If your coffee at home doesn't taste good, it's often because the coffee machine isn't clean. Cleaning your espresso machine is quick and essential for delicious coffee. Coffee oils, in particular, can build up in the coffee machine, making the coffee taste rancid and off-tasting. We'll show you how to clean it quickly and easily.
What makes the espresso machine dirty?
Coffee consists of cellulose, proteins, acids, and other substances, as well as 7 to 17% oils, depending on the variety. These oils love to settle in the shower screen, the portafilter spout, under the seal, and in just about any available crevice. These oils quickly become rancid and overpower the coffee flavor.
The coffee itself tends to stick together with the used oil in tiny particles, releasing bitterness. All in all: very, very unappetizing!
While the fat tastes bad, the milk spout is a real hygiene problem, as bacteria love to have a mold party there.
Cleaning for every day and in between
- Before each espresso extraction, the machine is briefly rinsed without the portafilter. This removes any residue from the last extraction from the brewing sieve. Practical: Older coffee machines also level their brewing temperature this way.
- Always wipe the filter in the portafilter with a cloth before adding new ground coffee. This prevents the coffee from being brewed multiple times, which can lead to excessive bitterness.
- If you make a lot of coffees, it's worth inserting the "blind filter" every now and then, making an empty brew, and then backflushing. To do this, simply insert the portafilter with the blind filter and draw water for 10 seconds, just like you would for a normal coffee brew. If you're unsure how to do this, watch our video on cleaning an espresso machine .
- Before and after each milk frothing session, you should blow out the steam wand. Simply turn the steam up vigorously. This will remove water from the wand, giving you the steam you want. Very important: Also, wipe the wand with a clean cloth before and after each milk frothing session.
This may sound like a lot of work, but it'll quickly become a habit once you get started. And that way, your machine will be clean every day. Provided you also do the weekly cleaning. 😊
Weekly cleaning or after coffee-heavy days
Stubborn deposits aren't so easy to remove. For this, grease remover is the solution of choice.
For weekly cleaning you will need the following materials:
- Coffee grease remover
- Blind screen or rubber insert
- Brewing group brush
- Container for soaking – preferably a 1l milk jug
- Clean rag
And this is how the weekly cleaning works:
- Remove the portafilter. Remove the sieve and replace it with a blind sieve. Alternatively, you can use a rubber insert that covers all the holes. A blind sieve has the advantage of closing the sieve cleanly and allowing the brewing sieve to be soaked at the same time.
- Pour half an espresso spoon of grease remover onto the blind sieve. This is sufficient for almost all products from almost all manufacturers. Of course, manufacturers recommend larger quantities, as this will allow you to buy more quickly.
- Clamp the portafilter and build up pressure 10 times for approximately 10 seconds by pressing a brew button or pulling the lever on your espresso machine. When the brew is complete, the cleaning water flows back into the drip tray. The shower head, seal, and openings are cleaned. This process is called backflushing.
- After ten uses, rinse the blind filter and repeat the process with just water. This will remove any remaining cleaning agent.
- Then empty and clean the drip tray so that the cleaning water does not attack the plastic.
- You can push the shower screen out of many Faema E61 brewing units with a spoon. For some types of machines, you'll need a screwdriver. Soak the brewing screen, shower screen, and portafilter (below the handle) in a 1-liter milk jug with degreaser for about 15 minutes. Then rinse everything under clean water.
We recommend avoiding the first espresso after cleaning. But after the second one, you'll notice how good coffee from a clean espresso machine tastes.
If you have any questions about the process, write to us or watch the video on cleaning the espresso machine on YouTube .
Also clean the coffee grinder
After cleaning the espresso machine, we recommend cleaning the espresso grinder as well. Only then will you truly taste the cleaning success.
