Saturday, July 19, 2003


backflushing for dummies

frankly, i've never backflushed my lovely rancilio silvia, because none of the machine retailers i know recommend it. a lot of people do it safely, but i was always wary of those warnings about blowing the boiler seals. . .

so i was a tad concerned when i came to backflushing "carlos" expobar. but i had to do it today. what's great about the automatic model is that he backflushes himself. really.

what is backflushing exactly? all better machines have a 3-way solenoid valve, which is a handy mechanism that allows excess pressure and water to escape from the group area after you pull a shot. to massively oversimplify, this allows you to instantly remove the portafilter without waiting for the pressure to abate naturally or having hot grounds spray everywhere.

this valve can become partially clogged with coffee oils and gunk; thus you need occasionally to force a light cleaning solution through it. you do this by removing the regular filter basket and replacing it with a so-called blind basket, one without holes. add a teaspoon of urnex cafiza powder and then you can start your cleaning process.

since the basket doesn't have holes, the water and pressure build up against it, the solenoid opens, and the excess water carries the cleanser through the valve. the water then runs out into the drip tray. sounds pretty clear, right?

the first task is to lever the regular basket out of the portafilter. for this i always use a cheap old butterknife. then you just pop in the blind basket and go to town, running water through the group for 5 seconds, stopping for 1 second, repeating. . .and repeating. . .and repeating. . .

not with carlos! carlos has his own handy self-cleaning cycle. warm him up, turn him off for 60 seconds, press one of the automatic pre-set buttons, turn him back on, and he knows what to do. two of his little green lights blink and he just starts back-flushing himself.

while carlos has some minor flaws -- his drip tray is a tad narrow, it's hard to read his water level -- the automatic backflush makes up for it all. carlos finishes in about 75 seconds.

then all you have to do is rinse the excess soap out of the filter and run water through the group for a few seconds. it's true the instructions tell you to do this 10 times. but it takes just 60 seconds.

in sum, backflushing carlos turns out to be a dead-simple painless task that takes less than 3 minutes. in home use, you should probably do it once a week. then grab your grouphead brush and give the gasket a scrub.

carlos has ample room around his gasket, unlike silvia, who is a bit cramped around the group. again, this helps make carlos quick and easy to clean. right on!

and of course after you've backflushed, you have to make a seasoning shot. some people keep some old coffee around for this purpose, since you're just going to toss whatever you pull. but after that first shot, don't you want a real one?

i did.

thus, gillies carioca espresso, which i guess i'll call a medium medium-dark brown roast (dry, no oil).

this is a sweet-tasting coffee, full, with a toasted caraway fragrance, malty brown-rice nose, spicy pink peppercorn aftertaste, juicy. it makes a creamy, light-syrupy espresso that clings to the back of the spoon slightly. yummy over ice!

posted by fortune | 5:48 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments