How to backflush your commercial espresso coffee machine

Our Barista Training Manual is available as a pdf online and includes daily and weekly cleaning routines. Backflushing is an important aspect of your commercial espresso coffee machine, and is important to not only keep your machine running but also ensure you get the best taste and flavour from your coffee. Oils from the coffee build up on any surface the ground coffee or liquid coffee comes into contact with, and if left they will affect the taste of every espresso you make, adding stale negative flavours to each shot.

Depending on the volume of coffee you serve per day, every night you should backflush with water and once a week with a cleaning powder like dusty caff. Busy outlets may need to backflush with cleaning powder more frequently.

Pictured above are the tools you will need to backflush and clean your espresso machine and group handles, a good cleaning powder to remove oils and tannin (dusty caff pictured), a stainless steel backflush plate (it has no holes, so the water will be forced around the group shower screen), if you can not get a stainless steel blind filter pan, you could use a rubber blanking disc in the double shot basket. Finally the Pallo Coffee tool cleaning brush helps you scrub the rubber gasket in the group head and diffuser plate, and also has a handy dosing spoon for your espresso machine cleaning detergent.

For daily cleaning remove all the filter baskets from the group handles and soak them in cold water overnight. Before soaking take one of the group handles an place a blank backflush filter plate inside it instead of the normal ground coffee basket.

Insert the blind backflush disc

Or use a rubber blank disc in the double shot basket

With the blank plate in the group handle, insert the handle into the machine and run the group as if you were brewing espresso for 10 seconds. This will flush water around the group diffuser plate, when you stop the group the water will be forced back out through the group solenoid and into the drip tray, cleaning the group solenoid and related pipes as it goes.

Remove the group handle and empty any ground coffee and water into the drip tray, replace the group handle and repeat the backflush process - this should be done two or three times until no more ground coffee can be seen in the blank plate.

If you have a coffee tool, you can also scrub the group seal and diffuser plate with it

For cleaning with the cleaning powder, repeat the process above but use half a teaspoon (or a coffee tool scoop) of cleaning powder in the blank plate before the first flush. Insert the group handle into the group as normal and run the group for 10 seconds. Remove the handle and empty the foam into into the drip tray, rinse the handle and then backflush with plain water five or six times to make sure you clear out all the cleaning solution. Leaving backflush solution in the machine will taint the first few coffees of the next day, and it can dry to a solid in the group solenoid blocking it and stopping any water coming through the group.

After running the group for around 10 seconds with the blank plate and powder locked in, remove the handle. You will see a thick foam in the blank plate, tip this foam into the drip tray and rinse the blank plate under group water. Now backflush six times with plain water to clean all the solution out.

Once a week you should also soak your group handles, seperated up from the filter baskets, to remove coffee oils.

Find a suitable container so that the handles are upright, you do not want the cleaning solution to come into contact with the rubber handles. With the handles and baskets in place fill the container with boiling water so the metal of the handles is covered. Add one teaspoon (or two coffee tool scoops) of dusty caff to the bowl and leave to soakovernight. Next day rinse well with fresh water before using.

We can supply the following products to help with your backflushing routine:-