I pulled a water shot in the cup and realized the water is full of tiny flakes/particles of gold metallic color. I have the ECM Giotto Premium 2005 machine. I hope it is not boiler corrosion of scary stuff like this!!!!

After called the technician from Faema in Montreal, i made a descaling with a spoon of baking soda in 1L of water. The water when a little brown and some coffee grains were removed. But I made this 2 weeks ago. I don't know if the particles can be caused by the soda descaling...

One thing strange, there is no particles when I fill a cup from the water wand, it seem to come only from the grouphead.

Anyone have idea about this problem?

Descaling with baking soda is not what I would tell anyone to do. There are special descaling products like Urnex Dezcal. Since the particles are only coming from the brewhead, it is probably flaking from inside the E-61 group from chrome flaking off.

Rather than guess, why not check for scale? If you do, please take photos.

Mark Well wrote:After called the technician from Faema in Montreal, i made a descaling with a spoon of baking soda in 1L of water.

They recommended baking soda???? I can't see this doing anything. Citric acid is the norm around here....

Anyway, listen to the sage advice of Dan (HB).

Mark

baking soda is a base, not an acid. It will not descale your boiler, AFAIK.

If you use RO or distilled water in your espresso machine (not recommended), you can use a pinch of baking soda to every liter of water you fill the boiler with. This will prevent the super-soft water from leaching the boiler, according to the epic Insanely Long Water FAQ, which I would recommend as reading to anyone who is interested in home espresso preparation that hasn't already read it.

I was sure baking soda was a bad idea, but I was sure too the technician recommanded from Faema Montreal was reliable too...

It is the second machine i got that "flake" metal parts from inside. The first was a gaggia coffee. I am really thinking about selling that crap and return with a stainless steel stovetop coffeemaker...

Probably most of the people here got this problem too but never realized it. I paid this crappy machine 1300, I could buy a new Rancilio Silvia for cheaper and avoid this kinky kind of problem. damn

Baking Soda wasn't necessarily a bad idea. It's 100% food safe, and unlikely to cause any particular harm to your boiler or your person.

John Smith wrote:Probably most of the people here got this problem too but never realized it. I paid this crappy machine 1300, I could buy a new Rancilio Silvia for cheaper and avoid this kinky kind of problem.

I take issue with this. You enter a forum of espresso enthusiasts, and you assume that you've discovered a huge, glaring problem with one of the typical machines we own, that we've had all along and never knew. I can't tell if you meant that to be belittling, but can you see how it could be interpreted as such? I understand you're upset, but I think you should calm down a bit and think this through.

If you do a little more research on home-barista.com and coffeegeek.com, you'll find that this is a fairly common problem (chrome/nickel flaking). I would agree with you that it is kind of odd that E61 machines do chrome so many of the internal grouphead parts, and I certainly would avoid doing so myself. On the other hand, these flaking problems typically go hand in hand with excessively hard water feeding the machine and/or the user doing a descale for the first time after much too long a time using hard water. The calcium deposits inside the E61 mushroom seem to cause the chrome to flake.

Now, you could solve this problem by using water whose contents are better controlled (see the Water FAQ I linked you previously), or, you could try descaling your machine and flushing the heat exchanger and the boiler well. When you flush the boiler, be sure to remove the aerator from the water tap, as it may collect chunks of deposits that break off. This will allow you to see when you've flushed them out completely. Dan also graciously sent you a link with instructions for checking for scale. Once you remove the mushroom on your machine, you can clean it off and remove the remaining chrome. This ought to solve your problem more permanently.

Finally, for what it's worth, chrome flaking is not the huge deal you make it out to be. Those particles will most certainly wind up in your puck, rather than your cup.

Metallic flakes after descaling an e61 type machine seem to be common.

I don't know if this is limited to the e61 "clone" groups used by many manufacturers, or to the original equipment ones too. There's no apparent good reason to chromium plate the inside of the group other than the costs saving compared to not doing so, which is probably the reason it's done.

It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with hard water and scale, although they are obviously the main reasons for descaling in the first place.

I had an Isomac Tea (long since disposed of). The brew pressure gauge started to give some problem, and the supplier insisted I did a descale before they would look at it, despite having very soft water.

I did, and got the same results as you. (The gauge problem was something quite unrelated anyway).

It probably isn't too harmful, and as others have said, unlikely to get into the cup anyway. I think it will gradually go away.

It's a shame you don't like the machine having paid out so much, but some people just don't get on with some types of machine I guess.

John Smith wrote:I was sure baking soda was a bad idea, but I was sure too the technician recommanded from Faema Montreal was reliable too...

humm... besides Nic from Cafe-creme I wouldn't be trusting many of them... from experience. They're old school and not very inclined to good maintenance practices.

thanks all for the replies and sorry for my aggressiveness...

I will look for the mushroom cleaning and follow the instructions. Don't seems complicate and probably can fix the problem.

It is hard to find stores where they sell citric acid or urnex dezcal here in quebec (a redneck city). Everytime you search for a specialized stuff here you don't find it and need order by internet...So I should be able to dezcal my machine soon.

I will use only bottled water to avoid scale accumulation. The only problem is that the woman that sold me the machine probably used tap water for 3 years.

Look for a local beer brewing supply store. They may have citric acid.

As mentioned, the active ingredient in baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, is a base and not an acid needed to affect the solubility of calcium based scale. You are also adding corn starch and a few other minor ingredients unless you have laboratory grade sodium bicarb. Also, as mentioned, this should not do much harm to your boiler metals and in fact distilled water will do MUCH more harm in pitting and degrading the metal surface.

You should be fine after following instructions. I'm not looking forward to descaling my Anita any time soon but I've brought home some pure citric acid for the time its necessary.

Good luck and stay calm.

Hello again.

I have followed the instruction given on the link by Dan Kehn. Thanks a lot! I removed the mushroom and soaked this in citric acid solution. Man, it was full of heavy scale, green and very dense. A vast part of the metal chrome is totally eaten. The mushroom chamber was full of chrome particles and scale floating. I washed and flushed many times the chamber to remove all particles. I am thinking now to pass a sandpaper on the mushroom to remove all the remaining chrome to make it more uniform and avoid the possibility of more chrome detaching from there.

Next step will be to open the cover and descale the boiler, disconnecting the "auto-fill" sensor cable. I hope it will not make a mess!!! The boiler is probably full of heavy scale like the mushroom chamber.

Thanks for the help, it was fun and more easy than I thought!
JS

I have descaled the boiler yesterday unplugging the autofill sensor until some pressure goes out of the valve. I let the machine on to descale for about 3 hours. The water went out totally green.

Since I remove the mushroom and cleaned it from scale, I continue to receive metal flakes (sometimes chrome color sometimes gold) when a pull a shot with just water. Maybe I need to remove the shower screen and gasket or the distribution screw? I have followed the instruction to descale the E61 group. When the water is poured in the mushroom chamber, it is better to let the machine turned on to become hot and descale better?

thanks again
JS

That's probably a good idea. Do you know if your boiler is nickel-plated? I know that there are some machines that do this, and in that case, you will be battling flakes from inside the heat exchanger as well as the grouphead.

The best thing to do is probably to, as you say, pull the screen and dispersion screw, and flush more. You may need to descale the heat exchanger a few more times. 3 years of tap water can be a pretty nasty ordeal, almost to the point of it being worth it to remove the boiler and pipes and descale them separately. Still, I helped a friend descale his La Valentina, an E61 machine that used to be mine and also has a nickel-plated boiler, and a bunch of the flakes were coming off when we descaled. It took several fillings of acid solution before the water started coming out clear, and then even more flushing to clear the flakes. On the other hand, we were only getting flakes from the boiler out the water tap, nothing from the grouphead.

Also, yes, citric acid will work much faster if the machine is on and hot. This might help you, but remember to be careful! I have been burned by the E61 head twice, one time quite badly. It does NOT feel very good!

To descale the heat exchanger, I just need to fill the boiler with acid citric solution and run the water through grouphead and let it rest for 3-4 hours ? (the heat exchanger will be full of descaling solution?)

I don't get a lot of particles when I empty the boiler from the water wand, so I guess most of the particles come from another place (HX or grouphead).

thanks

To descale the grouphead, all you need to do is put the citric acid solution in the tank, insert the feed tube, and run water through the grouphead by turning on the brew lever. You run it till the water coming out smells like citric acid, and then let it sit for awhile. I would suggest you turn the machine on and let it get hot. Then you'll only need to let it sit for about 5-10 minutes before flushing out and adding more acid. If you do it cold, as I mentioned, it takes longer. You simply repeat that until the water stops turning blue after a few minutes, and then use fresh water to flush it thoroughly.

After some days and many liters of cleaning, emptying by water wand and grouphead, I can say that I still got flakes in the cups. Most of the time it is gold color and shinning.

I have sandpapered the mushroom to remove all chrome, it should be correct for this. But maybe the gold flakes are coming from the grouphead above the shower screen. Is there something to do with this? Do I need to sell the machine?

Damn, I asked the woman before if she was getting some particles in the water, if the water was clean and if she maintained the machine. She lied to me all the way. I got the machine 1 month ago but I am thinking to contact the woman again to get refund...

At this point, there is probably no solution, the machine will continue to flake for all the lifetime.

It's not totally lost. The machine isn't a black box: you can take it apart and put it back together with minimal technical skills required. I've done it recently to a somewhat larger machine, but I can tell you right now that it's no more or less complicated to do it to a standard E61 machine. It just takes proper tools and common sense.

It sounds to me like you need to completely rebuild your grouphead. At least, that's where I'd start. Take it apart completely, replace all the gaskets, descale all the pieces separately, and take a small pipe brush to the grouphead feed lines. If, after you've put it back together, you're still getting flakes, you need to pull the boiler and brush out the heat exchanger. Alternately, you can take it to a service center and have it redone for probably a couple hundred bucks. I would recommend talking to the seller about a partial refund due to her gross inaccuracy in item description. As you'll read in the link to my machine restoration, I had a seized pump that needed to be rebuilt/replaced, and the seller didn't realize this. At my request, he refunded me the money to buy a new pump and portafilter (I had asked him specifically how bad they were... he said they were fine, and I really didn't feel the same way). Hopefully your seller will be that helpful.

Of course, if you just want to get out, I guess that's fine, but know that it takes a lot more than what you've got to ruin the machine. The longer a machine is run without maintenance, the more maintenance will be required. At some point, scale issues definitely go beyond what you can fix with simple acid flushes.