Coffee Machine Cleaner & Cleaning Supplies

The best cleaner depends on your machine. A manual espresso machine with a portafilter needs a backflush powder or tablet, such as Cafetto Espresso Clean. A fully automatic machine needs a cleaning tablet sized for its cleaning program, often the manufacturer's own. Most machines also need a descaler, and a milk system cleaner if you make milk drinks. Your manual will say which products and formats it accepts.

Cleaning tablets are a detergent that removes coffee oils and residue from the brew group and coffee spouts. Descaling tablets are acid-based and dissolve the mineral scale that builds up in the boiler, pipes and heating element. They are not interchangeable, so most machines need both on their own schedules. Jura, for example, sells separate 3-Phase Cleaning Tablets and Descaling Tablets.

Swap the filter basket for a blind filter and add one scoop of cleaner, such as Cafetto Espresso Clean. Lock in the group handle and run the pump for 10 seconds, then stop. Repeat five times. Remove the handle and rinse it. Put it back in and run a series of short on-off cycles with clean water to rinse the group. Finish by pulling and discarding one espresso. Only backflush if your machine's manual allows it.

Follow your machine's descale alert or the interval in its manual. How often you need to descale depends on how hard your water is and how much coffee you make. Hard water and heavy use mean more frequent descaling. Fitting the correct water filter, such as a Jura CLARIS or Breville Claro Swiss, slows scale build-up. Replace the filter on time, or it stops protecting the machine.

For a Jura, use Jura 3-Phase Cleaning Tablets. Cafetto also recommends its J25 tablets for Jura and Krups machines. For Miele, Cafetto recommends its S15 tablets. Automatic machines need a tablet of the right size for their cleaning program. Check your manual before switching from the manufacturer's own tablets.

Usually less often, and sometimes not at all. Jura says descaling is not needed while a CLARIS filter is fitted and changed on time. For other brands, a filter slows scale build-up but does not always remove the need to descale. Follow your machine's prompts and manual.

It is a detergent made to dissolve coffee oils, fine grounds and stains from the group head, shower screen, portafilter and baskets of an espresso machine. You use it by backflushing with a blind filter, or by soaking parts in hot water with a scoop or tablet. It rinses away cleanly, so it doesn't taint your next shot once you have flushed with water and discarded one espresso.

In a café, backflush with detergent every night and soak portafilters and baskets weekly. That is the schedule Urnex recommends for commercial machines. At home, most people clean less often. Cafetto's directions use one scoop of Espresso Clean for a daily clean and two scoops when the machine is cleaned less frequently. Check your machine's manual for its recommended interval.

Remove the basket and soak the metal parts in 500 mL of hot water with two scoops of Cafetto Espresso Clean or EVO powder, or one Espresso Clean or Tevo Maxi tablet, for 10 minutes. Then rinse thoroughly under hot running water. Keep plastic parts out of the solution, and avoid soaking a portafilter with a wooden or plastic handle.

Powder is the most economical and flexible choice. You can dose more for a machine that hasn't been cleaned for a while, and use it for soaking parts. Tablets and sachets are pre-measured, so they are quicker and tidier, which suits home users and busy staff. Cafetto's EVO powder and Tevo tablets are its organic range if you prefer phosphate-free cleaners.

Coffee grinder cleaner is a set of tablets or pellets that you grind through a burr grinder in place of coffee beans. As they pass through, they remove coffee oil, residue and old grounds from the burrs and casing, so you don't need to take the grinder apart. You then grind a small amount of coffee to clear out the cleaner before making coffee again. We stock Cafetto and Urnex Grindz.

For Grindz, Urnex recommends one capful (35 to 40 g) for an espresso grinder and two capfuls (70 to 80 g) for a larger shop grinder, run on a medium grind setting. For Cafetto Grinder Clean, use one capful. With either product, then grind some coffee beans to season the burrs and clear the cleaner, and wipe any dust from the hopper and chute.

Neither Cafetto nor Urnex sets a fixed schedule, so it depends on how much coffee you grind. A busy café grinder builds up residue much faster than a home grinder making a few coffees a day. Clean it when the coffee starts to taste flat or stale, when you notice oily build-up around the burrs, or after you have been grinding very oily or flavoured beans.

They are used the same way: you grind them through an empty burr grinder and then purge with beans. Cafetto Grinder Clean is a grain-based formula registered by Australian Certified Organic as an allowed input in organic systems, and it is also halal certified. Urnex Grindz is a plant-based, food-safe, phosphate-free tablet, with doses given for both espresso and larger shop grinders.