Restarting the Hospitality Industry & Your Equipment
01 June 2020 by Kia Tromans
Lockdown is still in effect here in the UK, but restrictions are lifting and therefore we are advising people to prepare their equipment so that they can open, to whatever capacity they can, when the opportunity arrives. Checking out your equipment now could save you from a disaster occurring in the future when you can open again. We recommend, if possible, that you start checking up on your equipment once every fortnight until you are able to reopen, so you can be sure that when you can reopen you are doing so with fully working equipment.
First, make sure that the water connection to your machine is switched on. For espresso machines, pour some hot water mixed with whatever cleaner you use into the drain to make sure that there are no blockages built up here and water can pass through.
Turn the machine on to fill up and heat up, with the steam arms fully open, this is to ensure that an airlock does not occur within the machine. Once the steam arms have sputtered out you can close them once again. Once the machine is up to heat, run off some shots of water to make sure nothing is blocked on the group heads. If your machine is making all the noises you expect to hear and doesn’t smell of anything off, everything should be fine. Do your usual cleaning routine on the machine and return it to the state it was recommended to be left in when not in use, Click here to go to our YouTube videos for help on this.
For a bean to cup machine, make sure that your water connection to the machine is turned on. Turn the machine on and let it get to temperate. Once it is, if it is the type of machine that will allow it, select a drink from the menu but don’t have any ingredients in the machine.
This is to ensure that the wheels inside the canisters are spinning without issue and haven’t been blocked up by anything whilst they’ve not been in use. Wash out the canisters and if it has a hopper for beans, use a hoover to remove any possible left-over beans that may have hardened and could block the system. Return the machine to a correct state for non-use once you are sure everything is okay. Click here to check out our YouTube channel for video instructions on this.
If you do want to use your grinder to make a drink whilst you’re going through the process of checking your equipment, but dont want to completely mess it up if you cleaned it before closing down, we recommend cutting the bottom out of a plastic cup and putting this in the grinder over the entry point to the teeth, and pouring the beans into here to avoid them going into the hopper proper, then the only cleaning necessary would be to once again hoover this area to remove any beans that may get left and harden.
