Hi, I’m Paolo from “Le Piantagioni del Caffè” and in this video, I’m going to show you how to do a daily clean of your espresso machine so you leave it in excellent condition at the end of the day.

We disengage the portafilter, we remove the portafilter, as you can see, there’s already dirt and oil residue from the extraction, we immerse it in hot water and detach the spray head from its slot. Not all espresso machines require the spray head to be removed, this type of coffee machine gives us this possibility. We soak the spray head with its screw too, taking care to not lose it when we remove the water. At this point, we add 5-10 g of a specific product into the water and we leave the filter, portafilter, and spray head for 15 minutes in this solution.

Meanwhile, let’s put 3/5 g of the same product into a special filter, which is a blind filter: the water won’t pass through here but bounces back inside, cleaning the interior of the espresso machine. Now let’s slot in the portafilter. This machine model has a specific cleaning programme that does it automatically. Otherwise, for machine models that don’t have this option, we can simply select “on”, keeping it on for around 10 seconds and then turning it off 5 or 6 times. As you can hear, the solenoid valve is already starting to pass the product inside the machine, cleaning it. In this case, we use the cleaning programme, which will do this first step automatically. 

Once the first part of the clean has finished, we rinse the blind filter and we slot it in again and start the rinse cycle. Here this is also automatic, or, if we’ve got a machine that doesn’t have this type of programme, we do what we did during the first step, we turn it on for 10 seconds and switch it off, repeating 5 times. Here, we can make use of the cleaning programme, which will rinse the brewing unit so it can be ready for use again.

Once we’ve emptied the water tank, we rinse the portafilter, filter and spray head with hot water. As you can see, the products are practically as good as new. Namely, oil and residue free and ready for another day’s work. We attach the spray head to the brewing unit again, reinsert the filter into the portafilter and slot in the portafilter to the brewing unit again.

There are various schools of thought on how to leave your portafilters at night. The important thing is that they always stay warm, otherwise in the morning, during the first few runs, as this is cold and the brewing unit warm, the espresso will suffer a thermal shock and will not be brewed correctly. So, I recommend keeping the portafilter slotted in, perhaps without engaging it on the brewing unit. Once you’ve cleaned with the blind filter and cleaned the filters, portafilters and spray heads.

The last step is to clean the drip tray, which on this machine is inside. Pour over hot water so as to remove any coffee powder residues inside the drip tray which, if not removed, risk clogging the drain, creating unwanted water overflows. The last step is to clean the cup platform. On this machine, everything can be detached. All you need to do is detach it, take it to your sink and rinse it with hot water so that it is thoroughly cleaned and ready to be used the next day.