Hi everyone, This is my first post to the group. Nice to meet you all. Looking forward to learning a lot about the Brewtus and espresso from you guys!
*Summary:* I recently bought a relatively unused Expobar Brewtus II from a little cafe in upstate NY. Previous owner claimed it was only lightly used and performing the e61 group mushroom inspection<http://www.frcndigital.com/coffee/HowToE61overhaul.html>shows little scale (first two images here <http://imgur.com/a/bIlID>). I decided that I should descale the machine anyway despite light usage so I can start fresh/clean. After following a fairly standard set of descale procedure* with some slight modifications, I proceeded to purge the machine of descale solution. The solution came out slightly green through both the brew group and the hot water wand (as expected). I then proceeded to remove the mushroom so check it out and also pour any remaining solution in the brew boiler out (as per Dan Hagelin's comment on this<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/brewtus/Etc06jUJ7E0/AEtm4dF8WokJ>thread). I immediately noticed that a) there was a lot of copper flakes in the solution in the mushroom and b) lots of components in the group changed color (you can see what I'm talking about in the 3rd photo onwards here<http://imgur.com/a/bIlID>). Furthermore, pouring the solution out of the brew boiler via the now disassembled mushroom reveals copper flakes coming out (like this<http://coffeetime.wikidot.com/metal-flakes-after-descaling>). It appears that I'm not the only one experiencing this. *Concerns/Questions:* Even though it seems that seeing copper flakes is "normal", I'm still a) concerned about its health effects and b) curious what exactly happened. Especially when I know the group components (with the exception of the cam) are brass and the color change that resulted after descale is that of copper. I might have left descale solution in the machine for too long but my understanding is that citric acid is still quite weak as an acid and don't except I'm able to do a ton of damage. Can anyone shed light on what happened? Thanks! Best Regards, Your concerned Brewtus newbie - Anthony *My descale procedure: 1. Empty steam boiler (by letting it all out via hotwater wand while it's at temp) and brew boiler (by disassembling mushroom and turning machine upside-down) of water. 2. Mixed Dezcal solution according to package directions (1L water for 1oz of Dezcal). 3. Ran enough Dezcal solution into machine via water intake hose until both boilers are full of solution. 4. Turned machine off and waited for 1 hour. 5. Turned machine on and let it get to full temp for 1 hour. 6. Empty boilers via same method specified at step 1. above. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
