Why is coffee machine maintenance important?
Your coffee machine, whether purchased or leased, is integral to the success of your business. But the quality of the machine itself won’t deliver an award winning customer experience that has queues forming around the block. The maintenance, care and use of the coffee machine along with a trained barista is the winning combination for a successful coffee offering. Here we look at coffee machine maintenance and why it is so important.
A quality cup of coffee is produced through consistency and key to this is the care and maintenance that the coffee machine receives. This is more than a cursory wipe down at the end of a busy day – as important as that is! Failure to clean and care for your coffee machine results in a multitude of problems that not only affect the taste of the drinks you product but also the hygiene. Furthermore, blockages and scale build up inside the intricate parts of the machine are much more problematic and disruptive to your business with multiple breakdowns and engineer callouts, than it would be to prevent this scenario with regular cleaning. Minor issues become larger issues and with longer term ongoing neglect, a machine can eventually be rendered unusable. You wouldn’t get on a plane that hadn’t been properly maintained, why would you serve coffee from a machine that hadn’t received the care and attention it requires deserves?
Whether you hire or purchase a coffee machine from Iron & Fire, you’re assured of not only receiving a thorough introduction into its use and essential daily maintenance, but we also offer ongoing training and a comprehensive machine care video trianing library for your staff to ensure they know what to do day to day and week to week. We also offer a comprehensive programme of coffee machine servicing and coffee machine repair too.
And should you happen to already have a machine, then we offer very competitive rates for servicing and repair. If you choose to suppy our coffee they you will also benefit from a large discount on your coffee machine engineering. Contact us for more information or apply to become a wholesale customer here.
How do I maintain my coffee machine?
Whilst each machine will have its own specific needs, we recommend a few basic tips to ensure your machine is clean and maintained. Undergoing regular backflushing of your group heads, and clean down of the steam wands will help to ensure you machine keeps operating efficiently. The Table below will give a rough guide on how often you should clean down the individual components of the machine. We also recommend visual inspection of any damage to the portafilters to ensure there are blowouts, these can take a beating during service and can often be dropped which can bend parts of the handle. As wholesale partners you will have access to our video and writing tutorials on best cleaning practices for your coffee machines.
- Group Heads – Backflush every night
- Steam Wands – Clean every night
- Portafilters – Soak weekly
- Milk Jugs – Soak Monthly
Enquire about our video training series here.
Does your coffee machine need a service?
We recommend you have your coffee machine serviced yearly to ensure that it is running effectively, not only will this likely prevent any costly breakdowns but this can also prevent any serious injuries to you members of staff, such as burns. During a front end service, our engineers will replace all group seals, and outer shower plates, strip down components in the group head and give them a thorough clean, clean backing brass shower plate, remove water valve, remove steam valve, replace seals and pad seals, strip any scale build up and grease the shafts, check inside of machine and check for any leaks, remove level probe and visually inspect the boiler, check machine pump is running to 9bar and adjust as necessary, check gauge is functioning correctly, at extra cost replace any parts necessary with permission of customer, check drainage system.
Do I need a PSSR test?
Yes, this is now the law and you are required to have this complete every 12 months. If you do not have this complete, this could invalidate your insurance. Commercial coffee machine boilers incorporating a pressure vessel generate steam and therefore come under this requirement of PSSR. If your machine is due for its boiler certification, then get in contact with us. It is a statutory examination that is designed to ensure that the pressure systems within your commercial coffee machine are “safe”. The person undertaking this should be qualified to undertake this, and our engineers are qualified and registered with CoffeeSafe.
How often should you change the water filter on your coffee machine?
This will really depend on how hard the water is in your area and the capacity of your water filter, however a good rule of thumb is every 12 months. With all of our customers we regularly check the performance of the filters with water hardness tests to ensure the machine is well maintained. Get in touch if you’d like to find out more about how we can help support your coffee business needs.
