Making a perfect espresso is an art itself, whether you are making it at home or in a restaurant. The best espresso machine always gives you a shot that boosts your productivity if you can operate the espresso machine properly.
Continuously use it can be harmful without caring, but how can you take care of an espresso machine? Yes, it’s an important question, and the answer is very simple. You can take care of the espresso machine by cleaning it.
While using espresso, espresso leaves small particles or stains. And hard water is not safe because when we use hard water in an espresso machine, it creates limescale, and limescale can go away with only descaling.
What is Descaling?
Descaling is the process to clean an espresso machine in which the cleaning solution detaches limescale from the parts where water flows.
Now the question is that what is limescale? Limescale is a chalky, white stain that produces while flowing hard water or hot water. You can find limescale easily in boiler, kettles, and in pipes where hard water flows.
Limescale is harmful to the espresso machine, and you need to remove them if you don’t want tolose the productivity of an espresso machine.
Is descaling Possible at Home
Many service providers provide services of descaling, and you can avail this service from your espresso machines manufacturer if your machine has still a warranty.
But if you are not comfortable trying any descaling service provider and your machine warranty has been passed, you can do it at home.
Yes, you can clean your espresso machine at home. Just be focused and follow all instructions carefully to descale an espresso machine.
What ingredients you need to Descale an Espresso machine
You need just one ingredient to descale your espresso machine, and it’s a descaling solution. There is a wide variety of descaling solution available in markets; you can buy any good one for the process. But we’ll recommend using homemade solutions instead of readymade solutions. Readymade solutions contain hard chemicals that’s why that are not good for the health of the best espresso machine.
Now you must be thinking about making a homemade solution, so there is nothing difficult in it, but we’ll let you know about it after some time. First, you need to know that what ingredient is best to descale an espresso machine. We recommend you use vinegar as a descaling solution.
Why vinegar
Vinegar has a natural acidity that helps to remove stains and limescale from an espresso machine. Vinegar is an effective cleaning tool, and it’s the most consumed cleaning tool worldwide. It has good reviews from its users because it’s a harmless homemade solution.
But some people avoid it due to its sharp smell, which can stay in an espresso machine if you do not clean it properly. Therefore clean it with plain water after the process, and the smell will go. Although still, you are not comfortable than you can use other ingredients as a solution like:
- Baking soda
- Citric acid
- Lemon
These are also good cleaning tool and been using as a descaler. So you can try these cleaning tools as wel,l but we recommend you to use all these one by one and select anyone who gives you the best results.
Method of Descaling with Vinegar
People use the vinegar method because it’s easy to use, easy to find, and affordable. The method of descaling is very quick and easy. It would be best if you used white vinegar for getting the best results, and there is no need to add water to it. But if you are not comfortable with it, you can add water 50%.
Take vinegar and pour it into the water reservoir; ensure to use enough vinegar as you make espresso for six to seven persons. Turn on the machine let the water run throughout the machine. Don’t forget to run vinegar from the steam wand so that it can remove any milk leftovers. When you flush out the vinegar you can see the white vinegar becomes brownish after it pour fresh water in the reservoir and repeat the same process until you get smell-less water.
The best espresso machine has been descaling now. If you want to try another cleaning tool for descaling, you can use with the same process.