Cleaning my Niche tonight because I dropped a shot glass on counter and small chips of glass were everywhere, even on top of things on the counter. Did not want to take a chance since the lid was up, so I am cleaning the Niche too.

There are coffee grounds stuck in the grease that was applied at the factory to the threads of the bean funnel, mostly to the threads of the machine. I am thinking that I should clean the threads and apply new grease. Should I use the molykote?

Reason that I think that there are grounds that high to begin with is because I use a bellows and it does pull a small amount of grounds back up, even into the inside of the suction cup when releasing the pressure. Grounds probably got stuck in the grease when I was using the brush to drop the grounds down into the base.

Has anyone that does not use a bellows ever seen grounds in the grease?

Ken

Yup-I don't use bellows and sometimes have fines in the grease. I usually give it a halfhearted wipe and hope there's enough grease left to screw it back together (there always is).

I had a few bigger chunks of grounds in the funnel threads for the last couple of years before I started using bellows more recently.

From what I could tell of the original thread lubricant, it seemed more like a petroleum jelly (e.g. Vaseline, but not the lotion stuff) than thin oil. I wiped mine down with paper towel and applied a similarly viscous food-safe lubricant that you can find at some coffee retailers:

https://haynesmfg.com/products/haynes-l ... -4-oz-tube

Thanks Max and KT!