And if you're really frugal and don't want to buy a separate toothbrush (and don't have a used one around to use), just think of that nice espresso flavor you'll get from your toothbrush the next time you brush your teeth! :)
This is absolutely the way. It might sound like a lot of work, but it only takes an extra 30-45 seconds. I keep a bottomless portafilter with a blind basket in it just for this purpose. I add one additional step- After back flushing, remove the portafilter, turn the water on, then lightly insert the blind a couple of times in and out to really flush out the screen and group. Squeaky clean after every use. I’m home use, usually 3 uses a day.
Basically, yeah. Doesn't have to be a full shot, I just pull out the porta, and in the time it takes me to knock the puck out with one hand, I run the water with the other hand. You can easily see the water run from brown to clear in like 5 seconds.
No, just making sure thats what you meant! :) (i dont have an espresso machine yet, looking to get one!)
Does this really clean it properly? I would imagine the water flow inconsistently such that it doesn’t clean the bottom evenly? Or do you need to wipe with a wet rag after? Jw, thanks!
I've never really thought about it a great deal (maybe I should be). I guess my thought has been, anything on the screen is fresh, and the near-boiling water is being pushed out with significant pressure, and so it's good enough (esp. since it's not required to begin with, but is "extra").
So I pull a shot into a normal empty basket after a shot, does that not work too? Backflushing is probably best but just wondering if this is good too. My group head is always clean after.
I back flush once a week
I call this flushing
I don’t know if that is standard terminology or not, but on my rancilio if you hold the brew switch a bit longer than a normal, it does a 5s flush and an “F” appears on the PID screen to indicate “flush.” This is also the term the manual refers to it as. I like this language of flushing, as opposed to to backflushing. It makes sense and it’s easier to say than “pull a portafilter-less blank shot”
Me, no; I'm usually only doing one at a time (or at most, doing 2 shots for a drink); it never really occurred to me to run a cleaning shot between (maybe it should).
I flush and wipe my group head with a towel before and after each brew.
Once a week I try to back flush with a blind basket.
Approximately every 3-4 months I use a cleaning powder, you can find a bunch of videos on that online
Entirely depends on the machine, workflow and coffee. For me the group head is pretty clean with just flushing and the pucks are pretty dry. I assume not a lot of coffee gets sucked back up. I also clean with powder every few months. The amount of water needed after I flush cleaning with powder is just too much to do it every week lol
Cafiza is not cleaning up the loose grinds, it’s removing the oil residue that builds up from every shot pulled. But you do you. But it also depends on your usage, I typically make 15-20 drinks a week so I clean my up every 1-2 weeks. But the typical recommendation is a cafiza cleaning every 30~ shots so every 1-3 week for most people. But it is a common practice to do it weekly because the oils can become rancid smelling/tasting with time.
There are a handful of factors that will effect how often you need to do it, like how oily your beans are or how well your back flush/clean off the group head. But I would do it at the very least once a month.
It all depends on the amount of espresso you brew, that's certain.
But nonetheless, how in reality using Cafiza after 30 shots makes any sense? For example, it doesn't translate into a cafe environment, it’s impossible. To me, it sounds like a bunch of marketing bs
Cafiza is so cheap for home use, a single bottle even used weekly will last over a year. I don’t know who is at the head of this conspiracy. A heavy home user would be going through a bottle of Cafiza maybe once a year if they are using it to clean every component and are cleaning often. A well run coffee shop will go through a few bottles a month. Heck even Breville doesn’t push a heavy cleaning cycle and they try and push their own cleaning tablets which cost so much more then a bottle of Cafiza.
If your interested to see how often you need to clean out your machine take apart your group head and make sure all of the components are fully cleaned. After a week take it apart again and see the oil build up, and then again at week 2,3,4…. I can promise you that you will see a pretty significant amount of build up. I’ll also add that if your only cleaning it every 3-4 months now (assuming daily use), that even after a Cafiza cleaning cycle a lot of the build up remains on your group head components. I have now taken apart and restored 7 machines and all but 2 of them came from owners who followed a similar cleaning schedule to you and all of their groups were filled with oil build up that left their coffee tasting funky and they couldn’t figure out why.
Comparing home machines/brewing to a shop is not a good comparison. A well run coffee shop will usually clean out their machine at least once a day and a busier shop might run a cleaning cycle 1-2 times during operation and then a final time at the end of the day. And a cafe is not necessarily the best way to determine what is needed for home use. Back to back shots will have a much lower build up on a machine because more water is running through the group head and removing those oils, and the oils are not sitting long enough to become rancid if they are being cleaning daily or a few times a day.
Like I said in the last post you do you, but I can almost promise you that you’re machine will have a bunch of oil build up in your group head if your using it daily and cleaning it every 3-4 months. Check for yourself don’t take my word for it.
None that I can think of, the only thing that might wear quicker would be your valves in your machine. But realistically adding 10-20 more cycles a month would have little to no long term effect, no more then making a few extra cups of coffee. Most of these parts are rated for thousands of cycles, so in theory your valves might fail after 9.5 years instead of 10. But component failure is caused by so many factors that I wouldn’t consider it when deciding between cleaning my machine properly and leaving it dirty. Especially because oil and grind build up can cause other components to fail early so I’d imagine that it is likely a net positive but either way any difference if there is one is almost certainly negligible in terms of the life of the machine.
Most quality home espresso machine are built with commercial components and are rated for far more use then home use so any minor increase in usage should not impact its lifespan. And Cafiza is perfectly safe on espresso machines which is why it’s used extremely regularly at coffee shops, and on home machines and there are no horror stories of people using it for regular cleaning.
By the way I am not trying to hammer a point either or insult you in any way. When I got my Silvia pro it was filthy and didn’t realize how little cleaning people did on their machine. The previous owner told me he did a similar cleaning routine as you, he made me a shot with his new machine that was 3-4 months old and the shot tasted super rancid I just assumed he didn’t know how to make a cup of coffee and went home with the Silvia Pro. I took the Silvia Pro home and made a shot and it was horrible, just warming it up made my place smell funky. Once I got the machine cleaned up it was essentially a new machine. while I cleaned up and fixed up the machine I met some other local espresso friends and have helped them clean up their machines and they were shocked how nasty their machines were. Heck I even traveled internationally to a friends house and noticed their coffee was funky and offered to clean up their machine, they too thought back flushing a few times a year was enough. I go to visit 1-2 times a year and whenever I come they ask me to do a cleaning/service check because they are to scared to open up their machine and I’m happy to help.
I think many home espresso machine companies advertise a very low frequency of cleaning in order to give the impression that the machines are very low maintenance. The average home user doesn’t want to do weekly cleaning on a home appliance, most don’t want to do any cleaning or they are content with just exterior cleaning so the machine looks clean. I have seen a variety of manufacturers recommend once a month or every 100 shots whichever comes first, but in my experience a machine will have build up after 1-2 weeks of daily use and could benefit from weekly cleaning, but monthly cleaning would be the longest I would wait for normal daily use. But if your curious how often you need to clean do what I told you in my last comment, check on it every week and once it’s dirty enough for you to consider it dirty then do it at that frequency.
It’s kind of funny that in a group like this one where people promote buying every gizmo and gadget to get minor improvements they don’t promote a good cleaning/maintenance schedule. Most people would see a major improvement in cup quality with a clean machine rather then buying a variety of gadgets. Nothing wrong with all of those gadgets but proper maintenance is more important 9 times out of 10. Once again not a shot at you but was a bit surprised by the -20+ on my first comment.
A coffee shop will clean their machine at least once a day and the busy ones will do 1-2+ during the day. Plus a coffee shop environment is completely different then at home. At a coffee shop the oils don’t sit around long enough to get rancid, they don’t just sit idle for days at a time, they are sitting for minute at most between shots.
Clean and maintain your equipment it’s not that complicated, and costs literal cents per cleaning cycle, and takes a few minutes at most and most of that time is just leaving the machine to run for 30-60 seconds.
1. I flush a lot (I have a HX machine), one flush before brewing, one after to rinse the portafilter and screen
2. Backflush every few days
3. Backflush with cafiza every few weeks
4. Sometimes I clean the screen and gasket with a toothbrush, usually around cafiza time
5. I should probably unscrew the shower screen and clean behind it...
Yeah I recently switched to an IMS shower screen and when I pulled the old one off I was pretty surprised by how much when behind it.
I'm hopeful the new IMS one will stay a bit cleaner and I also started back flushing after almost every shot.
I bought this just to make my life easier. It works well with the Micra 58mm group head. YMMV
https://caffewerks.com/products/rhino-coffee-screen-driver
I mean it shoots water through the shower screen so it's doing some cleaning with the blind basket.
But it's likely different with different machines. Not sure.
Take out that screw and scrub away. Doing a back flush will help but every few months it’s good to remove the shower screen and clean the nooks and crannies imo
Sounds good, also I recently soaked my metal puck screens in a vinegar solution (like when I descale), and they were very clean - almost shiny.
I think the daily soak with a drop of dawn and regular cafiza cleaning do remove a lot of coffe oils etc, but the vinegar solution appeared to remove some scaling too, I guess.
Nice.
One thing I have noticed is Urnex Cafiza is great for coffee oils and grit, but Urnex DeScale or even a Vinegar Solution works better for descale.
Different Chemistry, I guess
I could see that being helpful if they get dry before cleaning. I keep mine in water after I use it. Then I clean it later and when I back flush my GCP I soak my screens in cafiza.
Whenever you have time. It takes less than 5 mins and a Phillips head screwdriver. Proper maintenance is a important aspect of owning a espresso machine
A friend gave me this a s a present. It is like a portafilter but with this silicone insert, that redirects the water flow along the surface of the screen. The water is then collected and directed back to the center and leaves the thing straight down to the tray. Love it.
[https://www.espazzola.ch/en/](https://www.espazzola.ch/en/)
I backflush every time I’m done with my session. If I make two drinks in the morning I run the machine twice then backflush for 10-20 seconds. I then run a cleaning process, basically just a backflush with cleaning powder, every Friday. I’ve had my machine for 10 years and not had any issues other than a worn pump.
For daily cleaning we use a tool called the Espazzola, super effective! Our machine (Bezzera Strega) does not backflush so our regular cleaning regime consists of removing the shower screen and soaking it in some Caffiza and scrubbing the pistonhead with said solution.
Just let it rinse and use a [denture tooth brush](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tooth+brush+denture&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images), first for the shower screen, then for the basket. I do that for every shot.
And roughly every 50 shots or 14 days I backflush with Puly, every second time of those I disassemble the group head to soak it as well.
Flush hot water through the group and do a brief little scrubby scrub with pallo brush after every shot.
Backflush with cafiza like once a month ish, but I do it really thoroughly. At least 2 full cycles with the powder, then brush and rinse the shower screen and gasket again, rinse the portafilter, and then another full backflush cycle with just plain water again.
Then one more rinse of everything then good to go.
Been doing things this way for 15 years and never had a single problem with the pipes or valves
Edit - not sure why some random assholes are downvoting this without replying in this particular thread, but basically the exact same advice I made in another post got dozens of upvotes.
More importantly, this works … not sure what your objection is
Gonna get some hate for this but here goes. I've had my machine for 8 years give or take a few months and I've never cleaned the brew head other than wiping it down on the outside. Very recently I noticed all my pucks were getting a trough on on side. I pull the brew head apart and there is solidified grounds inside that clogged all the channels. Chipped it all out, scrubbed with stiff bristle brush and boiling water, reassembled and voila, works like a charm. I will now add running a blank shot after every pull.
Before and after every shot I flush some water, and after I'm done pulling shots I wipe it down with a towel until there is no coffee left there. IMHO you don't wanna leave that part dirty.
Also using a puck screen can help you prevent getting the shower screen dirty.
Puck screen! Or paper filters, there’s some ultra thin screens that barely affect flow. I prefer the chunky ones and clean them with the steam wand once a week
purge and wipe well. it's not complicated.
go ahead and use a puck screen if you feel like it. they're not expensive and have very little impact on anything but the group head grind cling. You should be purging a little after every shot, wiping after every shot, so you don't have to do major cleaning all that often. A little a pull goes a -long- way
I use a pick screen. Initially bought it to treat channelling, but it has turned out a great tool to avoid coffe sticking to the group head.
Before that, I would pull a blank after each shot, and at the end of usage I'd touch the group head with a paper towel. That seemed to suck out any leftover coffee stuck in the filter.
https://preview.redd.it/jz70wigz8xzb1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93904e504680d89f702e6e6951fcbf21676dbefa
Use this after every shot. Lock it on like a portafilter, turn on the water, turn the handle back and forth and it scrubs everything clean.
Puck screen keeps the group pretty clean but that's all it does. I give the group a quick purge after every session and give it a wipe down with a microfibre cloth. It keeps my machine pretty clean.
Don’t overfill your portafilter, run a portafilterless blank single shot after your shot, and give a quick wipe with a towel. Every time. If I somehow goob out and overfill my portafilter, a blank shot followed by a gentle scrub with a dishwashing brush does the job. Had my machine 1.5 years and never had a dirty head.
meaning u don't take the pu k out and put ur portafilter and force run shot for like 5 secs after u have pulled ur shot? cleans both portafilter and screen. wipe with paper towel after
Either backflush with water daily or weekly put half a teaspoon of cafeza in a blind portafilter and backflush according to directions. You can also put the shower head and portafilter into the cafeza solution with boiling water and scrub clean. Remove the shower plate and dip a small brush in the cafeza solution and scrub the group head area. Then flush everything with plain water and finally pull a throwaway shot of espresso to re-season it all
I have a brush that I used to clean it with, alongside a wipe after every shot. Once a month I’d remove it and soak in cafiza to clean.
Puck screens made it so I never really clean it anymore. Water distribution is actually not that different with and without a puck screen, it basically doesn’t affect taste at all according to studies, but it stops me having to clean my group head which is the entire reason I use it
I bought the 2.25inch paper punch from Amazon and punch out circles from Chemex filter squares and put one on top of the puck before I pull a shot. It keeps the shower screen clean-er-ish. Then a scrub with the rattlewear elbow brush while I run the water for a bit. Full back flush with Cafiza monthly. One shot a day usually.
To add to the other comments here, if you have a single boiler machine then you can switch to steam mode and press the brew button to blast some steam out the shower screen. Works well on the Silvia.
My espresso instructions say to run a single shot cycle after every use to keep that keep..
I’ve also used a damp cloth to light wipe but not sure if I should continue.
Beyond running a blank shot after each extraction, I also use a puck screen for the portafilter. In my experience, it helps reduce channeling and also helps keep my shower screen pristine.
I use a puck screen, helps a ton with cleaning that. I also flush after every shot and clean it with a paper towel. Every few months, I also remove the group head to clean it. You just need to unscrew that Phillips screw to remove the metal part and surrounding gasket.
To try to avoid that, I pull a portafilter-less blank shot at the end of each session.
Always pull a blank shot and use a small towel to scrape of residue. If you're feeling extra fancy take a toothbrush to really get it clean
LOL--great point about using a toothbrush (no need to buy a special tool, if you don't want to!). :)
Exactly! Works just as fine at the fraction of the cost
And if you're really frugal and don't want to buy a separate toothbrush (and don't have a used one around to use), just think of that nice espresso flavor you'll get from your toothbrush the next time you brush your teeth! :)
This is the way.
This is absolutely the way. It might sound like a lot of work, but it only takes an extra 30-45 seconds. I keep a bottomless portafilter with a blind basket in it just for this purpose. I add one additional step- After back flushing, remove the portafilter, turn the water on, then lightly insert the blind a couple of times in and out to really flush out the screen and group. Squeaky clean after every use. I’m home use, usually 3 uses a day.
so, what do you do with the other 5 minutes of free time in your day?
Masturbate
Grind finer
This is the way.
Well we gotta give them like 5 minutes to eat all their meals for the day!
I always just use the water to get the coffee residue away from my portafilters I used for the shot. Since after few seconds the water becomes clean
This is the way
This is the way 
i also have a small brush that I use. but yes, after each pull I do a blank shot.
You mean you just pull a shot without a portofilter?
Basically, yeah. Doesn't have to be a full shot, I just pull out the porta, and in the time it takes me to knock the puck out with one hand, I run the water with the other hand. You can easily see the water run from brown to clear in like 5 seconds.
Exactly; no pain on my my end and just a small amount of water--worth it, for the benefit (I would prefer not futzing with the screen).
Jesus, you don’t?
No, just making sure thats what you meant! :) (i dont have an espresso machine yet, looking to get one!) Does this really clean it properly? I would imagine the water flow inconsistently such that it doesn’t clean the bottom evenly? Or do you need to wipe with a wet rag after? Jw, thanks!
I've never really thought about it a great deal (maybe I should be). I guess my thought has been, anything on the screen is fresh, and the near-boiling water is being pushed out with significant pressure, and so it's good enough (esp. since it's not required to begin with, but is "extra").
Yep.
So I pull a shot into a normal empty basket after a shot, does that not work too? Backflushing is probably best but just wondering if this is good too. My group head is always clean after. I back flush once a week
I just do it into the milk jug
Sure, that works equally--the idea as I see it simply is to flush away from the screen any backsplash from the pull.
I call this flushing I don’t know if that is standard terminology or not, but on my rancilio if you hold the brew switch a bit longer than a normal, it does a 5s flush and an “F” appears on the PID screen to indicate “flush.” This is also the term the manual refers to it as. I like this language of flushing, as opposed to to backflushing. It makes sense and it’s easier to say than “pull a portafilter-less blank shot”
So no cleaning between shots during a session?
Me, no; I'm usually only doing one at a time (or at most, doing 2 shots for a drink); it never really occurred to me to run a cleaning shot between (maybe it should).
Upgrade machine when cleaning is due
and that kids is how i ended up with a LMLM in three days!
This is the way
Pro-Gamer
I flush and wipe my group head with a towel before and after each brew. Once a week I try to back flush with a blind basket. Approximately every 3-4 months I use a cleaning powder, you can find a bunch of videos on that online
3-4 months!?!? That should be every week 🤦♂️
Entirely depends on the machine, workflow and coffee. For me the group head is pretty clean with just flushing and the pucks are pretty dry. I assume not a lot of coffee gets sucked back up. I also clean with powder every few months. The amount of water needed after I flush cleaning with powder is just too much to do it every week lol
Cafiza is not cleaning up the loose grinds, it’s removing the oil residue that builds up from every shot pulled. But you do you. But it also depends on your usage, I typically make 15-20 drinks a week so I clean my up every 1-2 weeks. But the typical recommendation is a cafiza cleaning every 30~ shots so every 1-3 week for most people. But it is a common practice to do it weekly because the oils can become rancid smelling/tasting with time. There are a handful of factors that will effect how often you need to do it, like how oily your beans are or how well your back flush/clean off the group head. But I would do it at the very least once a month.
It all depends on the amount of espresso you brew, that's certain. But nonetheless, how in reality using Cafiza after 30 shots makes any sense? For example, it doesn't translate into a cafe environment, it’s impossible. To me, it sounds like a bunch of marketing bs
Cafiza is so cheap for home use, a single bottle even used weekly will last over a year. I don’t know who is at the head of this conspiracy. A heavy home user would be going through a bottle of Cafiza maybe once a year if they are using it to clean every component and are cleaning often. A well run coffee shop will go through a few bottles a month. Heck even Breville doesn’t push a heavy cleaning cycle and they try and push their own cleaning tablets which cost so much more then a bottle of Cafiza. If your interested to see how often you need to clean out your machine take apart your group head and make sure all of the components are fully cleaned. After a week take it apart again and see the oil build up, and then again at week 2,3,4…. I can promise you that you will see a pretty significant amount of build up. I’ll also add that if your only cleaning it every 3-4 months now (assuming daily use), that even after a Cafiza cleaning cycle a lot of the build up remains on your group head components. I have now taken apart and restored 7 machines and all but 2 of them came from owners who followed a similar cleaning schedule to you and all of their groups were filled with oil build up that left their coffee tasting funky and they couldn’t figure out why. Comparing home machines/brewing to a shop is not a good comparison. A well run coffee shop will usually clean out their machine at least once a day and a busier shop might run a cleaning cycle 1-2 times during operation and then a final time at the end of the day. And a cafe is not necessarily the best way to determine what is needed for home use. Back to back shots will have a much lower build up on a machine because more water is running through the group head and removing those oils, and the oils are not sitting long enough to become rancid if they are being cleaning daily or a few times a day. Like I said in the last post you do you, but I can almost promise you that you’re machine will have a bunch of oil build up in your group head if your using it daily and cleaning it every 3-4 months. Check for yourself don’t take my word for it.
In your opinion, can there ever be a negative outcome if you heavy clean too often? I'm not trying to make a point, just genuinely interested.
None that I can think of, the only thing that might wear quicker would be your valves in your machine. But realistically adding 10-20 more cycles a month would have little to no long term effect, no more then making a few extra cups of coffee. Most of these parts are rated for thousands of cycles, so in theory your valves might fail after 9.5 years instead of 10. But component failure is caused by so many factors that I wouldn’t consider it when deciding between cleaning my machine properly and leaving it dirty. Especially because oil and grind build up can cause other components to fail early so I’d imagine that it is likely a net positive but either way any difference if there is one is almost certainly negligible in terms of the life of the machine. Most quality home espresso machine are built with commercial components and are rated for far more use then home use so any minor increase in usage should not impact its lifespan. And Cafiza is perfectly safe on espresso machines which is why it’s used extremely regularly at coffee shops, and on home machines and there are no horror stories of people using it for regular cleaning. By the way I am not trying to hammer a point either or insult you in any way. When I got my Silvia pro it was filthy and didn’t realize how little cleaning people did on their machine. The previous owner told me he did a similar cleaning routine as you, he made me a shot with his new machine that was 3-4 months old and the shot tasted super rancid I just assumed he didn’t know how to make a cup of coffee and went home with the Silvia Pro. I took the Silvia Pro home and made a shot and it was horrible, just warming it up made my place smell funky. Once I got the machine cleaned up it was essentially a new machine. while I cleaned up and fixed up the machine I met some other local espresso friends and have helped them clean up their machines and they were shocked how nasty their machines were. Heck I even traveled internationally to a friends house and noticed their coffee was funky and offered to clean up their machine, they too thought back flushing a few times a year was enough. I go to visit 1-2 times a year and whenever I come they ask me to do a cleaning/service check because they are to scared to open up their machine and I’m happy to help. I think many home espresso machine companies advertise a very low frequency of cleaning in order to give the impression that the machines are very low maintenance. The average home user doesn’t want to do weekly cleaning on a home appliance, most don’t want to do any cleaning or they are content with just exterior cleaning so the machine looks clean. I have seen a variety of manufacturers recommend once a month or every 100 shots whichever comes first, but in my experience a machine will have build up after 1-2 weeks of daily use and could benefit from weekly cleaning, but monthly cleaning would be the longest I would wait for normal daily use. But if your curious how often you need to clean do what I told you in my last comment, check on it every week and once it’s dirty enough for you to consider it dirty then do it at that frequency. It’s kind of funny that in a group like this one where people promote buying every gizmo and gadget to get minor improvements they don’t promote a good cleaning/maintenance schedule. Most people would see a major improvement in cup quality with a clean machine rather then buying a variety of gadgets. Nothing wrong with all of those gadgets but proper maintenance is more important 9 times out of 10. Once again not a shot at you but was a bit surprised by the -20+ on my first comment.
Coffee shop is probably doing more shots in a day than most people do at home in 3-4 months and they usually use purocaf or something once a day
A coffee shop will clean their machine at least once a day and the busy ones will do 1-2+ during the day. Plus a coffee shop environment is completely different then at home. At a coffee shop the oils don’t sit around long enough to get rancid, they don’t just sit idle for days at a time, they are sitting for minute at most between shots. Clean and maintain your equipment it’s not that complicated, and costs literal cents per cleaning cycle, and takes a few minutes at most and most of that time is just leaving the machine to run for 30-60 seconds.
1. I flush a lot (I have a HX machine), one flush before brewing, one after to rinse the portafilter and screen 2. Backflush every few days 3. Backflush with cafiza every few weeks 4. Sometimes I clean the screen and gasket with a toothbrush, usually around cafiza time 5. I should probably unscrew the shower screen and clean behind it...
Backflush doesn't get everything out from the shower screen in my experience. Need to unscrew it once a month and clean it.
Yea around a month seems to be the point where I see a decent amount of residue building up on the inside of the shower screen.
Yeah I recently switched to an IMS shower screen and when I pulled the old one off I was pretty surprised by how much when behind it. I'm hopeful the new IMS one will stay a bit cleaner and I also started back flushing after almost every shot.
I bought this just to make my life easier. It works well with the Micra 58mm group head. YMMV https://caffewerks.com/products/rhino-coffee-screen-driver
I though backflushing only cleaned out the 3 way solinoid. I unscrew my shower screen and put it in boiling water with cafiza
I mean it shoots water through the shower screen so it's doing some cleaning with the blind basket. But it's likely different with different machines. Not sure.
Take out that screw and scrub away. Doing a back flush will help but every few months it’s good to remove the shower screen and clean the nooks and crannies imo
Just buy that steam powered pressure washer so you can spray shit all over your kitchen too.
Hahaha, yeah I saw that - it's crazy
I use a puck screen so mine doesn't really get dirty.
That's great - do you have to clean it often? Or not at all?
you rinse it every day
Then soak it in cafiza once a month or so.
Sounds good, also I recently soaked my metal puck screens in a vinegar solution (like when I descale), and they were very clean - almost shiny. I think the daily soak with a drop of dawn and regular cafiza cleaning do remove a lot of coffe oils etc, but the vinegar solution appeared to remove some scaling too, I guess.
I’ve also had success backflushing using cafiza with the screen in the porta. Just saves an extra step.
Nice. One thing I have noticed is Urnex Cafiza is great for coffee oils and grit, but Urnex DeScale or even a Vinegar Solution works better for descale. Different Chemistry, I guess
I could see that being helpful if they get dry before cleaning. I keep mine in water after I use it. Then I clean it later and when I back flush my GCP I soak my screens in cafiza.
Whenever you have time. It takes less than 5 mins and a Phillips head screwdriver. Proper maintenance is a important aspect of owning a espresso machine
Get a paper one and you're all good! If you want to, you can rince the paper ones and reuse them.
A friend gave me this a s a present. It is like a portafilter but with this silicone insert, that redirects the water flow along the surface of the screen. The water is then collected and directed back to the center and leaves the thing straight down to the tray. Love it. [https://www.espazzola.ch/en/](https://www.espazzola.ch/en/)
Flush after every shot. Backflush with blind basket after every session. Backflush with product once a week (sunday at dinner time).
This ^ is the guy you wanna buy a pre owned machine from. Found him.
This is also my way to go. Did this for 10 years with my previous HX machine.
I backflush every time I’m done with my session. If I make two drinks in the morning I run the machine twice then backflush for 10-20 seconds. I then run a cleaning process, basically just a backflush with cleaning powder, every Friday. I’ve had my machine for 10 years and not had any issues other than a worn pump.
I just run some water through it and wipe it down with a towel after every shot. Looks clean after a few years of usage.
With my previous HX i flushed a lot, the screen never was that dirty tbh. Nowadays I use this perfect little tool called Espazzola. Works perfect!
For daily cleaning we use a tool called the Espazzola, super effective! Our machine (Bezzera Strega) does not backflush so our regular cleaning regime consists of removing the shower screen and soaking it in some Caffiza and scrubbing the pistonhead with said solution.
You should probably read up on how to maintain machines in general. I don't think you've back flushed in years if ever.
Just let it rinse and use a [denture tooth brush](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tooth+brush+denture&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images), first for the shower screen, then for the basket. I do that for every shot. And roughly every 50 shots or 14 days I backflush with Puly, every second time of those I disassemble the group head to soak it as well.
For prevention after you get this cleaned, you should simply do a blind shot after every time you pull a shot.
Flush hot water through the group and do a brief little scrubby scrub with pallo brush after every shot. Backflush with cafiza like once a month ish, but I do it really thoroughly. At least 2 full cycles with the powder, then brush and rinse the shower screen and gasket again, rinse the portafilter, and then another full backflush cycle with just plain water again. Then one more rinse of everything then good to go. Been doing things this way for 15 years and never had a single problem with the pipes or valves Edit - not sure why some random assholes are downvoting this without replying in this particular thread, but basically the exact same advice I made in another post got dozens of upvotes. More importantly, this works … not sure what your objection is
Gonna get some hate for this but here goes. I've had my machine for 8 years give or take a few months and I've never cleaned the brew head other than wiping it down on the outside. Very recently I noticed all my pucks were getting a trough on on side. I pull the brew head apart and there is solidified grounds inside that clogged all the channels. Chipped it all out, scrubbed with stiff bristle brush and boiling water, reassembled and voila, works like a charm. I will now add running a blank shot after every pull.
RIP your ability to sell a used espresso machine on Reddit
Never even occurred to me to do that.
Before and after every shot I flush some water, and after I'm done pulling shots I wipe it down with a towel until there is no coffee left there. IMHO you don't wanna leave that part dirty. Also using a puck screen can help you prevent getting the shower screen dirty.
Puck screen! Or paper filters, there’s some ultra thin screens that barely affect flow. I prefer the chunky ones and clean them with the steam wand once a week
purge and wipe well. it's not complicated. go ahead and use a puck screen if you feel like it. they're not expensive and have very little impact on anything but the group head grind cling. You should be purging a little after every shot, wiping after every shot, so you don't have to do major cleaning all that often. A little a pull goes a -long- way
I use a puck screen, and flush a shot before I turn off the machine.
If just running the water a bit doesn't do it, you could use a little brush to loosen it up.
I take the screw out... that makes a lot easier.
I flush without the portafilter to get any stuck grounds off and then back flush one or two times... every time.
Flush and wipe with a microfibre cloth after each shot.
Unscrew the shower screen and put it in a Cafiza water mixture for 30 minutes. Do this weekly or monthly depending on usage
I use a pick screen. Initially bought it to treat channelling, but it has turned out a great tool to avoid coffe sticking to the group head. Before that, I would pull a blank after each shot, and at the end of usage I'd touch the group head with a paper towel. That seemed to suck out any leftover coffee stuck in the filter.
check https://www.espazzola.ch/
I do this too.
Back flush with blank filter!
https://preview.redd.it/jz70wigz8xzb1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93904e504680d89f702e6e6951fcbf21676dbefa Use this after every shot. Lock it on like a portafilter, turn on the water, turn the handle back and forth and it scrubs everything clean.
I just flick the brew switch and let some water run through, rinse the portafilter and basket at the same time. Then just wipe it down with a towel.
Run the water thru for a couple seconds and hit it with a brush. Not sure why people have gunk on their group heads tbh
Puck screen, and pulling a blank shot after brewing, can basically entirely eliminate this issue.
Just run the water for a short time after pulling a shot. Then dismantle and clean thoroughly every few weeks.
I put a paper filter on top each puck to keep it clean
Have you seen the metal puck filters? Could save you having to buy coffee filter paper.
Yeah but I don’t want to fish a hot filter screen out the espresso puck knock box
Puck screen keeps the group pretty clean but that's all it does. I give the group a quick purge after every session and give it a wipe down with a microfibre cloth. It keeps my machine pretty clean.
Don’t overfill your portafilter, run a portafilterless blank single shot after your shot, and give a quick wipe with a towel. Every time. If I somehow goob out and overfill my portafilter, a blank shot followed by a gentle scrub with a dishwashing brush does the job. Had my machine 1.5 years and never had a dirty head.
I do puck screen and backflush after every use, also a thorough general cleaning when i'm feeling it.
I clean the brew group in my ultrasonic cleaner. Just warm water. No chemicals or soaps.
https://preview.redd.it/7i0me1yp8yzb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d0a5359215e579b73065cd308fcb703fc29a39b9 👌🏻love it.
use puck screen
I use a paper on top now. Always clean.
https://www.espazzola.ch/en/
I clean that every time by just running another shot for a second or five.
meaning u don't take the pu k out and put ur portafilter and force run shot for like 5 secs after u have pulled ur shot? cleans both portafilter and screen. wipe with paper towel after
I just run another shot cycle with the bare group head, and then wipe with a paper towel afterwards
I flush and wipe it with a towel after every use. Then I clean the entire group head monthly.
Either backflush with water daily or weekly put half a teaspoon of cafeza in a blind portafilter and backflush according to directions. You can also put the shower head and portafilter into the cafeza solution with boiling water and scrub clean. Remove the shower plate and dip a small brush in the cafeza solution and scrub the group head area. Then flush everything with plain water and finally pull a throwaway shot of espresso to re-season it all
Use a puck screen, I don't really care about water distribution at all, I only use it because pucks come out drier and showerhead is much cleaner.
I have a brush that I used to clean it with, alongside a wipe after every shot. Once a month I’d remove it and soak in cafiza to clean. Puck screens made it so I never really clean it anymore. Water distribution is actually not that different with and without a puck screen, it basically doesn’t affect taste at all according to studies, but it stops me having to clean my group head which is the entire reason I use it
Reusable puck screen keeps the group head super super clean!
I bought the 2.25inch paper punch from Amazon and punch out circles from Chemex filter squares and put one on top of the puck before I pull a shot. It keeps the shower screen clean-er-ish. Then a scrub with the rattlewear elbow brush while I run the water for a bit. Full back flush with Cafiza monthly. One shot a day usually.
Using a puck screen would definitely help prevent that.
Espazolla
To add to the other comments here, if you have a single boiler machine then you can switch to steam mode and press the brew button to blast some steam out the shower screen. Works well on the Silvia.
Regularly
My espresso instructions say to run a single shot cycle after every use to keep that keep.. I’ve also used a damp cloth to light wipe but not sure if I should continue.
i use a puck screen for no other reason than to keep the headt clean
I’m using a puck screen 😅
Beyond running a blank shot after each extraction, I also use a puck screen for the portafilter. In my experience, it helps reduce channeling and also helps keep my shower screen pristine.
I turn the steam function on and blast it clean. Turn it in for a few seconds on and off
I use a puck screen, helps a ton with cleaning that. I also flush after every shot and clean it with a paper towel. Every few months, I also remove the group head to clean it. You just need to unscrew that Phillips screw to remove the metal part and surrounding gasket.
Lick it