Espresso Cleaner. What's your preference and why?

[Woofy]

Howdy all. I've used a few brands of cleaner. Some I like much more than others. Sooo...

What's YOUR favorite cleaner and why?

Thanks to all posters in advance and best wishes for a fantastic Holiday Season!

Woofy

[cannonfodder]

JoeGlo, because it just flat out works.

[IMAWriter]

Agree with Dave...though both Cafiza and Joe Glo do a fine job, seems like the Joe Glo rinses a bit easier

[pauljolly65]

I'm in with Dave and Rob in the pro-JoeGlo camp. It really works.

Paul

[zin1953]

JoeGlo. Like the others who've already posted, I've used Cafiza, but I find that it foams more during backflushing and -- I agree -- the JoeGlo seems to rinse cleaner.

[Spresso_Bean]

I've been using Cafiza and it does what I need it to, so I haven't tried anything else. I also like that you can get an OMRI organic version of Cafiza.

[roblumba]

I've used Cafiza and Puro Caff. They both seem to do an excellent job. I talked with Tim Oconnor who worked at developing the Puro Caff cleaner to have less aftertaste / residue. He prefers to use his own stuff and recommends it. He mentioned that Cafiza had a stronger residual aftertaste when he first developed Puro Caff, but since then, Cafiza has been reformulated and he thinks they have already addressed that issue.

In my flushing routine I've been using Cafiza and here's my steps.

a) 1 - teaspoon of Cafiza,
b) 2 - 10 second flushes with 10 second wait periods.
c) 3 - 5 seconds flushes with 10 second wait periods.
d) Unlock and Flush the portafilter out with brew water until there are no more suds.
e) Lock the portafilter and perform 10 - 4 second flushes with 1 second wait periods or until I don't see any more visible evidence of cleaner coming out.
f) Unlock and do a final rinse.

Usually when I'm doing this, I use my single spouted portafilter which is rarely used. It basically permanently has the blind basket. The double spouted portafilter and other parts (screen, etc) is sitting in a bath of Cafiza for at least half an hour. When I rinse off everything and reassemble, I do a flush with the brew water.

Usually, this method is sufficient enough that I can pull a double and the taste is fine. Usually the second double is better, but the first one after cleaning is definitely drinkable.

FYI, I think you want the foaming action. As far as I can tell, that's the cleaner reacting with the coffee oils, taking them off the metal and washing the coffee oils / residue away.

[TimEggers]

I'm currently on a huge bottle of JoeGlo and have used Cafiza in the past. They both seemed just fine to me. I can't say that I prefer one over the other because to me they both work just fine.

For descaling I like to use CleanCaf and that too seems to work just fine.