PART 8B

GRINDERS

Grinder cleaning and maintenance

Your espresso grinders should have a regularly cleaning schedule. You may build a program modeled after notes below and protect your equipment. Cleaning your equipment diligently helps to train your team to love the machines that serve your guests. ALWAYS refer to machine and equipment instructions first, and then feel free to apply some of the routines below:

1. Daily: Wiping & dusting. At the end of each day empty chambers and wipe clean hoppers. Return unused beans to coffee bags for storage overnight. Hoppers can be wiped clean with a fresh cloth using steam from the steam wands. NO CLEANERS should be used on the hopper plastic! If you have a paddle grinder, clean and brush internal components carefully and consider scraping new areas of built up coffee oil residue.
2. Weekly: If in a high volume service setting, use a grinder cleaning tablet such as Urnex Grindz or Biocaf to help remove oils from burrs and chambers. Open grinder to brush, scrape and vacuum excess grounds from burrs & chambers where retention occurs. Scrape and/or remove dispenser spouts and dispensing chambers where possible. Remember to purge fresh coffee through after using any cleaning tablets.
3. Bi-Weekly / Monthly: If you have a lower volume service setting then you can use the same workflow mentioned above. While the grinder is open, you can check burr alignment or sharpness. Remember to ALWAYS unplug your machines before such maintenance.
4. Quarterly: Other matters such as checking air filters (if installed), applying appropriate oil to burr/grind collar and the dispensing chamber paddle (if applicable). Vacuum back vents of machine or carefully turn upside down to shake loose excess ground. Perform other deep cleaning checks. Inspect all screws, bolts, hardware adjustments.
5. Calculate (to your best ability) the amount of espresso you use per month or quarter and plan for your next burr inspection or replacement. Depending on material, size and cleaning programs flat espresso burrs last 600-1,800lbs on average. Yours may wear faster or slower. See list below of manufacture recommendations (which will change) from Espresso Parts (link)

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP

In the unfortunate event that your grinder becomes jammed it could be caused by any number of issues. Tightening the collar (going more fine) while machine is turned off can jam up the burrs. Having a stone, bolt or other foreign object in the beans can also cause a jam. BE SURE TO TURN OFF POWER FIRST and then open the grinder to inspect the cause of the jam. You may also find if your coffee is very dark roasted and oily that those oils can cause frequent jams and buildup. In this case try grinder dark roasts a bit more coarse. Use cleaning tablets or alternate with light roasted coffees to help remove some dark espresso oils.

You may also find the that burr edges have become rounded and dull from improper cleaning or foreign objects inside. Lack of cleaning can destroy burr life. New burrs are recommended at this point.

You will notice loud grinding noise, hot coffee grounds and inconsistency between shots with diminished crema quality. All are aspects of dull burrs.

** Before conducting any deep cleaning or service maintenance ensure that the power is off and you have the proper experience or support to not injure yourself or your machines.