Fred: The Coffee Master...

[Idea Design]

Hey Fred I have a question I'm hoping you can answer from that of your previous life as a coffee king.

We have here a Classic Concepts GB260 commercial coffee maker. It's about 1½ years old and for some reason, it seems to have started to push high pressure steam out of the element that's right above the grounds holder.

So much so, in fact, that when you pour in a full carafe of water, only about a third comes out as coffee, while the rest comes out as steam. High-pressure steam, too.

I've taken the thing apart, it seems a fairly simple operation, buy why would it all the sudden turn so much water into steam that gets put out into the atmosphere and unusable in terms of making coffee? It's frustrating to have to keep babysitting a stupid coffee machine.

Thanks for the insight if there's any to be had.

 

[Fred Weiss]

What little information I can find on this brand is that it is an instant heater system rather than a system such as Bunn with an internal hot water reservoir tank. So based on that, I would recommend that you give it a very thorough de-liming servicing. The chances are that you have enough accumulated calcium deposits that water flow through the heater is being restricted.

This amounts to nothing more than buying a gallon of de-liming solution at you closest hardware or home improvement store and, WITH THE HEAT TURNED OFF, running it through the machine two or three times as if you were adding water to make coffee. Follow that with half a dozen passes of hot water to thoroughly removed any chemical left behind ... starting with no heat being applied and later switching to actually heating the water as it runs through the machine.

Hope that helps.