Espresso Machine Steam Wand Issues? Vinegar Might be the Answer!

by Margaret · Published October 6, 2020 · Updated October 5, 2020

**Our honesty policy: This post may contain affiliate links and I may be compensated if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you. Some are, some aren't--I do some comparison shopping. The important thing is you will know exactly what we are talking about. Drop a note/comment if you have any questions on the products as these are materials and tools we use on our own projects.

The offending espresso machine steam wand.

Do you have an espresso machine with a milk frother / steam wand that leaks like a fire hose?

This is dangerous! Where the espresso machine steam wand is always on.

Or perhaps, the opposite, where the milk frother / steam wand clogged up and no longer allows steam through?

In either case, vinegar may be the answer (video proof below).

I have a Capresso espresso machine which does not have many removable parts other than the back panel. There is no way to dismantle the steam wand and no access to that part of the machine from the inside.

No access and no parts to disassemble.

At the time, I had no idea of the make or model so I couldn’t look up the manufacturer recommended cleaning procedures.

But I did have vinegar and water!

Homemade vinegar and water espresso machine cleaning mix.

OK, so I was curious enough to open up the espresso machine first.

Those little screws on the back were a real pain since they require a smaller screwdriver. A smaller screwdriver that matches with a small screw melded to the machine from hard water running down between the water reservoir and removable back panel. So if you do this, you might need to find your pliers for additional leverage on the too-small-screwdriver.

Taking off the back panel of the espresso machine to get inside…a screwdriver and pliers.

Fun fact, the grooves on the small screwdriver matched the grooves on the pliers. It was like it was meant to be… It was still a ridiculously slow process, but at least there was forward progress.

Capresso espresso machine internals.

No wonder it sounds like a engine firing up–it has a hardcore manifold!

Some machines have issues with o-rings or other small parts leaking on the inside. I wanted to make sure this wasn’t the case before pouring vinegar into the internals of the machine. I only saw a small hard water stain, which did not seem to be a real problem:

**WARNING** Definitely consult the owners manual for the manufacturer recommendations on cleaning. You don’t want to void the warranty, if it is still under warranty. And in all honesty, I’m still testing my ratio so that the least amount of vinegar is used so as to not eat away at the internals, but to be effective enough to still clean.

The espresso machine cleaning solution (AKA “the fix” to this steam wand problems) :

With a 1:1 mix of vinegar and water, my machine was back in business.

Pour the vinegar cleaning solution in the water reservoir.

I ran it through several cycles with a little downtime between cycles to allow the cleaning mixture to eat away at the buildup. Then I cleaned the reservoir and ran several more cycles to clean out the cleaning solution with regular water.

It was once again safe for me to operate as well as safe for little fingers which occasionally make their way towards the machine as they put their plastic cups on the countertop.

…only to have the exact opposite problem two weeks later with the steam wand clogged. Absolutely nothing was making its way through the milk frother.

This next time I used a 1:3 vinegar to water mix.

The fun part about this cleaning was that I had already turned off the machine to let the vinegar mix settle in since it hadn’t let any out, when a little stream shot out. It was pretty exciting to see it coming back to life!

So perhaps before you start taking your machine apart, save yourself some time and run it through a cleaning cycle with the recommended solution first.

In the meantime, I’ve dedicated an old vinegar bottle to this experiment and marked how much vinegar I put in the last time as a point of reference:

Marking how much vinegar is in the cleaning solution.

Should you clean your espresso machine on a regular basis? Probably.

The steam wand started leaking after a couple months of use. It clogged up two weeks later. This seems like it is a regular scheduled maintenance item, and I probably should clean it on a regular basis. However, I still want to see how long this second round works.

Sadly, the morning schedule has been more of a challenge lately so I don’t use the steam wand nearly as often, but I will say I haven’t had any issues since. It’s been 5 months. Maybe it was just a one off that the steam wand behavior went from one extreme to the other. This is definitely a YMMV!!!