Until recently I had believed that the proper daily cleaning procedure (I.e. just before turning the machine off, or after the last shot for the day) for an HX machine was to run a shot without the portafilter, wipe down the screen, and run one more shot of clean water.

But, I recently had a chance meeting with the local Espresso serviceman (Cote d'Azur, France) who said that was very wrong. As he explained in his heavily Italian accented French: The way I was doing it would just push coffee up into the screen. Instead, he said, I should pull two shots with a blank filter, allowing the machine to reach a full 9 bars pressure before stopping each shot. Just before canceling the second shot, he said to loosen the portafilter to allow water to escape from around the seal with the group head (cleaning the gasket) - while being careful to not get scalded. This is similar to my weekly cleaning with Puly-Caff - which he approved of.

My machine is a 2 group La Cimbali M29 Select. But, he said this is the proper procedure for any HX or DB machine - he services everything and seems to know them all well.

Any thoughts, comments or opinions?

I agree with him completely.
Or better yet, remove the screen and clean it + underneath it daily-- it only takes an extra 20 seconds.

Good to hear because that is about exactly what I do. Run lots of water rinseing and brushing the p.f. then blind filter, group brush with more water, pressureize and release several times letting the water over the edge of the p.f. to flush the gasket face. Every time I pull the screen to clean it it is almost perfectly clean already.
KDM

"Just before canceling the second shot, he said to loosen the portafilter to allow water to escape from around the seal with the group head (cleaning the gasket) - while being careful to not get scalded. "


Good to hear this also as i did this a long time ago by acident and thought "wow that has just pressure blasted the gasket and group suround" so have adoped this method every time after use, nice to know i am doing something right {er indoors will allways find some microscopic grain of coffee or splash somewhere on the worktop to moan bout though}

Isn't that basically the "portafilter wiggle" as discussed here Espresso Machine Cleaning 101? When I read that, it sounded like an excellent idea, considering how much stray grounds I had routinely cleaned off the gasket on my Caravel. Now that I've supplemented the Caravel with an NS Ellimatic, it's become part of my regular routine.

The portafilter wiggle also rinses off the gasket. Coffee grounds on your group gasket will shorten its life span as you are essentially scrubbing it with sandpaper every time you lock your portafilter in. I do a detergent backflush once a week and take the screen and dispersion block off every couple of months to clean them a little better. Water flushing just removes any loose grounds, it does little to nothing to remove the coffee oils. Oil will dissolve oil which is part of the reason some people dump the first shot of the day. That first shot will dissolve and clean the oils off of the shower screen giving you a cleaner second shot since the oils are now fresh. That is part of the reason a well used machine needs less detergent cleaning