It is my hope that this thread will emphasise to newbies that home espresso almost always gets messy.
Here's my current setup, with cleaning stuff circled. (Sorry, I've only got MS paint on this computer, so y'all will have to tolerate my lame circles)
A quick run-through of the function of each thing:
Red circle: Cloth used to keep drip tray clean. As this is only for cosmetic purposes and in no way comes in contact with anything that will go in anyone's mouth, this is my all-purpose cloth.
White circle: Teatowel used to clean and dry cups.
Green circle: Cloth used to keep steam wand clean. This is probably the most important one to reserve purely for its own use. Coffee dreck on steam wand = eeeeewwww!
Yellow circle: Cloth for wiping out basket. I have found that I almost always end up with oil at the bottom of my baskets at home when getting decent shots and my basket has a small ridge to show fill level, which gets full of grounds.
Blue circle: This is where my brushes live. I have a paintbrush for the grinder and a coffee tool for cleaning my group. The drawer below the grinder is a knockbox, so I'm quite happy to let grounds get on the foot of the grinder and just brush them in. The drawer to the right holds various doodads like thermometers, baskets, batteries, etc. I don't keep the brushes there because with so much cleaning the last thing that I want to do is to be opening a drawer!
A typical rundown, for me, is something like this:
(a) Fill milk jug.
(b) Run water through PF and into cups to preheat and set off element for temp surfing. Empty cup water into medium jug and wipe clean with teatowel (white)
(c) Grind, dose, tamp, extract. Brush away grinds with paintbrush (blue) and stop pour.
(d) Turn on steam switch, put cup on top of machine, knock out puck, wipe basket (yellow).
(e) Scrub group (blue).
(f) Wipe tray (red).
(g) When temp readout hits appropriate temp, which is usually right at the end of all of the cleaning, purge wand into large jug and steam. Pour some of the purged water onto the steam chux (green) and immediately wipe down wand.
(h) Run pump to refil boiler, go drink, come back and empty large jug into medium, large jug goes back on shelf, the other two and the dirty cup(s) go into the dishwasher).
(i) Every now and then, the cloths must be cleaned. I haven't gone into backflushing and descaling.
... so yeah, cleaning is a major PITA, but I'm starting to find that with heaps of dedicated chux it doesn't actually take up much more time, even though my setup is far removed from the sink. This way is certainly not the only way to do it, but it works for me. When I had a bottomless PF, I used to keep it on hand with a blank in it and backflush instead of brushing. Horses for courses.
Anyone care to share? Bright ideas?
Cheers,
Luca
