Coffee Machine Boiler Care
Cleaning your coffee machine regularly ensures best results for your machine service operation, as well as the quality of the coffee you serve.
For businesses based in the South East of England principally, hard water can be very problematic for your coffee machine boiler with limescale build-up – like what can be found in your kettle – inside your internal coffee machine boiler.
For best results and coffee that consistently tastes fresh every day, backflushing should be carried out as part of your regular cleaning regime, to ensure that nothing within the machine is allowed to build-up.
In addition to backflushing, our coffee machine engineer Steve Banting recommends some of his top tips for maintaining your coffee machine.
REPLACE YOUR WATER FILTER
Replacing your water filter regularly for your coffee machine is vital to ensure the water entering your machine is clean and has reduced levels of limescale, securing the longevity of your machine’s life and boiler. We always fit a water filter to your machine upon installation, but don’t forget to replace it when it is time to do so.
- TOP TIP: The capacity of your filter will be written on it, simply replace it when it has met its capacity.
KEEP YOUR MACHINE ON
Keeping your machine on during your busy day-to-day operations is far more practical than shutting it off while you are out of the office/business premises. The reason being is that the costs of leaving it on overnight are nominal, in addition to the fact that powering off and on at the start and end of each day will allow the water inside your machine to cool, before being heated up again which creates a chemical reaction in which one or more new substances are formed, including limescale.
- TOP TIP: If you’re powering your coffee machine on from cold, open the steam valves while it heats. This is to ensure that as the machine heats and pressure builds, the air will be purged from the boiler to circumvent internal damage.
BACK FLUSH YOUR MACHINE
As we mentioned earlier, back flushing your Espresso/Group Head machine regularly is vital to reducing limescale and particle build-ups. We would also advise using cleaning chemicals such as Puly Caff when doing so to properly clean the internal parts of your coffee machine.
- TOP TIP: Most machines don’t back flush into the boiler, so the best indicator that you have limescale buildup internally is that your machine is running slow and/or taking much longer than normal to heat up. Call us if you suspect you have internal scale on: 0800 085 0065
VISUAL INSPECTION
Don’t leave anything to assumptions, if your coffee machine has limescale building up around the piping, the best way to tell is to check! If you remove the top of your machine every couple of months to see if there is limescale around internal pipes, you will see it, as well as any leaks which are possibly caused by excess internal pressure created by limescale.
- TOP TIP: Call us if you suspect there are leaks or can see limescale buildup on: 0800 085 0065