What to do about your espresso machine boiler problem
Why is the boiler of your espresso machine in such a terrible shape? By that I mean that the water is so contaminated inside, and so smelly, that even the steam is affected. Espresso machines hold water and build steam in the empty part of the boiler, in the morning when you turn the machine on, the air that was trapped in the boiler the day before when you turned the machine off, heats faster than the water and creates a false pressure. It is imperative that you teach your servers to “religiously” before and after using the steamer to bleed some air out. You will note quite often in the morning that if you do that, the machine loses pressure and will not show any steam after you do this. The espresso machine then will build pressure again, this time true pressure because you have purged the air in the boiler. Suppose that your servers, the first thing they do, they bring to the steam nozzle a milk frother and dip the nozzle in, in order to froth the milk, the chance that the machine (being under false pressure) will siphon this milk into the boiler is great. What happens at that point, when the boiler receives this milk inside, it will cook and cook this milk until it curdles and becomes like black specs in the water. You can note that by getting hot water from the machine. Imagine this faulty process being repeated a few times during a year of operation, the boiler becomes coated with slime, the water stinks, and the particles float in the boiler. The only way to get rid of this is by flashing the boiler many times and since it is impossible to do this on location, the machine needed to be brought in and really cleaned of any trace of this water that has been cooking and cooking everyday for sometimes for years. This in my guesstimation is the worst problem that a cappuccino machine can run into and even though over the years attempts have been made to prevent this from happening with bleed valves etc. etc. the only way to really be sure is to make sure that the servers will bleed some air out of the steam wand before and after use every single time.
