Professional-grade espresso machines are a lot like luxury vehicles, in that if you show them the right amount of love and care, they’ll easily outstrip even your wildest performance expectations.
If you’ve just purchased your first espresso machine, learning how to clean it properly can feel intimidating. After all, there’s a lot of internal machinery to account for, and stepping wrong can do more harm than good.
Well, good news: keeping espresso machines clean is easy, as long as you have the right routine in place. Today, we’re helping you to build one! Read on to unearth our recommendations for a daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning routine to keep your new machine humming for years.
Before we begin: This might seem like an obvious suggestion, but be sure to always check your espresso machine’s manual for the manufacturer’s recommended cleaning schedule. The recommendations we’re laying out below are a great starting point, but it pays to know exactly what your machine’s manual recommends and build a cleaning routine from there.
Daily Espresso Cleaning Routine
For any coffee enthusiast, the daily clean is just as much a part of the ritual of making a delicious cup of coffee as the very first sip. On a day-to-day basis, all you need to think about are the basics that will keep your machine clear of buildup. That looks like:
- Purging and wiping your steam wand to clear milk residue. Dried milk can cause blockages in the wand.
- Flush the group head after you brew each shot to remove residual coffee grounds and oils.
- Keep your accessories rinsed, including your portafilter and basket, to prevent coffee oil from building up.
- Wipe down your exterior. Ground coffee has a habit of sticking around almost anywhere!
You can also invest in a bar brush to sweep away the coffee grinds, just to make sure no residual deposits are being left anywhere.
Weekly espresso machine maintenance
Once a week, you can take fifteen minutes to do a more thorough cleaning of your machine. Espresso machines require this because, despite your best efforts, small deposits of coffee oil and other residual deposits will end up in your machine while it’s being used.
These can come from the coffee, the milk you steam, or even the quality of the water you’re running through your machine.
Every week, we recommend doing just one thing: backflushing.
How to Backflush your Espresso Machine
You’ll need a blind basket for this. The blind basket has no holes, so when you lock the grouphead with the blind basket into the machine, the water will not run out, instead coursing through the machine to remove buried deposits.
We usually recommend backflushing with an espresso machine cleaning powder. If you’ve purchased a La Marzocco machine, you would have received the Purocaf Cleaning Solution with it, but you can also purchase these independently. Simply put a little bit into the blindbasket, backflush to distribute the product through your machine, and then backflush with water to rinse.
Note: There are some resources that might recommend you descale your machine weekly. We don’t recommend doing this, as it can actually do more harm than good by stripping the internals of the machine and making them squeak against one another. Some machines don’t recommend descaling at all, so make sure to double-check your specific guidelines.
Scale builds up as a result of minerals in the water running through your machine. You can minimise how much scale appears by filtering hard water through a filtered jug or installing an undersink filter if you want something more permanent.
Monthly Cleaning Routine
Finally, a monthly cleaning routine for all espresso machines usually consists of a standard deep clean. Water has been sitting in your espresso machine’s tank all month, so it’s important to disassemble the removable components of your machine and give them a good clean to remove any oils.
This is also the time to descale with an espresso machine descaler. If you have a fairly well-filtered water supply, you can wait up to three months to do this, but if you are piping hard water through your machine, we recommend descaling once a month.
Keeping espresso machines clean and well-maintained is more than worth the time it takes. In return for a little bit of tender loving care, your machine will always produce the best coffee, and it will take up a valued spot on your countertop for many years to come. With the right steps taken daily, weekly, and monthly, you won’t have to stress about a major clean every few months or contend with any of the issues that arise from a poorly cleaned machine. Remember, when in doubt, always check your manufacturer’s guidelines to be sure of what is recommended for your particular machine.
Find the top-of-the-line machine that will stay with you for years.
At La Marzocco, we provide everything the Australian coffee lover needs to get their fix each day, and we offer servicing for espresso machines. Whether you experiment with bold new flavours every day or you want a solid, steady coffee companion to see you through the same brew for life, we have the machine for you.
Browse our range of espresso machines and accessories to find the machine that will love you for life, and the cleaning products that will help you love it back.
