You surely set your eyes on brand new coffee equipment when it comes to trying new coffee recipes. But when you are required to clean your coffee equipment, you tend to take a step back because certainly it isn’t anyone’s favorite step in the coffee process.
Taking care of your coffee equipment is absolutely important for brewing up top quality coffee and increasing its lifetime. As the coffee oils build up on everything they contact-brewer, server, filter and mugs, they lead to a couple of obstacles to delicious shots, decreasing the water flow and even extraction. All in all your coffee starts to taste rancid. And if the equipment is left unchecked with the existing coffee sediments, this can prevent your coffee equipment from functioning.
Hence, coffee equipment cleaning and maintenance is needed daily and weekly, plus a tune up every 6 months, to assure they run smoothly and deliver the best possible coffee.
So we’re going to walk you through some quick and easy tasks to help you keep your coffee equipment spick and span.
Tip #1: Daily maintenance for your espresso machine
- After you grind, tamp, and extract your espresso, it is important to immediately flush, or purge the group head for about 1-3 seconds to ensure all coffee grounds and oils are being flushed out of the screen.
- Make sure to purge your steam wand both before and after you steam the milk. This ensures you aren’t getting any residual water from the steam wand into your milk.
- Another option to add to your daily routine is a quick water backflush and immediately wipe down your espresso machine so that it’s sparkling clean for the next day.
Tip #2: Weekly espresso machine, coffee brewer and grinder cleaning
- In this interval, you will have to remove the dispersion screen, and soak both the screen and your portafilter basket in a solution of Cafiza or Decaf cleaner for a few hours.
- For a coffee brewer, remove and clean the brew head, plate, screen and anything else which is removable and cleanable, mentioned in the product manual.
- In case of grinders, remove the hoppers and the upper grinding case so as to remove the coffee dust clinging on the inside of the grinder. You can use any soft brush to scrub out all the coffee grounds from the grinder.. Make sure you dry them completely before reassembling.
Tip #3: Half-Yearly Espresso Machine Tune Up
- It is important to replace your espresso machine gaskets every six months that wear out from heavy use including the group head, steam arm and steam-valve gaskets.
Cleaning and maintenance of coffee equipment may feel like a chore, but investing just a few minutes on it every now and then can guarantee that you’re making a delectable coffee every time you use it.
