Chosen Solution
First of all…I did read a post from someone having a similiar problem. But what happened to me is a partial piece of black plastic came out of the Grouphead area some years ago…since then I have continued to brew…but have leakage. Sometimes minimal and sometimes a lot. But I tend to still get a shot. (albeit messy). I found your great site but I wonder if I have to go thru the top of the Barista to fix this (looks daunting) or can I go into the grouphead area and fix from there? I have the SIN006 but it is an older model…serial number is 122643. Thanks for any help u can afford me. Kind regards. Vince
Hi Vincent. That black plastic piece is one of the ramps that sits inside of the brew head. They catch the collars of the portafilter as you turn it and raise it to seal against the brew head gasket. Missing one of these ramps would create leakage on that side of the portafilter. If the plastic piece is mostly intact you may be able to glue it back in place; if you flip the machine upside down and look in the brew head it should be obvious where it goes (opposite from the other ramp). You’ll want to clean the area of any coffee grounds first and use a heat-tolerant glue. If the piece is too damaged or it won’t stay in you’ll unfortunately need to replace the entire brew head collar, the ramps are not available for purchase separately. This does require opening the machine up and removing the entire boiler assembly as the collar is bolted to it. Edit: Here’s what the ramps look like from the top of the collar, ie. from inside the machine:
Might that ‘partial piece of black plastic’ have been a piece of hard rubber? If so: Google: Starbucks Barista Group Head Gasket (Don’t worry if the name “Saeco” shows up when you search parts and repair guides: The Starbucks Barista is made by Saeco and relabeled with the Starbucks name…) The Group head gasket is a fat custom o-ring that your portafilter rim contacts when you insert and twist your portafilter properly around the group head. This is a common area of leakage/spurts when that o-ring inevitably wears down, and an old one may have become brittle and a piece of it may have fallen out. ALSO, double-check »: The Starbucks Barista uses a pressurized portafilter, with plastic pieces and springs, etc. So take a look at ifixit’s guide to Repairing the Starbucks Barista Portafilter, in case that broken/partial piece of black plastic came from your portafilter assembly… Sometimes these parts have to be ordered from 3rd party vendors, not usually carried by local vendors, but inevitably you can find all the parts with a careful web search
