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Breville espresso machines are an excellent way for anyone to indulge their taste buds with barista-quality coffee at home. However, maintaining a Breville espresso machine is essential to prevent damage to the device and to ensure that your coffee always tastes great. But how exactly do you clean a Breville coffee machine?
To clean a Breville espresso machine, you must run a purge and backwash on the device. Next, you must run a descaling solution through the device. Then, you will run water through the machine to clear out the cleaning solution, and lastly, you should clean the steam wand and change the filters.
Continue reading this article for the complete guide on cleaning a Breville coffee machine. By following this cleaning routine, you can keep your coffee tasting great and your Breville machine in proper working condition.
1. Purge and Backwash the Breville espresso Machine
The first step in cleaning a Breville coffee machine is essential to maintaining the device, and it involves purging and backwashing. Purging and backwashing remove any small pieces of coffee or anything else from inside that can interfere with how it functions.
Purging the coffee machine is a simple task; all you need to do is make yourself a few shots of espresso without putting coffee into the machine. In other words, you’re just running water through the device, which helps to catch tiny morsels of coffee beans trapped inside.
Purging a Breville coffee machine should be done before and after daily use for device maintenance.
Backwashing a Breville coffee machine is similar to purging, except you place the coffee head on the device. However, instead of filling this piece with coffee, you will use a rubber stop to prevent the water from flowing. As a result, when the device is switched on, it will build up pressure and wash out small pieces of coffee or dirt trapped inside.
Purging and backwashing a Breville coffee machine is an excellent way of maintaining it and ensuring that the flavor of your coffee remains good. For more information about keeping your Breville coffee machine, check out this helpful guide from Breville.
Once you’ve completed the purging and backwashing routine, you can focus on deep cleaning the coffee machine.
Read: Why Breville Espresso Machine Not Grinding – Troubleshooting Guide
2. Empty the Water Reservoir
To deep clean a Breville coffee machine, you must first understand what you’re cleaning. Limescale is a deposit that accumulates in appliances that use water to function, and you can find it in kettles, dishwashers, coffee machines, and even faucets.
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Limescale can accumulate in a coffee machine over time, and if it goes unchecked, it can cause the appliance to stop working efficiently or at least make your coffee taste strange.
Removing limescale is a straightforward process as long as you know what you’re doing, and it starts with removing the water from the water reservoir in your machine. Once you’ve removed the water, you are ready to begin cleaning the inside of your Breville machine.
Read: Why Breville Espresso Machine Not Heating Up – Troubleshooting Guide
3. Fill the Water Compartment With Descaling Solution
To descale your Breville machine, you need to create a descaling solution. While this sounds like a challenge, in reality, all you have to do is mix some water with a mild acid like white vinegar or citric acid. If you don’t feel like making your descaling solution, you can always buy some online.
As a general rule, use about 5 parts water to 1 part acid; however, you can use more or less.
The acid in the descaling solution will react with the alkaline limescale buildup inside the machine. This reaction will dissolve the limescale and cause it to mix into the solution and leave the device. However, to get the solution to the limescale inside, you must get it into the machine first.
Fill the water reservoir with your homemade descaling solution, making sure that there is enough of the solution to fill the water reservoir. However, ensure that you don’t overfill this compartment as it could damage the coffee machine.
Read: Why Breville Espresso Machine Not Pumping Water? – Troubleshooting Guide
4. Run the Machine Until the Descaling Mixture Is Empty
Once you’ve filled the water reservoir with your descaling solution, you’ll need to turn the device on. You should activate the one-shot setting on the Breville machine but do not put any coffee into the device.
After a moment, the solution will pass through the device and out of the spout, and you may want to place a mug underneath the nozzle to catch the cleaning solution as it leaves the machine.
Repeat this step until all the descaling mixture has left the reservoir and run through the machine and into your collection cup. Your Breville coffee machine has now been successfully descaled, but your job is not finished just yet.
Read: 4 Common Ninja Coffee Maker Problems
5. Clean Out the Coffee Machine with Water
The descaling solutions I mentioned earlier are safe to consume. However, they contain very sour-tasting ingredients, such as vinegar and citric acid, which can quite quickly destroy the subtle coffee flavors loved by Breville machine users.
As a result, you need to ensure that there are no remnants of the cleaning solution remaining in your Breville coffee machine’s internal parts. The best way to do this is by cleaning the machine with water.
Fill the water reservoir with clean water and switch the coffee machine on without including coffee. Run the machine until the water has cleared through, carrying the cleaning solution with it.
You will need to repeat this step up to five times to ensure that the cleaning solution has left the coffee machine. Otherwise, you may get a mouthful of vinegar-flavored coffee.
Once you’ve run all the water through, the inside of your coffee machine is now clean and free from limescale. However, some pieces still need extra attention to ensure that your Breville coffee machine is 100% clean.
6. Clean the Steam Wand
The steam wand is the piece of the machine that you use to make hot bubbly milk. This piece works by forcing pressurized steam through small holes that, when placed into milk, make it frothy and creamy. However, the steam wand is prone to getting dirty and festering bacteria when not properly cleaned.
Cleaning the steam wand is, therefore, vital if you want a clean coffee machine. To fully clean the steam wand, use it without placing the nozzle into the milk. Instead, fill a cup with water and run steam through the water inside from the nozzle.
After doing this a few times, most of the buildup of milk or remnants of anything else will be removed from the holes inside the steam wand. Finally, wipe the steam wand with a clean cloth to ensure that there is no residue.
The steam wand is now clean and ready to go; this process should be completed every time you use the steam wand for best results.
Read: 4 Common Keurig Coffee Maker Issues
7. Change the Filters
The last step in cleaning your Breville coffee machine is to change the filters. This step can differ depending on the type of filter that you’re using, as some filters can be cleaned and used again while others need replacing.
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Lastly, place your new filter into the holder and select the correct month on top. Once the new filter is in place, your coffee machine is completely clean.
For more information on changing the filter in a Breville coffee machine, check out this Youtube video by clicking the link below.
Final Thoughts
It’s worthwhile noting that this cleaning process is for a deep clean and does not need to be followed every time you clean the machine. Instead, you can use the purging, backwashing, and cleaning cycles built into the coffee machine for everyday cleaning.
Deep cleaning is only required once per month, depending on the water quality where you live and how regularly you use your Breville coffee maker.
