A Nice Cuppa

Being your own barista is a messy job. Grinds and splashes of espresso and milk tend to get everywhere. Most of the time, I feel like I’m fighting a constantly losing battle to keep my kitchen from looking like I trounced across it with muddy feet. And, if the counters get that bad, I can only imagine the inner workings of my espresso machine… something I can’t wipe down every day. All those grounds getting stuck in little holes aren’t great for making the best tasting espresso… so, it’s important to keep up with machine maintenance.

I basically do 3 different levels of cleaning on my machine. First, there’s the wipe down, which I do after every use. I mainly focus on getting all of the milk off of the wand, by wiping it with a J-cloth and shooting quite a bit of steam through it. I also do a simple wipe down of the outside of the grouphead, as well as running more steam through. It’s a good idea to backwash it using a blind filter. (A blind filter is a portafilter basket that doesn’t have holes.) Be careful using one though, as you need to monitor the pressure so that you don’t end up with scalding hot water exploding into your face.

Every day, I also put the portafilter and the baskets through a wash… either a hand wash or just pop them in the dishwasher with a load. And, of course, I dump out any accumulated liquid in the tray.

Once a week, I take this a step further. I remove the tray and run it through the dishwasher. I also take the portafilter baskets and brush them with a toothbrush. Simply washing it normally won’t get out all of the trapped grinds in the little holes… you need to get something in there to push them back out.

Finally, there’s the big clean, which requires a bit of disassembly. The goal here is to clean as much of the grouphead as you can. I do this once every couple of months. If you aren’t using filtered water, you should do this more often, or at least run some CleanCaf through the machine to descale it.

Start with a cool machine. Trust me on this one… I’ve messed around with the machine when it’s hot, and got a really nice blister to show for it. Ouch.

Before you do anything, unplug it. Then, remove all of the removable parts that you can… the drip tray, the water canister, the portafilter, etc.

Then, turn the machine on its side. You should probably put a towel underneath to prevent any water that’s still in the machine from getting everywhere.

Then, with a screwdriver (or the supplied tool), remove the screw that attaches the grouphead filter and carefully remove the filter itself. Here’s what mine looked like after only about a month of use. It’s disgusting.

It’s best to use a soft brush to clean off the filter to avoid scratching it. I used a toothbrush, but there are also special brushes designed for this use. Do not use soap. Just clean it off with water and the brush.

Then, clean the grouphead itself. Remove it, if you can, to clean it. There will likely be quite a bit of oily residue, so using a disposable cloth like a J cloth is your best bet. You’ll want to get into the crevices here too, so the toothbrush will come in handy again.

Once it’s all clean, reattach the filter to the grouphead and tighten securely.

Wipe down the rest of the surfaces… I always find a lot of gunk can start to build up underneath the machine too, so this is a good time to take care of it as well.

Finally, run a descaler, like CleanCaf, through followed by a bunch of water.

Consistent maintenance will go a long way in keeping your machine working at its best and giving shot after shot of great tasting espresso.

All photos are under a Creative Commons attribution license, by Lara Ferroni