# Cleaning and maintaining Gaggia Classic



## Chrisrov (Jan 19, 2021)

I want to develop a routine of cleaning and maintaining my Gaggia Classic, so I was searching relevant topics and I am trying to understand what is the best way to take proper care of the machine.

This is what I have understood so far, and a couple of questions:

- After every shot, flush about 10 seconds of clear water and clean the shower screen with a soft cloth. Also, make sure the basket and portafilter are cleaned after each shot. If making milk based coffee, run some steam through the steam wand after each use and clean the wand from the milk with a soft cloth.

- Daily, after the last shot, backflush with clean water? Now, I am not sure if that is needed, or how much water to run through during backflushing?

- Weekly, or fortnightly as a minimum, backflush with Puly or other similar cleaner and also soak all metal parts in the cleaner, as shown in this video. The cleaner should not be put in the reservoir to run through the machine, it should only be used for backflushing.






- Every month approximately, depending on how hard the water you use is, descale the machine, using the Puly descaler sachets, or similar descaling product. The solution should be put in the water reservoir to run through the machine, as shown in this video






- Maybe once a year, teardown the boiler, opv, solenoid, to clean and descale? Also, check and replace gaskets and o-rings? Or is that not needed, if you descale regularly as above? Detailed walkthrough for teardown, clean and rebuild the Gaggia Classic, can be found in the following video.






Any additions, comments or suggestions?


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## allikat (Jan 27, 2020)

Weekly (or more), pull off the shower screen and clean that, and wipe down the distribution plate.

Backflush with clean water daily, or more often if you're constantly getting stuff stuck to the shower screen. If you're doing that, I don't think that the 10 seconds of clean water after every shot is vital, maybe a quick hit to wash off anything loose, but you'll get most of that with the backflush later.

Depends how much you use your machine really. The more you use it, the more it needs to be cleaned. In a busy coffee shop you'd backflush it hourly, in a home environment daily is plenty. Don't get too fixated on schedules unless your mind really works better that way.

And if your water is pretty hard then sort out a better solution to get low scaling water than a britta filter. Water here is really bad, so I go with britta for the kettle and bottled Ashbeck from Tesco, or Waitrose Lockhills for my espresso machine. If I had the cash, I'd get myself a plumbed in water softener.


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## allikat (Jan 27, 2020)

Further to that, on the longer time scale, a strip down is worth it every few years, when the o-rings are starting to get a bit flacid. Probably about the time you feel it's worth replacing the brew group gasket.

This assumes that you're using good water. If you're insisting on using hard tap water with or without a filter, then more often will be needed. Similarly with descaling, good water lets you push out the descaling to every few months, bad water will need far more attention.


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## No Heroes (Feb 9, 2021)

My Gaggia Classic Pro manual suggests that using a cloth to wipe down the shower screen can build up lint inside the screen. That manual says a lot of things I ignored, but I felt it worth mentioning. This makes sense, as the lab-grade sieves I use for cooking require a brush for cleaning too. I bought a shower screen brush to use instead of a cloth.


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## Chrisrov (Jan 19, 2021)

allikat said:


> Backflush with clean water daily, or more often if you're constantly getting stuff stuck to the shower screen. If you're doing that, I don't think that the 10 seconds of clean water after every shot is vital, maybe a quick hit to wash off anything loose, but you'll get most of that with the backflush later.


 Thanks for the reply. The clean water backflush should be done right after the last shot of the day, when the machine is still hot? Or at the end of the day, with the machine cold, or it doesn't matter?

I guess the way to do the backflush would be to put the blind basket in the portafilter, press the brew button for about 10 seconds until the pump develops full pressure, turn the brew button off, repeat 4-5 times?

I have read that Gaggia does not recommend backflushing the machine, although it makes sense to backflush every machine that has a 3 way valve, so I would take that recommendation from Gaggia with a pinch of salt? When the brew stops and the 3-way valve opens to relieve the pressure, it is very likely that coffee oils and particles are passed through the machine, so it needs backflushing to clean that. I am not an expert, but that makes sense to me.



allikat said:


> And if your water is pretty hard then sort out a better solution to get low scaling water than a britta filter.


 According to Severn Trent, the water here is "Moderately Soft". I am currently using a britta filter, maybe that's ok with this water?











No Heroes said:


> My Gaggia Classic Pro manual suggests that using a cloth to wipe down the shower screen can build up lint inside the screen. That manual says a lot of things I ignored, but I felt it worth mentioning. This makes sense, as the lab-grade sieves I use for cooking require a brush for cleaning too. I bought a shower screen brush to use instead of a cloth.


 I agree that probably makes sense, I use a microfiber cloth that I only use for that. Maybe that's ok for after every shot? The shower screen will come out, brushed and properly cleaned once a week anyway.


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