How to Clean Your Café Espresso Machine and Grinder: A Daily, Weekly and Fortnightly Routine
18 September 20265 min read
Written by Tiny Tiger Coffee
It's Monday morning. A regular takes one sip of their cappuccino, frowns, and says, "Something's different." Same beans, same grind setting, same milk, same barista. So what changed?
Most of the time, nothing changed in the coffee. What changed is the machine. Yesterday's coffee oils are still sitting in the machine, and every shot that runs through them picks up a stale, bitter edge.
The good news: a clean machine takes about ten minutes a day. Here's the routine we suggest to the cafés we work with.
Why a clean machine makes better coffee
Coffee is oily. Every shot leaves a thin film on the shower screen, basket, portafilter and grinder burrs. Within a day that film turns rancid, and it does three things:
It makes shots taste bitter and flat, even when your recipe is perfect.
It blocks the shower screen, so water falls unevenly and some runs straight through the coffee. Our guide to fixing bitter or sour espresso shows how that tastes.
It wears out parts like the group gasket, which then leaks and costs you a service visit.
A clean machine doesn't make good coffee by itself, but a dirty machine will ruin even the best beans.
During service: after every shot and every jug
These take seconds and stop the build-up before it starts.
After each shot, knock out the used coffee and run water through the group head for two or three seconds.
Wipe the basket dry before you fill it again.
After every jug of milk, let a little steam out of the wand and wipe it clean. Milk that dries on the tip is very hard to clean off, and it isn't hygienic.
Every day: at closing
Do this every single night, however quiet the day was. This is the step that keeps Monday's cappuccino tasting like Saturday's.
Backflush with water. Lock a blind basket (a basket with no holes) into each group head, run the pump for about 10 seconds, stop, and repeat five times.
Brush the group gasket and shower screen with a group-head brush.
Soak the portafilters and baskets in hot water, keeping wooden or plastic handles out of it.
Soak the steam wand tip in hot water, then purge and wipe it.
Wash the drip tray and knock box, and wipe the machine down.
Brush out the grinder chute so no old grounds wait there for the morning.
Step 1: a blind basket locked in for the nightly backflush. The brown water on the tray is the old coffee coming out.Step 2: brush the shower screen and the rubber gasket around it.
Every week: backflush with detergent
At least once a week, repeat the daily backflush with a proper espresso machine cleaning detergent in the blind basket. Use the amount your machine's manual gives, then backflush with plain water until no detergent is left, and pull one shot to throw away before you serve.
The same day, soak the baskets in the detergent solution and wipe the oily film out of the grinder hopper with a dry cloth.
Every two weeks: the deep clean
If you sell more than 100 cups a day, deep clean every two weeks.
Take off the shower screen, soak it in detergent, and scrub the group head behind it.
Check the group gasket. If it's hard or cracked, or the portafilter swings past six o'clock to lock in, it's time to replace it.
Clean the grinder burrs with grinder cleaning tablets, or open the grinder and brush them out, following its manual. Never use water on the burrs.
Check the date on your water filter cartridge.
A worn gasket (left) next to a new one. Once it turns hard and cracked, replace it.Every two weeks, open the grinder and brush out the old grounds. Never use water on the burrs.
The grinder: keep only two hours of beans in the hopper
This is the one most new cafés miss. It's tempting to fill the hopper to the top each morning. But a hopper isn't airtight, and beside a hot machine, beans start losing their aroma within hours.
Put in only about two hours' worth of beans, and top it up through the day from a sealed bag. Your last cup of the evening will taste like your first.
Check your dial-in every day
Cleaning, the weather and the age of your beans all change how a shot runs. Check your dial-in at least once a day, and twice is best: once before opening and once in the afternoon. Our house recipe is 18 g in, 30 to 40 g out, in 27 to 30 seconds. Our espresso grind size guide walks through it step by step.
The checklist, for your bar wall
Print it, stick it next to the machine, and have whoever closes tick it off each night.
If you want to become a B2B partner of Tiny Tiger
A clean machine shows you exactly what your coffee tastes like. We grow, process and roast our own coffee in Chikmagalur, Karnataka, and hold stock of everything we roast, so your house coffee tastes the same from one order to the next.
If you want to become a B2B partner of Tiny Tiger, message us on WhatsApp with your city and expected cups a day. Café pricing starts at ₹1,200 a kilo, with a 5 kg minimum, and those 5 kg orders ship free to metro cities within 3 working days, and in about 5 days elsewhere. Before your first order, you can taste our coffees with a paid Café Sampler, roasted just for you. Order a Café Sampler.
Common questions
How often should you backflush a café espresso machine?
Backflush with plain water every night at closing, and with an espresso machine cleaning detergent at least once a week. A café selling more than 100 cups a day should also do a full deep clean of the group heads and grinder every two weeks.
How much coffee should you keep in the grinder hopper?
Only about two hours' worth. Beans in an open hopper lose their aroma within hours, so top up from a sealed bag through the day.
