The Essential Post-Clean Ritual: Why You Must Season Your Espresso Machine Heads
Just finished a deep clean of your espresso machine with a chemical cleaner like Cafetto? Great work on maintaining your equipment! However, before you pull that first shot for a customer (or yourself!), there's a critical, often-missed step: seasoning your group heads.
Failing to season your heads will leave a trace amount of chemical residue, resulting in an unpleasant, slightly chemically taste in your first few coffees. Seasoning coats the internal components with coffee oils, neutralizing the cleaner and ensuring your espresso tastes pure.
Here is the simple, low-cost method to properly season your group heads and get back to serving perfect coffee.
1. Prepare Your Seasoning Puck
To effectively coat the internal parts of the group head and exhaust valve, you need to create an extremely resistant coffee puck. This intentionally slows water flow and forces pressurized water back up through the head.
Step-by-Step Puck Prep:
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Under-Dose: Fill your portafilter basket with slightly less coffee than your standard recipe. This leaves ample space above the coffee for water to collect and build pressure.
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Over-Tamp: This is the only time you'll ever want to do this! Tamp the coffee puck as hard as you can. If you're using an automated tamper (like a Puq Press), tamp it multiple times—four or five times is plenty—to make it maximally dense and compact.
The resulting puck should be visibly well below the standard dose line. This dense, under-dosed puck will be your tool to trap water and build back-pressure in the group head.
2. The Head Seasoning Process
Now that your ultra-compact coffee puck is ready, you'll use it to push coffee-infused water back up through the internal components of the group head.
The Seasoning Rinse:
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Insert and Engage: Lock your prepared portafilter into the group head.
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Manual Brew: Manually start the water flow (the brew cycle).
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Brew and Release: Let the water run for a few seconds—just enough time for the water to brew and build pressure on top of the ultra-compact puck.
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Stop the Cycle: Turn off the water flow. The built-up pressure will force the coffee-infused water, along with the lingering chemical residue, back up through the exhaust valve and into the drip tray.
Repeat to Eliminate Residue
You need to repeat this process multiple times to ensure full coverage and residue removal. Aim for 7 to 10 repetitions per group head.
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Watch for Dripping: As you continue this process, you may notice that water eventually starts to force its way through the coffee puck and drip out the bottom. This is not a problem. The over-tamped puck will still retain enough pressure to force the majority of the water back up through the exhaust.
By forcing this coffee-infused water back up through the entire internal path, you are effectively coating the inside of the group head and exhaust with coffee oils—getting rid of that last chemical taste.
Once you have completed 7 to 10 seasoning rinses, your group head is ready! You are now clean, seasoned, and ready to serve delicious, pure-tasting espresso for the day.
Do you have any other questions about post-cleaning maintenance or espresso machine rituals?
