Monday, September 04, 2006


descaling silvia

it's a lovely first-day-of-fall day here in bklyn, so naturally i took some time this afternoon to descale my gorgeous italian princess, silvia. it's a steamy operation so i like a cool-ish day for it.

long-time readers know that the number one cause of home espresso machine problems is, bar none, scale. it's crucial to descale your machine regularly; i recommend you do it every month, minimum.

untreated limescale build-up can destroy your espresso machine. descaling is not optional.

it only takes about 20-30 minutes, so there's really no excuse to ignore it. everybody knows i'm a big cleancaf fan for this task because you just pump it through and the nice blue color tells you of its presence.

so while i was waiting for the cleancaf in the boiler to do its thing, i also took the time to scrub up my grouphead. long-time bccy pals espressoparts (hiya, terry z!) so kindly sent me a care package not long ago that included a really great grouphead brush by pallo, one that looks like a giant toothbrush.

it works great; i highly recommend it, as it cleans very effectively with much less effort (and fewer wrist burns!) than other brushes. the fewer wrist burns is key!

i used the little scoop on the end to mix up some of the joeglo cleaner and scrub away. that's great.

further, if you have the usual steam wand problem -- a tiny band of milk build up caught in the itty-bitty crevice where the diamond steam head attaches to the wand -- soaking that bit in joeglo cleaner for 20 mins. causes it to just fluff right off by itself.

all good. then i wiped silvia's faceplate with the joeglo wipes and i was done.

shiny! time-saving! clean-tasting coffee and a longer-lasting coffee machine!

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posted by fortune | 12:17 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | TwitThis | 0 comments