Best coffee cleaning products for the Home Barista
Keeping your coffee setup at home might be one of the most important things you need to do to keep your espresso’s and cappuccino’s at the highest level. You can think that a coffee setup at home doesn’t require a lot of cleaning, but it does. This is not only for creating a good quality espresso, but also for hygienic purposes. Seen a lot of not so healthy bacteria and moulds can get live on your machines and equipment
The types of cleaning solutions are wide spread, which you can use to clean your coffee machine. In the case of a steam tube you will need a milk cleaner, for cleaning out your brewing group you require a cleaning solution which can be used with backflushing. A other thing a lot of barista’s forget, is cleaning your coffee grinder. For this you can find a variety of cleaning solutions
In this article we will talk about the various types of cleaning tool you need to keep your espresso machine in good working order.
Cleaning product’s
Cleaning tools;
Cleaning your coffee machine
If you want to keep your espresso machine and in technical good working order you need to have various types of cleaning solutions. This does cost some money, but by keeping your coffee machine clean you will keep your espresso machine in good condition and will getting big bills for maintenance work.
Cleaning your brewing group
The cleaning of the brewing group is maybe one of the easiest things to do as a Home barista, and also one of the most important things. You can clean the coffee grounds off the shower screen and portafilter gasket with a nylon hair brush. After this you can start with backflushing the brewing group. So place a blindfilter in a portafilter, add Puly Caff or Brooks cleaning tablets to the portafilter. And flush the brewing group. This will clean out all the coffee residues from the internals and solenoid valve. Always rinse without cleaning detergent. Now you can make the best espresso again.
Cleaning the steam tube on your coffee machine
When you froth up milk for your cappuccino you will always have the issue that some milk will remain behind on the steam tip and or steam tube. This can be easily cleaned off by soaking the steam tube in Brooks Milk cleaner or Puly milk plus cleaning solution. Fill your milk pitcher with water and cleaning solution and just let is soak for a couple of hours. After this you can easily wipe of the milk residue, don’t forget to rinse with fresh drinking water.
Descale your coffee machine
Descaling your coffee machine is always required after a certain amount of time, you can use various methods for this. You normally need to do this every ¾ months. We advice to use a organic type of descaler such as the Brooks descaling solution, which is based on citric acid.
Descaling your espresso machine in a whole only works with machines which are fitted with a water tank, not with machines which are build with a main water connection.
Helpful tools for cleaning your valuable espresso machine
There are a variety of espresso machine tools we use for our espressomachines, below a overview of those various tools
Shower screen screwdriver
At some point you need to remove your IMS shower screen from your brewing group. How you will do this, does depend on what kind of brand espresso machine you have. Seen some espresso screens have been attached with a screw, and others are friction fit. So they are held in place by the portafilter gasket. When you remove the portafilter gasket the shower screen can easily be removed.
In the case of a shower screen with a screw you require a screwdriver. This can be a Phillips head screwdriver or a flat head screwdriver. Depending on the model and brand of coffee machine. But we do advice to use a more expensive screwdriver, which has less chance of damaging the head. For instance for the Phillips head the Wera Stubby Philips PH2 screwdriver and for the flat head the Wera Stubby 1,2x8,0mm.
Microfibre cloths
A microfibre cloth is ideal to clean the chrome and stainless steel finishes on your espresso machine, as well as the painted section. This can be done for instance in combination with Puly bar igenic, to sanitize your machine and work surface. We mainly use our Korean made microfibre cloths. These are softer then for instance the ones made by Cafelat or Joefrexx
Portafilter spout cleaning brush
One of the most difficult places to clean is the spout of your portafilter. Over time you will get a accumulation of old coffee, which only becomes more difficult to clean. You have for instance the Pällo portafilter spout cleaning brushes or the ones from our own brand, The Brooks portafilter spout cleaning brushes. These come in various coarseness. They can also be used to clean the insides of steam tubes and for cleaning the internals of copper tubing.
Blindfilter and filterbasket removal tool
To clean the brewing group of your espresso machine on the inside you will need a blind filter. This is a filter which has no holes in it, it can also be a rubber membrane. A blind filter is used in combination with for instance Puly Caff or the Brooks Cleaning tablets.
To easily remove the filterbasket, or blindfilter from your portafilter you can use the IMS filterbasket removal tool. This is way handier and safer then using a screwdriver or your nails.
Brewing group cleaning brush
The brewing group cleaning brush might be one of the more important tools you need, maybe on a daily basis. This type of brush is fitted on a angle so you can clean the bottom of the brewing group. These are made by brands such as Joe Frexx and Pällo.