Cleaning your coffee machine

How and why you should clean and descale

Your coffee machine can work miracles. It has the ability to wake you up, fill you up, and helps you to start each day with a smile. Coffee lovers world-wide turn on their machines almost every day for these exact reasons.

But for all of the joy our coffee machines bring us, we often forget to give them the attention they need. In fact, even the biggest coffee fans leave weeks, months or years in between proper machine maintenance. Cleaning and descaling your coffee machine is an important step to delicious coffee, but it’s one that many of us neglect.

Cleaning your coffee machine

What is the best way to clean your machine?

Look after your steam wand

Make sure that you wipe and purge your steam wand after each use. This removes milk residue and clears milk from inside the wand. It’s also a good idea to wipe down your steam wand to remove any residual milk from the outside after each and every use.


Look after your built in milk solution

If your coffee machine includes a milk container to create milky coffees, it should generally be cleaned after each use. For Nespresso machines such as the Lattissima series, the ‘Rapid Cappuccino System’ (RCS) should be disassembled after each use. All components can be cleaned in the upper level of your dishwasher or by hand washing.


Descaling

It’s important to give your coffee machine a deep clean to keep everything working and tasting the way it should. Descaling your machine every 6-12 months will remove mineral build up that can impact on your machine’s performance,taste and temperature of your coffee.

For Nespresso machines, use a Nespresso descaling kit which gently eliminates lime scale build up to ensure that your tasting experience is enjoyable every single day.



Coffee machine cleaning accessories

Why do you need to descale your coffee machine?

Water is a key component to a great coffee. Water contains various minerals such as calcium and magnesium and these minerals pass through your machine.

Over time they can build up to form lime scale which can negatively impact on your machine’s operational ability and can affect the taste and temperature of your coffee.

If lime scale is left to build up for an excessive length of time it can even cause your machine to stop working completely.




Signs that your coffee machine needs descaling

  • Your coffee has a dirty/burnt taste to it.
  • Your machine or steamer is making strange noises when you use it.
  • Your machine is pouring coffee more slowly than normal.
  • Your coffee is not as hot as normal.

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