# Rocket Descaling



## gmason

The shake, rattle and roll approach to descaling your Rocket.






Mmmm ...


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## big dan

i've seen that video and its quite funny really, but i guess there isn't any other easy way to descale your machine though right?

My Rocket is due to arrive in a few days, can't wait. Thinking i am going to use Volvic in the machine to prevent having to descale as often.


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## Glenn

Good call Dan


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## big dan

In the interests of helpfulness, this link was really useful for how to choose your bottled water:

http://londiniumespresso.com/blog/the-best-water-for-your-espresso-machine#.Uoj-5pHoZhA


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## big dan

So you're R58 is a man then? I kind if think of my machine as a sexy lady!









But sounds like a good plan! I know over on coffee geek and some of the Australian forums there are a lot more rocket owners so you should be able to find lots of info out there too!


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## big dan

Ha ha brilliant!


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## Wobin19

I just stumbled on this. The suggestion is to disconnect the refill limit switch sensor in the top of the boiler to allow the boiler to become completely full during the descale process. I have never come across this before and wondered if there were any issues with this approach. It seems a good way to get the solution on all the boiler surfaces... Any thoughts? I am just about to do the first descale on my Rocket HX machine.


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## reneb

Wobin19 said:


> I just stumbled on this. The suggestion is to disconnect the refill limit switch sensor in the top of the boiler to allow the boiler to become completely full during the descale process. I have never come across this before and wondered if there were any issues with this approach. It seems a good way to get the solution on all the boiler surfaces... Any thoughts? I am just about to do the first descale on my Rocket HX machine.


hi wobin19 - did you ever get round to trying this? would be interested to know how you got on as this seems a good way to descale.


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## espressotechno

You'll know the boiler is full up when water starts coming out of the safety valve !


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## reneb

yeah, that kind of worries me


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## Wobin19

No I just did it the traditional way in the end. Would be interested to know if anyone has done it this way though.


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## GreenJacket

gmason said:


> The shake, rattle and roll approach to descaling your Rocket.
> 
> www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nl_ZspI2rU&feature=c4-overview&list=UU9VhfQi-D-7morDdwjVcJPA
> 
> Mmmm ...


I can't access the video, it's states it is private.

I need to descale.


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## big dan

I have a question for you all, i have only ever used bottled water in my Rocket, so how often should i descale the boiler? Not seen much info on how long to wait if you are using bottle water instead of tap water. I use Volvic as it was the closest match to the recommended mineral levels for making coffee.

My coffee still tastes great but i have had the machine for about 12 months now and have yet to descale it.

Any thoughts?


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## glevum

I used to de scale my HX every 4 months when using Brita water but i have been using Ashbeck only for the last year. Just done a de scale as i had a squeal coming from the OPV. When i emptied the boiler after 30 mins a bluey/ greeny colour came out and the squeal had gone. noticed a quicker heat up & recovery time since and steam performance is a lot better as my machine now stays at 1 bar constant when steaming on a 2 hole tip. After a year you forget what your machines performance should be !


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## big dan

After reading an incredibly long article on coffee by Jim Shcuman on another forum i have decided not to descale yet as the results concluded that volvic and another brand i don't know (glacier something) have a composition that won't scale.

One user had a 5 year old machine and took the mushroom off to inspect for scale and it was immaculate. Hadn't heard of doing this before but it is a great tip. If you have an E61 group head you can undo the bolt at the top and have a look to inspect for scale and will give a good indication of whether you need to descale or not!


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## hotmetal

That's interesting.

I also tried to view the SCG video about descaling an R58 but couldn't get to it. I asked them why and they said that they now make sure their videos are manufacturer approved. Andrew Meo says Rockets should be descaled at a Rocket service centre so SCG took the video down, because apparently "descaling prosumer machines is not an operation that is generally intended to be carried out by users". Or something like that.

I only use Tesco Ashbeck in my R58. It's 80mg/l TDS, which is even lower than Volvic (and considerably cheaper). But to be fair it doesn't have the same mineral composition and is actually slightly acidic at about pH6.3 cf Volvic's near pH7. Dave C mentioned something about putting a tiny bit of bicarbonate of soda in the water, but I can't remember exactly how that worked in order to prevent scale (or corrosion?) because I'm not very up on chemistry. He runs a full RO system though so it might be more to do with remineralising.

I have heard it said that with low TDS water you can get away with descaling once a year, depending on usage levels. (YMMV as the Americans would say).

Also, dual boilers may use slightly less water than your average HX because there are no cooling flushes required.

I think the tip about taking the mushroom off to check before going through the palaver of descaling is a great one.

As for the whole rock'n'roll business, I would question whether it's needed. The brew boiler fills all the way. The tiny amount of scale that might build up above the water line in the steam boiler surely can't be worth worrying about? And I would not feel comfortable disabling water level sensors. Sounds like asking for more trouble than it's worth unless you're sufficiently clued up to know exactly what you're doing.

The bluey greeny colour you get when you descale is a result of the action of the acid on the copper boiler and is not an indication of how much scale has/hasn't been removed I would think.

The conclusion I've come to is that I will not worry about descaling my Rocket until maybe mid/late next year, and I'll start by taking the mushroom off so see if I really need to.


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## glevum

I had some scale on the mushroom, but could have been from the previous year when i used Brita water. for the last year i also used Ashbeck in our Bodum kettle and that had a light layer of scale on the element ( no where near the same as the previous year using Severn Trent water.) a quick HX descale every 1-2 years on ashbeck is an easy enough job, though i am sure an expert is going to tell me i am ruining the machine descaling.


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## big dan

Bella Barista who sold me the machine had a few interesting points. They said there is no point to the rock and roll method as scale does not form above the water line so if the boiler is filled to its max when descaling this should be sufficient. (by max i mean the when the sensor has told it to stop filling)

For sake of reference here are some of the links i found:

Insanely Long Water thread by Jim Shculman: http://web.archive.org/web/20080526072324/http://www.big-rick.com/coffee/waterfaq.html

Checking E61 for scale: http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/checking-e61-espresso-machine-for-scale-t6704.html

Work through of Volvic by Londinium - http://londiniumespresso.com/blog/the-best-water-for-your-espresso-machine

To paraphrase the above links:

Jim Shculman recommends Volvic to prevent scaling

The E61 walkthrough shows how dismantle the bolt on top of the mushroom to inspect for scale

Londiniium works out that the hardness rating of Volvic is around 62 mg/l and that anything above 90 mg/l will leave scale deposits.

Hotmetal is would be interesting to use the above link to work out how Ashbeck compares with the recommended mineral content. Couldn't find the mineral analysis online otherwise i would have worked it out for you.


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## MediumRoastSteam

Just in case anyone wonders, by doing the calculations according to the Londinium Espresso blog, for Ashbeck the values for hardness and alkalinity are 35.5 and

20.5 respectively, almost half of Volvic, which are 62.35 and

58.22 respectively, so technically, won't scale as much as if using Volvic.


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## Wobin19

I use a Brita Jug and descale every six months. I have just done one in the normal way. No rock n roll for me and seems to be just fine.


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## Neil294

Although the original video from Seattle Coffee Gear got taken down, there's still this general de-scaling video that features a Rocket and uses a traditional approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQup1NKYb8. The original I seem to remember them putting one side of the rocket on a brick for an hour to tilt it, then the other side, then the front and back just to move the water up the sides of the boiler. As pointed out here though, if water doesn't normally come into contact with those sides, then I don't think we need to worry about it.


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## DavecUK

espressotechno said:
 

> You'll know the boiler is full up when water starts coming out of the safety valve !


Only if you get your eye up really close!


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## Olliehulla

Neil294 said:


> Although the original video from Seattle Coffee Gear got taken down, there's still this general de-scaling video that features a Rocket and uses a traditional approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQup1NKYb8. The original I seem to remember them putting one side of the rocket on a brick for an hour to tilt it, then the other side, then the front and back just to move the water up the sides of the boiler. As pointed out here though, if water doesn't normally come into contact with those sides, then I don't think we need to worry about it.


Does the steam that occupies the top of the boiler not leave residues, albeit not as much as the main body of water in the boiler ?


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## hotmetal

I wouldn't think so. Steam condensing is one way of distilling. Not being an engineer I've never cut a boiler in half to see for myself but my gut feeling is that the steam (for the purposes of scaling) would be pretty much pure water.


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## Neil294

Yep - I agree with Paul. The act of creating the steam means that the deposits are mostly left in the boiler as they are the impurities that are left behind



hotmetal said:


> I wouldn't think so. Steam condensing is one way of distilling. Not being an engineer I've never cut a boiler in half to see for myself but my gut feeling is that the steam (for the purposes of scaling) would be pretty much pure water.


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## Olliehulla

I take it, not enough deposits to warrant a descale ? Pin and spring looked pretty OK too.


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## hotmetal

I'll await the replies of better qualified members to see what they think. FWIW I've been using only Ashbeck or (lately) a mix of Waitrose Essential and Volvic. When I've done a chem back flush on my R58 and lubed the cams there has been no signs of scaling in that part of the group whatsoever. I conclude from that, that there is no need yet.


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## MediumRoastSteam

@hotmetal, if you don't mind me asking, what made you change from Ashbeck?


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## hotmetal

pessutojr said:


> @hotmetal, if you don't mind me asking, what made you change from Ashbeck?


Well to be honest it was quite recently, I had been reading the threads about water and a few people (Xpenno, Gary **** et al) seemed to be looking into this very closely and had said that their experiences of Ashbeck were that, aside from the low TDS and no scale benefits, it wasn't the best tasting. Having only used Ashbeck I just wondered what I was missing. I've purchased about 12 litres of Waitrose water and 9 of volvic (2 x 6-packs but Waitrose is 2l bottles, volvic 1.5l). It's just to see if it tastes better while still not scaling the machine. To be honest, I notice a slight improvement in taste, not sure it's a quantum leap, but maybe my taste buds aren't as finely tuned as Gary/Spence. I'm sticking with Waitrose/Volvic for the time being, though buying from Waitrose is a lot more effort for me. If it becomes a pain in the derriere it won't be the end of the world to use Ashbeck (I live next to a Tesco). Give it a try and see if you notice a taste benefit.


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## MediumRoastSteam

Thank you @hotmetal. Will give it a go.


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