A commercial coffee machine is a significant investment and is the beating heart of your coffee outlet. To make the most of this investment, you’ll want to make sure your machine is performing at its best – serving delicious coffees and operating reliably.
In order to get the best performance, coffee quality and reliability from your machine, it’s absolutely essential to maintain high standards when it comes to cleanliness.
Every commercial coffee machine, whether it’s a traditional espresso machine, bean-to-cup machine or filter coffee brewer, requires some level of cleaning to prevent common issues occurring. However, some types require much more regular and stringent cleaning schedules in order to maintain good food hygiene and safety practices.
Unfortunately, cleanliness is not always the top priority for your staff. At the end of a long and tiring shift, it can be tempting for your team to skip the all-important cleaning cycles, which can add up over time resulting in machine faults.
In this blog, we’ll discuss what can happen when you fail to properly clean your commercial coffee machine, what the cleaning requirements look like for different types of machines, and how to ensure your teams do not skip these all important steps.
How Often Should a Commercial Coffee Machine be Cleaned?
To ensure best performance and to protect your coffee machines from wear and tear, we recommend that every machine is cleaned once per day, ideally at the end of every shift.
There are also a number of steps that should be performed each week, and others every 3-6 months and on a yearly basis to make sure the internals of your machine are properly inspected, cleaned and maintained.
What Happens if you Skip Your Cleaning?
Cleaning your coffee machine daily is absolutely essential, but can easily be skipped at the end of a long day when all they want to do is clock off as fast as possible.
Even with coffee machines that guide you through the steps on screen, your staff will know about any potential hacks or tricks to skip the cleaning cycle so they can go home on time.
Failing to clean your coffee machine at the end of the day can lead to a build up of coffee oils, grounds and residue.
In the short term, this will lead to bitter and rancid tasting coffee as the oxidised grounds and oils seep into your drinks the following morning.
Long term, buildup of oils and grounds inside your machine can quickly wear away at the seals and gaskets inside your machine and cause blockages. This will stop the machine being able to brew coffee at the right temperatures and pressures, and eventually the machine will be unable to brew altogether.
Additional Concerns for Milk Systems
Coffee machines that serve milk (typically bean-to-cup machines) carry additional hygiene and safety concerns, beyond your coffee not tasting its best.
Bean-to-cup machines that automatically steam and heat milk have to be taken seriously when it comes to cleaning. Spoiled milk is an ideal breeding ground for bacteria, posing potential health risks to your customer.
Failing to clean the milk system on your bean-to-cup machine daily can lead to unpleasant smells, unsafe drinks, and blockages in the system preventing milk from flowing.
Cleaning a Commercial Espresso Machine
Keeping a commercial espresso machine clean on a daily basis is relatively simple. As long as your team is making a conscious effort to reduce the amount of coffee grounds, oils, and milk buildup as much as possible, the end-of-shift clean should be done in 5-10 minutes.
Basic cleaning tools including brushes, cloths and wipes are perfectly suitable for cleaning the external surfaces of your espresso machine and removing any coffee grounds and residue.
Daily Cleaning
At the end of the shift, remove your group handles and brush down the shower screen (where the water flows from) to remove any built up coffee oils and grounds.
Using a plastic container, create a bath of hot cleaning solution using a tablespoon of espresso machine cleaning powder. Place your portafilters metal side down into this bath for 5-10 minutes, along with your coffee baskets, and the removable tips from your steam wands to break down and remove any coffee oils. Wipe down the external surfaces of your machine and coffee area while you wait.
To clean the inside of the machine, you’ll need to perform a backflush cleaning cycle. This involves placing a blank portafilter disk into your group handles, and adding a teaspoon of espresso machine cleaning powder into the disk.
Lock your group handles with the cleaning powder into your machine and start an automatic backflush cycle as per your manufacturer’s instructions. Alternatively you can perform this manually by starting and stopping a regular brew – 5 seconds on, 5 seconds off, to get water flowing and deep cleaning the inside of your machine.
The only cleaning product you need to invest in for your commercial espresso machine is standard Espresso Machine Cleaning Powder, we highly recommend Puly Caffe.
Weekly tasks for cleaning a commercial espresso machine
For the most part, the daily cleaning tasks above should be enough to make sure your coffee is tasting great every day. One additional step is to remove the shower screens from underneath the group head (the metal mesh that the water flows out from).
Coffee grounds can slowly build up here, so removing the shower screen every week to brush away this residue is a good idea. Most shower screens are easily removed with a flat head screwdriver, and you can simply brush or wipe away any visible coffee grounds or oils.
Every 3-6 months
Whilst it may fall more under ‘maintenance’ than cleaning, you should regularly replace the gaskets and silicon seals on your espresso machines before they break unexpectedly and cause breakdowns.
These parts are used to maintain water tightness and pressure in the system, and are built to wear down over time. Thankfully they’re cheap and very easy to replace. These should be replaced every 3-6 months by your team or as part of a regular service to avoid any unexpected breakages.
Learn more about regular servicing and maintenance in our recent article, How Often Should a Coffee Machine be Serviced?
Every Year
Every 12 months, your espresso machine legally requires a PSSR inspection. This is a safety test performed on every pressurised boiler to reduce the risk of harm and unexpected breakages, not unlike your car’s MOT.
During a PSSR test, the inside of your espresso machine’s boiler is checked for cracks, malformations and limescale build-up, and typically takes just a few hours to complete. Learn more about our PSSR Inspections.
Cleaning a Commercial Bean-to-cup Machine
Commercial bean-to-cup machines require much more stringent cleaning routines compared to other machine types.
Not only do they brew coffee, they have to grind the coffee beans into a fine powder and discard the used coffee grounds, along with foaming milk inside the machine.
These additional steps and moving parts make cleaning an absolute essential in the proper ownership of a bean-to-cup machine.
When you or your staff fail to properly clean your bean-to-cup machine on a daily basis, spoiled milk and coffee residue can quickly cause bacteria buildup, blockages and breakdowns of your machine.
Thankfully, most bean-to-cup machines make the cleaning both simple and intuitive by automating much of the process and taking your staff through each step on screen.
How to Clean a Bean-to-Cup Machine
The step-by-step process of cleaning a bean-to-cup machine is different for each make and model, so we can’t give a complete guide here for your specific machine. However, there are a few common things that these cleaning processes involve.
Typically, your commercial bean-to-cup machine will have a semi-automated cycle accessible through the system settings or menu on-screen. Your staff should begin this process as soon as they have taken their last orders for the day.
Your bean-to-cup machine guides the user through the entire cleaning process, which can take anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour. Typical steps include:
- Remove the grounds container – Dispose of the used coffee grounds, clean and replace the container back into the machine.
- Remove the drink dispense head, wash and rinse under the sink and place back on the machine.
- Add your coffee system cleaning chemical / tablet into the cleaning hopper.
- Remove and clean the milk tank and tubes, add the milk system cleaning chemical
- Remove, clean and rinse the hot chocolate powder unit, then place back into the machine.
- Automatic cleaning cycle begins and powers down the machine.
- The next morning, power on the machine. Remove and rinse the cleaning container and reconnect the milk tank.
This process may differ to your machine make and model – make sure to pay attention to the instructions on screen, and complete the steps exactly as instructed.
Because the cleaning routine varies between each make of bean-to-cup machine, there are also no industry standard cleaning chemicals you need to use. Instead, make sure to purchase the manufacturer’s own cleaning tablets, sachets or liquids to ensure the cleaning process is correctly carried out.
Aside from the automatic cleaning cycle, you should also instruct your team to thoroughly clean the external surfaces of the bean-to-cup machine and accompanying fridge unit to remove any unwanted coffee or milk residue, stains and smells.
How to Descale a Bean-to-Cup Machine
On top of your daily cleaning, your bean-to-cup machine should prompt you to perform a descale every 3 to 6 months.
Limescale builds up in your bean-to-cup machine over time due to the minerals in your water, which can cause blockages in the milk systems and coffee boiler if not properly treated.
To prevent unexpected breakdowns, your machine should automatically let you know when it needs a descale based on a period of time or number of drinks served. Just like the regular daily cleaning, your machine will take you through the descale process step by step.
If your bean-to-cup machine does not automatically remind you to perform a descale, we recommend manually starting a descale programme at minimum every 6 months to prevent breakdowns.
Descaling your bean-to-cup machine will vary machine-to-machine, but a typical descale cycle may involve:
- Remove, clean and replace the grounds draw
- Insert descale cartridge, powder or liquid into the machine as per instructions
- Remove the milk container and wipe down the milk tubes
- Place milk tube into empty cleaning container
- Descale process begins and finishes
- Remove descale cartridge or chemical
- Refill and replace the milk container to restart service
The descale process can take anywhere between 30 to 120 minutes to conclude based on your make and model.
Understanding the importance of properly cleaning a commercial coffee machine
Keeping your commercial coffee machine clean is essential for maintaining coffee quality, machine longevity, and customer safety. Whether you’re using a traditional espresso machine or a more complex bean-to-cup model, different levels of cleaning are required daily, weekly, and monthly to ensure smooth operation and hygiene.
Because skipping the cleaning cycle is not just possible, but tempting, after a long day, establishing a cleaning routine is vital. Assign specific staff members or set up a daily rota to ensure cleaning is always done properly, even after long shifts.
Skipping key steps not only impacts the machine’s performance and coffee flavour, but poses health risks, especially for milk systems where bacteria can thrive. Your staff should understand that regular, thorough cleaning prevents costly repairs, keeps the coffee tasting great, and ensures the safety of your customers.
By sticking to a robust cleaning schedule, you’ll protect your investment, deliver consistently high-quality coffee, and safeguard your business from potential health risks. A clean machine is the heart of every successful coffee service!
How Bridge Coffee Roasters can help you keep your machine running effectively
Here at Bridge Coffee Roasters, we practise what we preach. Businesses like yours utilise our team of barista trainers to educate your staff on the importance of machine cleanliness and to help adopt these practices into their every-day routine.
Our supporting team of coffee machine engineers are also on-hand to help bring your machines back to top-notch condition if poor cleanliness has led to breakdowns.
Additional services such as our Mystery Shopper and Brand Champion programmes ensure your team is caring for their machine even when no one is watching, and are a great way of making sure your coffee and customer experience is kept to a high standard.