket from IMS. It’s meant to fit 18 grams, and I get 17-18 grams now, with the tamper fan connector turned out 4 threads’ worth. I also get enough head space now!

IMS Basket B702TCH22E

Conclusion

Adjusting the tamper fan connector to show 4 threads, and choosing a new IMS basket has given me both the dose, and the head space I was looking for. The machine itself does a great job grinding, distributing, tamping and polishing, so now I can just let it do its thing.

I hope this little tutorial helped someone!