Expert Sage Barista Touch repairs and servicing

If your Barista Touch sounds like it is trying to pump but little or no water comes through the group head, first check whether the hot-water outlet and steam wand are affected as well.

Make sure the water tank is full and seated correctly. If you use a water filter, remove it temporarily and try the machine once without it. A dry or restricted filter can sometimes prevent the machine from drawing water correctly.

If removing the filter restores the flow, replace the filter or re-soak it outside of the water tank before refitting it.

If the group head, hot-water outlet and steam wand are all affected, the issue is more likely to be somewhere within the machine’s main water system.

A descale can help where scale has gradually restricted the flow, but if the machine still cannot move water afterwards, it is likely to need further investigation.

The small holes in the steam tip can become restricted by dried milk, particularly if the wand is not wiped and purged immediately after steaming.

If the steam becomes weaker, splutters or stops producing usable steam, allow the machine to cool and remove the steam tip.

Use the small pin on the cleaning tool supplied with the machine to clear each hole, then clean the tip thoroughly before re-attaching it.

The Barista Touch also has a built-in Steam Wand Cleaning guide in the Settings menu.

If the steam tip is completely clear but the wand repeatedly blocks again, produces very little steam or the hot-water function is affected too, there may be a restriction or another fault further inside the machine.

An ER code means the Barista Touch has detected a reading or operating condition outside the range it expects.

ER05 is one of the codes we see commonly, but other ER numbers can appear depending on what the machine has detected.

As a safe first check, make sure the milk-temperature sensor beneath the jug is sitting correctly and has not been pushed or lifted out of position. Be very gentle with it, as the sensor is fragile.

If the error returns after the machine has been switched off, allowed to cool and restarted, it should be investigated rather than repeatedly reset or descaled.

An error code does not necessarily mean the sensor named by the fault is itself defective. It may be correctly reporting an abnormal temperature or another condition caused by a different internal fault.

If no ground coffee is coming from the grinder, first make sure there are beans in the hopper and check whether the grinder is actually running.

Coffee oils and compacted grounds can build up around the burrs and grinder chute. With the machine switched off and unplugged, the removable upper burr and accessible grinder area can be cleaned using the supplied grinder brush.

If the grinder works but will not grind fine enough, you can also adjust the removable upper burr to shift the overall grind range finer before assuming the grinder has failed.

If the grinder does not start at all, starts intermittently, or cleaning does not restore normal operation, there may be an electrical or mechanical fault within the grinder system.

In many cases, yes.

The Barista Touch is a relatively high-value machine, and faults involving the water system, heating system, steam wand, grinder or sensors do not automatically mean the machine is beyond economical repair.

Even faults that stop the machine from producing water or cause an ER code can often be traced to an individual component or part of the machine rather than requiring the entire machine to be replaced.

At FMCM, if we can’t repair your machine, we don’t charge you for the repair, so it is usually worth having the fault properly diagnosed before replacing it.