CLEANING THE COFFEE GRINDER

Apart from cleaning the coffee machine, to which Coffee Times already devoted an article in the past, the coffee grinder also needs regular checking and immaculate cleanliness. Maintenance of the grinder makes a decisive contribution to the quality in the cup. The following components should be cleaned regularly without any detergent.

A number of routine measures should also be carried out every day. These include:

• emptying the bean container towards the end of the operating time. To avoid loss of flavour, fill it up again just before the beginning of the operating time;
• checking the setting of the fineness by professionally preparating an espresso (25 ml in 25 seconds);
• checking the mobility of the dosing star.

When do the grinding discs have to be replaced?
The life of the grinding discs depends very much on their size as well as the type of grinder, the coffee used and the hardness of the beans. As a rule of thumb the discs of a discgrinder  with hardened grinding discs and a diameter of 64 mm should be replaced after approx. 300 kg of coffee have been ground. When the fineness can no longer be adjusted properly or the coffee clearly loses flavour and has a smoky odour, because the powder stays in the grinder too long – resulting in the undesirable effect of fine coffee powder settling in the cup – it is high time to replace the discs.