How to Clean, Maintain, and Service Your Home Espresso Machine? How to Clean the Shower Screen and Steam Wand?

Essential Espresso Machine Maintenance Guide

When making espresso coffee, everyone carefully attends to every detail to ensure complete extraction! However, after brewing is complete, people often overlook the maintenance and cleaning of their espresso machine.

It's important to know that if espresso machine maintenance is not performed in a timely manner, various problems can easily occur after a period of use, affecting extraction! Therefore, maintenance is extremely important! For this reason, FrontStreet Coffee is here today to share which parts of your coffee machine require maintenance. Although today's demonstration "model" is the small espresso machine used at FrontStreet Coffee's store, in reality, the cleaning process for most espresso machines is quite similar, so this cleaning tutorial can be considered universally applicable.

1. Cleaning the Shower Screen

The shower screen is the first part you see when looking up at the brewing head from below. It directly contacts the coffee grounds during extraction! When pressure reaches a certain level, hot water passes through the shower screen, carrying coffee substances downward to drip into the cup! When the extraction ends and the valve is closed, un-extracted coffee liquid will experience a "sucking back" phenomenon!

Although it will be discharged immediately, some oils and coffee grounds will remain on the shower screen. If not cleaned promptly (as shown in the picture above), these coffee particles and oils will be dried by the high temperature of the brewing head, and after multiple accumulations, they will affect extraction! Therefore, we need to perform different levels of cleaning on the shower screen at different intervals!

Simple Cleaning: After extraction ends, we can open the water valve to release a small amount of hot water to rinse away coffee residue and oils adsorbed on the shower screen! Then, after accumulating a certain number of extractions, use a cleaning brush to thoroughly scrub the shower screen! After all, hot water cannot completely clean away residue and oils, so some force is still needed for cleaning.

Deep Cleaning: When it's time to close down for the day, we need to start cleaning the interior of the shower screen! No matter how hard you scrub with a brush, you're only cleaning the surface of the shower screen, while the accumulated dirt inside still remains! Therefore, we need to replace the portafilter basket, switching from the perforated basket to a seamless blind basket, then pour in 2-3g of specialized espresso machine cleaning powder, attach the portafilter, and perform internal cleaning of the shower screen!

The specific operation is to open the valve, and because the blind basket has no holes for water to pass through, the hot water will continuously circulate inside the machine for about 15 seconds, then we can close the valve. The coffee machine will draw the cleaning solution from the blind basket into the pressure relief channel and discharge it, thus achieving the internal cleaning effect! Repeat 3-5 times, during which there's no need to remove the portafilter or replace the cleaning powder. The reason for not performing a full minute of continuous flushing is to avoid potential damage to the pressure relief valve from prolonged operation! After the backflushing is complete, remove the portafilter and run water through once more. For those who are extra diligent, you can brush it again with the brush, and the cleaning is complete! (Remember to discard the first espresso shot extracted the next morning when you start the machine~)

2. Cleaning the Steam Wand

The steam wand is a very important functional part of the espresso machine, essential for frothing milk for milk-based coffee drinks! Therefore, its maintenance is also extremely important! Similarly, its cleaning also has both simple and deep cleaning methods!

Simple Cleaning: After frothing milk, both the surface and interior of the steam wand will retain some milk residue. If not cleaned immediately, this milk will be dried by the high temperature of the steam wand within just a few seconds, sticking to the inside and outside of the wand, making cleaning extremely difficult at that point!

Therefore, after frothing is complete, we need to immediately use a clean damp cloth to wipe away milk from the surface (you can prepare a dedicated clean cloth for wiping the steam wand), then release steam for 1-2 seconds to spray out any remaining milk from inside!

Steam Tip Deep Cleaning: Since we call it "simple cleaning," there will definitely be areas that aren't thoroughly cleaned! For example, the inside of the steam tip holes! Because there are still some dead spaces inside the holes, steam cannot reach milk residue in these corners. So,同样 when closing down for the day, we can remove the steam tip, find a container, pour in cleaning powder and hot water, and let the tip soak overnight~ The next day, rinse it clean and it's ready to use~

Steam Wand Deep Cleaning: Similarly! Since we're cleaning the steam tip, don't forget the steam wand itself! Use a cup of appropriate height, pour in cleaning powder and hot water, and let it soak overnight~ Then when starting the machine the next day, run steam for a few minutes to complete the cleaning~

(You can also soak them together~)

3. Portafilter Cleaning

Many friends use portafilters with spouts for extraction, and these portafilters have quite a few dead spaces around the spout area. If not cleaned regularly, unpleasant odors and other negative flavors can develop. Therefore, we must not forget to clean the portafilter!

Prepare a container that can accommodate the entire portafilter head, then pour in an appropriate amount of cleaning powder and hot water enough to submerge the head, and let it soak overnight! The next day, take it out and rinse it clean~

These are all the areas we can clean ourselves. When these areas receive regular maintenance and cleaning, the espresso machine can remain "healthy" and reduce the probability of problems occurring. If major problems arise due to untimely cleaning, and you need to send it for maintenance and repair, you'll face considerable repair costs!

FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)
No. 10, Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473