Prevention is better than the cure, right? There's nothing worse than have your coffee machine breakdown on you right in the middle of peak service or just when you're looking for that first hit of coffee in the morning. Breakdowns are often expensive and extremely inconvenient.
So, what area's do you need to be focusing on in regards to preventative maintenance of your coffee machine? Also, how often do you need to conduct cleaning and servicing on your espresso machine? Well in this video Luke provides all the information you need to know to keep your machine happy, healthy and pumping out great tasting coffee.
Thanks for watching and if you have any questions about cleaning and maintaining your coffee machine please leave us a comment.
Unedited Video Transcript:
Water filters, espresso cleaner and descale. Hang about and i'll tell you how to keep your coffee machine in tip-top condition.
Hey everyone welcome back to the Artisti YouTube channel. Today we're going to be talking about how to look after your coffee machine, whether that is a domestic machine like this one here, the Giotto Rocket or a commercial machine , a La Marzocco or any other one you'd have in your cafe. There are so many similarities between the two but how you care for them and the time frames that you'll actually use chemical can vary so i want to break it down a little bit so that you can get a good information on when and how much you should be using
these chemicals.
So, i want to break it down into three areas, what i'm going to call pre-cleaning,
general cleaning and then servicing your coffee machine because these three different items will really affect how your machine is going to produce a
beautiful cup of coffee. How it's going to affect the longevity of your machine
and how it will actually affect your espresso and how it will work.
So let's go
straight into
filtration so when it comes to water
filtration
it is very important to get the right
type of filter for
the water that is actually going into
your coffee machine
now i would fully advise giving some
sort of water test
before you start to look at what kind of
filtration you're going to use
we use a product here at artisti called
the exact idea
it's a digital way for us to assess what
happens with water
and it will really narrow down all the
particulars that we want to take out of
water
so it doesn't affect a coffee machine
now i know this is an expensive option
but definitely go out and get yourself a
water test kit so that you can actually
assess things like your ph
the chlorines chlorides and the salts
and any metals that are actually
appearing in your water
and then you know what you're going to
go and target when you use a filter
to ensure great water quality for your
coffee
but also longevity in your machine so a
lot of people say that they can't have a
water filter at home
and so they're going to go and get a jug
which has a little
filter in it maybe a Brita jug i think
they're called or they might have one of
those
ceramic style water chillers with a
little filter in them
now they're great for drinking water but
when you look at a coffee machine
and they're being made out of copper and
some have stainless steel in them
there's other metals in there that we
need to help take
out of the water to ensure that we do
make sure that machine is going to last
so what i suggest is if you go to your
main kitchen tap
and you get yourself a commercial style
water filter
a fitting like this just allows you to
undo
the cold water tap and pop it onto the
inlet
and you'd buy another hose that would go
back into that tap inlet
you would then be able to put a
cartridge like this in place
that is going to really focus on getting
a lot more
of these minerals and chemicals out of
the water to ensure that your coffee
machine is going to last a lot longer
you can then just use a jug and top off
your coffee machine
over the back or you could plumb it in
if that's an option for you
but if you're renting everyone can do
that it's not going to cause any issues
with a rental property and it's pretty
easy to do
these kind of filters now there's a
whole range of filters that you can get
from sediment filters to ones that are
focusing on particular minerals
so once you've done that water test
you'll be able to read what that filter
is going to actually activate in taking
out of the water
a sediment filter like this it's going
to get down to a point one of a micron
is is quite a long um process or it's
going to take a lot of sediment out of
there
but if you've got something that is just
a paper style filter
that's going to be better than nothing
so definitely gets a filtration in there
and you need to then assess how that is
going to affect your machine
over time so when it comes to a
commercial machine
like this lumozako behind us we need to
do a lot more
analysis but also have a far better
quality of filtration that's going to be
used to ensure that we're actually
tackling that higher volumes of water
so what we do commercially is we have
the
pure tech twin system units here this
one's
focusing on sediment and this one is
really focusing
on all the other little nasties that are
in the water now these are great for us
they do have a pressure gauge so we know
when that filter is actually
full of all the chemicals that have been
taken out of the water
so once that pressure is low we know we
need to change it
and that's the hard thing that a lot of
people don't quite understand
is being able to change that water
filter at the right time
so i urge you not to let them sit in
there for a couple of years if you can
do it regularly
you know when you do your smoke alarms
maybe change your water filter
but being preventative is going to be
far better than trying to cure it on the
other end
how can you assess whether your
filtration is working in your domestic
machine
the simplest thing if you're a little
bit handy make sure your machine's
turned off
and de-steamed and if it's this kind of
model if you take this big nut out and
have a look
there's a lot of green and blue style
growths all over it
then you haven't been attacking the
right chemicals
or the minerals that are in your local
water so advise then
moving on to the next stages which is
descaling which we're going to come back
to
but also you've got to change that
filter whether it's overdue
or a different filter to tackle the
exact things that are causing that
buildup
so now we come to general maintenance
and that's where we start to look at
more the brewing of coffee
and keeping our machine clean that's
where you've got to have
something like this espresso clean from
confetto
and you've got to use that to clean your
brew head
now a lot of people skim on how much
they're going to use of this chemical
every time you use it you need to use
the full scoop in here it's one teaspoon
there's a lot of myths that you just get
a tiny little bit essentially on a
teaspoon and pop it in
that's going to do nothing to actually
cleaning your coffee machine
and this applies whether it's a domestic
machine here
or an individual head here commercially
so you've got to use a lot of this
chemical if you don't have any get some
straight away
and keep on top of how you actually
clean there's always some great
instructions on the side of these
containers
so how often do you use your espresso
cleaner
well the best tip i can give you is
every time you put a new bag of coffee
beans into your grinder
you need to clean your machine so if
you're a one kilo
a week a month or fortnight or a 500
grand person
or 250 grams you've just paid some
decent money
for a beautiful bean now you don't want
to put that in a machine that's going to
be full of oils
and build up from the previous bag so
make sure you do your roaster a flavor
and you get to taste the beautiful taste
of the beans that they're providing you
with
so you've been doing that you've been
keeping up to your cleaning
and you're doing it ready for the next
bag of beans that you're going to put in
but how do you know you're actually
doing a good job in these domestic
machines
i'm going to show you how to take the
shower screen out and the seal
on this common e61 head and i'll show
you exactly what you're looking for
so let's have a look so we're going to
take a handle out
and you're just going to need a little
flathead screwdriver and we're going to
lever that
on one side and then come back and leave
it on the other side
and that head's going to pop out so
you're going to get a seal and a shower
screen
now your particular machine may have a
little screw in the middle
you'd simply undo that and this should
all fall out
just be careful they will be hot if
you've just turned your machine off
and you can see this one's actually new
it's got a little bit of grease on it
still
a little bit of coffee there where we've
just seasoned this machine but it's
relatively really nice now what people
do find
is they start to pop out their seals and
shower screens
and they're looking like this you can
barely see through this if you hold it
up to the light
it is just so full of coffee oil to the
point
it's actually more like a carbon so
there has been nowhere near enough
coffee cleaner being used to attack this
oil
so when you're extracting your next
coffee all you're doing is picking up
all that terrible flavor
making that into the water mix that's
then going through your fresh beautiful
coffee
so if you've got anything like this you
need to give it a good clean
if it's this bad you definitely need to
buy yourself a new shower screen
and if your seal is quite hard and you
can
basically crumble it in your hands you
need a new seal that's not going to have
enough pressure to be able to provide
that water through
so i usually replace those two at the
same time so in commercial machines
how often should you use your espresso
cleaner i say
every day because when we go into cafes
and we tell them to do it every second
day
or once a week they never get done
it's not something that's a routine that
people are going in and ticking off to
make sure it's happening
so if you're going to use any more than
one kilo of coffee a day you've got to
clean that machine
every day and if you get any spare time
throughout the day where you're not
making any coffee pop in the blind
basket
give it a bit of a flush up in that head
you're going to help get rid of some of
that coffee grind and oil that's sitting
in there
and that's going to make sure that
you're making beautiful coffee
throughout that day for your customers
if you're not sure how to use espresso
cleaner in your coffee machine
we've got a detailed step-by-step video
which will show you how to do it
we'll leave a link in the comments below
so stage three
is service now this is a question we get
asked a lot is how often do i descale my
machine
the best answer i can give you is look
after your machine so you don't have to
descale it
ensure you have great filters ensure
you're using a good espresso clean and
doing it regularly
because maintaining a machine is going
to be far better for the longevity
of your machine the taste of the coffee
you're going to have
all the working parts in the machine so
prevention is far better than cure
i can't stress that enough so as i
mentioned earlier if you've undone the
nut
on that machine and you've got all this
green scale and build up
that's what the descale is trying to get
rid of
now if you're just using a liquid mix it
is not going to attack a big lump of
that so you do have to get in there and
scrape it off and
and really attack it now that's probably
something a
commercial service tech should be doing
for you
but if you do find a little bit of it
you can use your d-scale liquid there
and that will start to help your machine
but definitely that'll give you an
understanding of
how bad your filtration is go back and
fix your filtration
and then hopefully you don't get too
much build up throughout your whole
machine
where it does break down and you've got
to take it in for some costly repairs
so if you are going to descale your
machine i'm going to give you this word
of warning
it is an acid it can burn your hands it
can get in your eyes so be really
careful
but the other thing is if you leave it
in there too long you can
eat away your element wreck your boiler
and break other parts that shouldn't be
in contact time
for long periods with that kind of acid
and people have used vinegar and other
things as well and that's exactly the
same issue
you can't leave it in there for a long
amount of time it will literally eat
your machine
from the inside out so be really careful
and if you do put it in there make sure
you get it out
flush flush flush to make sure that
before you make your next coffee you're
not drinking descal liquid
so do you need to descale your
commercial machine
no your coffee roaster or machine
supplier or service tech
should be looking after that for you
they should be making sure the great
filtration
is in place to ensure you don't have
those buildups
now what we do find commercially is
where there's a lot of building works
going on whether they're cutting up
pipes building apartments or whatever
there is a huge change in the water
quality that occurs
so that's when you need to make sure
that your water filters are changed
far more regularly and that they are
attacking the specific things that are
happening in your area
because that's where we do find the
biggest amount of breakdowns occur
when that construction is happening
locally to the business
so there's my three areas that allow you
to keep your machine in tip-top
condition
you've got your pre-cleaning which is
going to be your water filter
then you've got your general maintenance
which is going to be your espresso clean
and then you've got servicing using your
d-scale so hopefully guys that gives you
an overall picture on how to look after
your machine so you get beautiful coffee
at home or in your cafe
if you've got any questions make sure
you shoot us one in the comments below
we'd love to answer them
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