Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Cleaning out grinder in Solis 5000

Okay, so i enjoy a good cup of espresso or coffee. Our Solis 5000 needs its grinder cleaned about once a year or it takes longer and longer to complete the grind. Here's what i do. There are two screws that hold the coffee hopper on, a philips in back and a Torx 15 in the front. Make note of where the grind dial is (12 in this case) as you'll need to set it back there when you put the hopper back on.
This is what you'll see.
Remove the flexible rubber bean guide and make note of where the red index mark is on the outer retaining ring. Three o'clock in this case. Now, rotate the outer ring until it's a little past the twelve o'clock position. This frees the inner part. You'll now see this.
Clean all the old grinds out; i use a dustbuster. Now you'll have this.
Reassemble by putting the inner part back in, rotating the outer dial to where it was before, replacing the flexible bean guide, and then the hopper with the grind dial set to where it was before. You should be good for another year or so.

As always, do this at your own risk, and take pictures at each step so you know where things started.

I also run about two cups of vinegar from the water reservoir out the steam wand via opening the steam valve that produces hot water.  This in addition to Solistabs of course.  Both of these enhance the espresso...

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