How to Correctly Clean Coffee Roasting Machines
Coffee Roasting Machines require careful handling which might make you hesitant to clean them. However, if you want to preserve the flavor of your coffee, and most importantly, prevent fires, it's important you clean your machine at least once every 200 hours of use. Sounds intimidating? Don’t worry, keep reading.
How to Clean Your Coffee Roaster Correctly
The one thing you should do regularly is clean - with a scraper - all of the build up that you accumulate after a few good uses. If you find yourself cleaning frequently, it's likely due to roasting beans on the darker side. Light roasts tend to result in less residue and require less cleaning.
A simple scraping tool followed by some vacuuming should suffice to maintain proper airflow throughout the machine. However, you’ll come to notice that even when performing this daily cleaning, there is going to be a steady decrease of airflow inside your machine - even if your machine has a chaff collection bin that you clean frequently. This is because of the residue that sticks to parts of the machine that you can’t see, posing a potential risk to machine’s performance, also putting it at risk of a roaster fire.
How to Deep Clean Your Coffee Roaster Correctly
Here comes the most difficult part.
The best way to go about deep cleaning your machine is to contact the manufacturers - they will have a list of recommended products and instructions on how to correctly clean your coffee roaster. For the sake of this blog, we have outline some tips below:
Cooling Tray - We recommend to vacuum underneath the cooling tray at least once a week
Combustion Chamber - If you can reach this part of your machine, it's also a good idea to give it a monthly dusting
Roasting Drum - Scrape the dirt off the parts that you can’t see of the roasting drum. Its not clean just because you can’t see it!
Fans & Exhaustion Pipe - these require the most attention, as poor maintenance can lead to a roaster fire. Instead of simply cleaning the outside of the pipe, disassemble it and clean the inside out!
Prioritizing the cleanliness of your coffee roaster is essential, but don't overlook the need for frequent cleaning of other machines too.