Cleaning
Backflushing, group heads, steam wands and baskets: the weekly jobs, and how often they matter.
Maintenance
Cleaning, descaling and the small repairs that save a machine from the bin years early.
Most machines that "stopped working" were never cleaned. This section is the unglamorous half of owning good equipment.
All categories
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Descaling
Water hardness, scale and the schedule that prevents both before the machine tells you.
Machine care
Gaskets, screens and seals: the parts with a service life, and when to replace them.
Grinder care
Burr cleaning, burr replacement and retention control, on a schedule that fits real use.
Troubleshooting
Symptom-first diagnosis: sour, bitter, slow, leaking or dead, and what to check in what order.
Parts & accessories
Precision baskets, shower screens, water filters and tools, and which ones change the cup.
Articles
Bringing a 1970s lever back to life
A fifty-year-old lever machine is mostly brass, a spring and four seals. Here is the order to work in, and the two faults that mean walk away.
Why your pour over drains slowly, and how to fix it
A V60 that stalls past four minutes is rarely the recipe. Grind, fines, agitation, paper and fresh coffee, checked in the order that finds the cause fastest.
Buying a used espresso machine
Second hand is the cheapest route to a serious machine, and the fastest route to a boiler you cannot replace. What to check, what to walk away from.
Baskets, gaskets and screens: the parts that change the shot
A few pounds of replaceable parts sit between your grinder and your cup.
Espresso troubleshooting: what the shot is telling you
Read the symptom, find the likely cause, change one thing. A working order for fixing fast, choked, sour, bitter and channelling shots without guessing.
Grinder care: burrs, retention and when to replace
Stale grounds in the chamber and worn burrs both ruin a shot quietly. How to clean burrs without dulling them, and how to read the signs they are finished.