Coffee Machine Descaling

What is “Scale”?

Coffee machine descaling involves the removal of scale. Scale or lime scale is often referred to the build up of minerals inside the hot parts of your coffee or espresso machine. Any mineral that comes out of solution from heat can store itself in the water that carries parts of your coffee machine. This will affect your boiler, the pumps, and any parts that carry hot water. Usually the areas where the hot water sits for a while is worst affected.

Is scale a problem?

If there is a lime scale build up, the water flow will be smaller. This means the boiler capacity is reduced and it may cause your coffee machine to malfunction. Some boilers can end up with so much lime scale that they have heating problems.

How Often Should I Descale?

Coffee machine descaling is very important and the time intervals between descaling depends upon many factors. The two main factors are the quality of your water and the amount of water running through the machine. For those people using bore water pumped straight from the ground, they may need to do a coffee machine descaling every month. On the other hand, some people that lives in cities have their own water filter and in this case, the coffee machine can go for a year or more without descaling. You can do a water hardness test to know how hard your water is. One trick of testing water hardness is using your kettle. If lime scale builds up in your kettle, you can count on it being in your coffee machine. The second factor mentioned above is the amount of water used. By using less water in your coffee maker, you will need to descale less often.

How Do I Descale My Coffee Machine?

Firstly, read the instructions that came with your coffee machine or espresso machine, if they disagree with this article then follow the instructions that you have. You don’t want to void your warranty!

Coffee machine descaling is not as hard as you think. Using a proper citric acid based descaling solution designed for espresso machines is recommended. This solution should be prepared as instructed on the bottle or packet of the descaling solution. Do NOT use vinegar as the citric acid solution as it is not good for your machine.

Descale your coffee machine while it’s cold. Put the prepared descaling solution into the water reservoir, turn on the machine and pump the water (not steam) through the steam nozzle for about 20 seconds. If your machine doesn’t have a steam pump, pump the water through the group handle without the handle in place. Afterwards, immediately turn off the machine.

While the descaling solution is inside the water components, your espresso machine will be cold and the limescale will dissolve. Wait for about 10 minutes and turn on the machine again to pump water for 1 minute. Again, turn your coffee machine off and wait for the descaling solution to dissolve the limescale.

The coffee machine descaling take some time, you can take this opportunity to clean other parts of your coffee machine. For example, get all the burnt milk off the steam spout and wipe the outside of the machine.

Repeat the steps above until the water reservoir is empty. All the solution should have been pumped through the machine and the limescale will have been removed. This should take about 5 cycles and about 1 hour.

Finally, you will need to clean the descaler from your espresso or coffee machine. Rinse the water container in your machine and fill it with clean fresh water.  Tun the water through your machine and repeat this process again. Make at least one coffee and throw it away to be sure the descaling solution is gone.

Congratulations your coffee machine is now limescale-free! Treat yourself a great cup of coffee!

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