Is your espresso machine in need of a clean? Whether you're a professional or home barista, a clean coffee machine is the secret to a great tasting coffee. Which is why we've put together the barista's guide to cleaning and descaling your coffee machine.

Let's look at how to clean an espresso machine. What is descaling and how to descale your espresso machine? PLUS, how to keep on top of day-to-day maintenance AND how to clean your grinder. So brew your favourite cuppa, sit back and let's get stuck into it.

 

THE COFFEE MACHINE

The Group Handle

First things first, take your group handle over to the sink, remove the basket from handle and see how dirty these get in a fairly short period of time. The dirty muck is all the oils from that coffee that builds up on the inside of the handle. You'll start to notice it after maybe 30-35 shots – or in a café where you are doing a lot more coffees, these would be cleaned out multiple times a day.

To clean them, you'll either pop the basket out and scrub it in the sink. Or you can lock them into the group head with no coffee in them and hit the 60ml button and let that hot water strip the build-up of oils from the inside of the handle.

It's a good idea to give your group handles a soak at the end of the month (or at the end of the day in a cafe). Use a heaped teaspoon of cleaning powder (espresso machine cleaner) dissolved in water in a bucket – pop the basket out and soak the silver part of the handle and the basket. They only need to soak for around 10 minutes and you only want to have the silver part of the group handle under the water because over time the cleaning powder can start to break down the plastic part of the handle. Having the water too deep can also allow water to get up under the handle, this can lead to the bolt in the handle rusting, causing the handle to split.

The group handles should not be put into the dishwasher – it can cause the bolt to rust, the metal to discolour and the plastic handle to split.

 

The Group Head

Now we are going to do a chemical backflush, which is where we are going to clean out the group head. The chemical backflush is done once a month at home (or only at the very end of the day in a cafe) because the machine needs to be seasoned with 3 espresso shots through each group head before you can drink coffees again.

Inside the group head is a shower screen that has a rubber seal around it. Coffee grinds and oils also build up on both the outside and the inside part of the screen, and also on the rubber seal so we need to clean them all out.

Use your group head brush, also called a zig zag brush, to clean around the group head with the hot water running. Use the “back flush” button if your machine has one. It's just a non-programmed button so the water will keep running until you turn it off again. Brush around the rubber seal and across the screen, keep doing this until the water coming out looks mostly clean and clean. This is just a quick surface clean.

 

Chemical Backflush

Grab your blind filter – if you have a look, this handle has a different type of basket in it – this is called a “Blind” or a “Blank” basket. This basket doesn’t have any holes in it, so into the blind basket we are going to put about ¼ of a teaspoon of the cleaning powder, then add a small amount of hot water so that you can dissolve the powder – it will go a milky white colour. Dissolving the powder like this will help to make sure bits of dry powder don’t block the shower screen. Because there are no holes in the blind basket the water won’t be able to flow out of the dribblers, instead it will go up into the head and clean out the inside of the shower screen and solenoid.

Once the powder in the basket is dissolved, lock it into the group head ensuring sure it's tight. We are going to use the backflush button again – turn the water on, after about 10 seconds the light will flash at you if your machine has that function, this is the signal to press the button again and turn off the water. You will see the overflow come into the tray. Leave the water off for about 5 seconds to let the pressure release from the group head and then we repeat that a total of 5 times. So we have the water running for about 10 seconds and then off for 5 seconds and we do this a total of 5 times.

At the end of the fifth cycle, remove the group handle – the water inside the handle will be dirty, tip this down the tray and then using the backflush button, run some clean water into the blind basket and rinse it out.

 

Clear Backflush

Now we need to do the clear or water backflush. The chemical backflush removes the oils from the equipment, now the clear back flush will remove any remaining cleaning powder from the equipment.

For the clear backflush we repeat what we have just done, this time without the cleaning powder. Grab your zig zag brush, turn on the water and brush out around the rubber seal and across the screen – do this 3-4 times.

Now lock in the handle with the blind basket – this time with no cleaning powder in it – and run 5 cycles again – water running for 10 seconds (until light blinks if yours has one) turn the water off for 5 seconds – repeat for total of 5 cycles. At the end of the fifth cycle, remove the handle and check that the water left in the basket is clean and clear – if there are still coffee grinds or dirty water in the basket repeat the rinse until the water is clear.

The water backflush is extremely important – this makes sure all the cleaning powder has been removed – the cleaning powder can crystallise overnight and will block the water from coming through the group head in the morning.

 

The Steam Wand

Check that there is no milk on the steam wand and use your damp steam wand cloth to wipe this off. If there is a build-up milk on the wand and/or the nozzle that is hard to remove, use the hot water from the machine, put some hot water onto your steam wand cloth and then wrap the cloth around the wand, let it sit for a few minutes and then it should wipe off easily.

Never use a knife or spoon to scrape dried milk off the wand as it may scratch the wand. You will take the plating off the wand and make it very hard to keep it clean.

If you find the nozzle has a build-up of milk on it or that some of the holes in the nozzle are blocked, unscrew the nozzle from the wand and you can either soak in with your group handles in the machine cleaner or add some milk line cleaner and water to a jug and soak your nozzle in that for a few minutes. Rinse it out well under a running tap, screw it back onto the steam wand and then give it a good purge with steam – this should clean and/or unblock the nozzle.

The nozzle should not be soaked while it is attached the steam wand – doing this can cause cleaning solutions and impurities in the water to get into the boiler, always soak the nozzle separately.

 

Finishing the Group Handles

After the handles have had a soak we then need to scrub out the handle and the basket. Use a green scotch-brite scourer to get into all the little grooves, without being overly abrasive. Under a running tap scrub out the basket and the handle, making sure you get into the grooves on the basket and into the hole in the handle. The handle and the basket should be clean and free of oils at the end of the day. The basket snaps back into the handle and usually just rests on the tray of the machine overnight.

 

Polishing

The final thing is to wipe over the machine – easiest way is to use a clean damp cloth – wipe over the top, front and sides of the machine and then follow up with wiping down with dry paper towel – this will leave the machine streak free. You can then rise out the tray the sink.

THE GRINDER

 

The Hopper

First thing to do is close the gate at the bottom of the hopper – just push it in so no more beans can come through. Now turn your grinder on and grind down the beans that are sitting on the burrs, switch off the grinder when there is no more coffee coming through.

With the gate still closed, lift up the hopper and hold it over an air tight container and just open the gate so the beans go carefully into the container.

Take the lid off your hopper and have a smell inside the hopper – smells like coffee right? Although the hopper looks clean, that smell lets you know that there are some oils that have built up on the inside of the hopper.

The quickest and easiest way to clean this out is to use the steam wand – purge the wand so the hot water comes out, now place the wand inside the hopper and give it a quick blast of steam, grab a couple of paper towels and work your way down the hopper wiping out the oils and the steam. Make sure the hopper is wiped out dry, if you think there is still some moisture in the hopper just place it on top of the espresso machine upside down, leave it there for a couple of minutes and it will dry out. Once it is completely dried out place it back on the grinder.

You can brush out inside of the grinders where the burrs are, use the brush and sort of ‘flick’ the grinds or the dust out. The hopper should never be put through the dishwasher, the high temperature of the dishwasher will cause the hopper to go cloudy and eventually crack. You also don’t want cleaning solutions or dish washing liquid in the hopper.

If you have to put the hopper on your bench always sit it upside down, hoppers are very top heavy so if you have it sitting the right way up on the bench it will usually fall off and the plastic will crack very easily.

 

Dosing Chamber

Now we need to empty out the dosing chamber – use the lid from the hopper and empty the ground coffee on to the lid, then use your brush to remove the remaining ground coffee and any oils on the dosing wheel. This coffee can be discarded or held in a container and used for seasoning shots. There are usually coffee grinds under the grinder so just swivel that around on the bench and check underneath, wipe down your bench and you're done.

 

The Knock Tube

The knock tube needs to be emptied out daily. The pucks are hot and wet so they will compact in the knock tube and make it very difficult to empty out, they will also go mouldy very quickly, in summer this will happen overnight – so empty this out at the end of each day.

And that’s it that is the end of day close down you will do in a café, or while cleaning up at night at home.