Ultimate Guide to Cleaning Your Commercial Coffee Grinder

Your commercial coffee grinder is your business’ gateway to hundreds of espresso shots and cups of coffee daily. And while it’s making all those customers happy, it’s also accumulating oils and residue that silently sabotage your coffee quality. Most coffee business owners underestimate how quickly a dirty grinder can degrade your coffee experience. Regular cleaning protects your investment and ensures every cup meets your standards.

Here's the systematic, step-by-step routine that keeps your grinder performing like new.

Why Regular Cleaning is Essential for Commercial Coffee Grinders

Coffee’s natural oils and tiny ground particles slowly accumulate in your grinder hopper, the burrs, and the grinding chamber. Over time, they go stale and dilute your freshly-ground coffee with old ‘muddy’ flavors that cut out the most nuanced and sweet notes of each cup. Yikes!

Dirty grinders also force motors to work harder, accelerating wear, and increasing the likelihood of expensive repairs. Built-up residue clogs discharge chutes and affects dosing accuracy, leading to waste that compounds throughout the day. Just 0.5 grams of variation per shot—common in poorly maintained grinders—translates to significant coffee waste and extraction inconsistencies.

For coffee shops and other coffee-forward settings, creating and sticking to a regular cleaning routine will protect your coffee flavor, protect your equipment investment, and protect your great customer experience.

Still looking for your perfect commercial coffee grinder? Explore the complete Mahlkönig professional grinder lineup.

Tools and Materials Needed for Cleaning

The right cleaning tools make all the difference between thorough maintenance and accidentally damaging precision components. Mahlkönig grinders are engineered for straightforward cleaning, but using the wrong tools can scratch surfaces or damage electronics in ways that affect your grinder's performance.

Essential Tools for Daily and Weekly Cleaning

GRINDZ™ grinder cleaner is one of your most important tools. Co-created by Mahlkönig with Urnex specifically for flat burr grinders, it removes stubborn coffee oils without leaving residue that might affect flavor. This is the only cleaning product we at Mahlkönig recommend for our grinders.

Nylon-bristled brush gets into crevices without scratching precision surfaces. Harder metal brushes can create microscopic scratches where coffee particles stick, creating more cleaning troubles down the road. Stick with nylon.

Shop vacuum with narrow attachment is essential for cleaning out all beans from the burr chamber. It removes particles by sucking them out, rather than forcing them deeper into mechanisms like compressed air does.

Microfiber cloths for wiping down surfaces. Keep them barely damp—never soaking wet. Mahlkönig grinders have sensitive electronics that water can damage.

Ground coffee container to catch the cleaning discharge. You'll need this for the GRINDZ cleaning process.

Step-by-Step: How to Clean Your Commercial Coffee Grinder

First: make sure to consult your grinder’s manufacturer manual. The general process we’ll share will work with virtually every Mahlkönig espresso grinder, but your specific model may have unique steps or suggestions for how to best clean it.

Based on our official maintenance protocols here at Mahlkönig, here's the systematic approach that keeps your grinder performing at commercial standards. We'll break this down by frequency because different parts need attention at different intervals.

Daily Cleaning (5 minutes)

Mid to high-volume coffee shops will want to clean the burrs with GRINDZ every day at closing. Lower-volume settings like bakeries or restaurants can get away with completing these steps every 2-5 days, though daily is always recommended.

Empty the hopper by locking the slider at the base of the hopper to keep any more beans from falling into the burrs. Lift the hopper and pour out the remaining coffee beans back into a storage container. Wipe down the hopper with a microfiber cloth and then place the hopper back onto the grinder.

Do a GRINDZ clean by setting your grinder to the coarsest setting and adding GRINDZ cleaner into the empty hopper. Follow the quantity recommendations for your specific grinder model. Grind all of the GRINDZ through the system.

Critical purge step: Run the same amount of coffee beans as GRINDZ you used. This removes all cleaning residue that would otherwise contaminate your next shots with a grainy flavor (though the GRINDZ itself is food safe). Dispose of both the ground GRINDZ and the purge coffee.

Recalibrate if needed. After cleaning or moving your grinder, you'll want to recalibrate your burrs back to the “zero point”, so your grind settings stay consistent over time (without recalibration, the relationship between numbered settings and the real distance between burrs will drift over time). If you want fully automated zeroing and electronic calibration of the burrs after using GRINDZ™, check out the E80W Grind‑by‑Sync—it re‑zeros in just 10 seconds.

Clear key contact points. Use your brush to remove grounds from the spout, portafilter intake, and discharge areas where coffee particles accumulate and create dosing problems. Then wipe or vacuum the newly loose grounds away from your workspace.

Note for Grind-by-Weight models only: If you have an E65W or E80W with weighing technology, you'll also need to remove the magnetic weighing cell cover and brush around the load cell area, then recalibrate with a 1kg or custom calibration weight after cleaning. Standard E65T and E80T models don't require this step.

Weekly Deep Clean (15 minutes)

Once per week, after you’ve completed the GRINDZ steps of your cleaning, you’ll want to take a few extra cleaning steps to keep your grinder running at full performance.

Unscrew and lift the burr carrier, as well as the housing for the upper burr. Use a shop vacuum to capture any remaining loose grounds in and around the burrs and grinding chamber, and your nylon-bristled brush to gently brush off any grounds that need a nudge.

Clean additional components around the burrs. There may be additional components you can now access that require cleaning—check with your grinder’s manual. Mahlkönig grinders have a silicone and metal flapper that can be pulled out and wiped with a microfiber cloth.

Reassemble the burr carrier. Put it all back together, finishing with the cleaned and empty hopper.

Clean the casing and collecting tray. Remove the collecting tray and pull casing components forward. Brush the spout, portafilter intake, portafilter support, and adjustment screws. Wipe all external surfaces and the drip tray with a damp cloth—never allow water inside the casing.

Clean the spout system completely. Pull the spout downward out of its lock, then use your nylon-bristled brush and shop vacuum to clean the spout housing. Wipe the spout itself with a microfiber cloth thoroughly before reattaching. 

Handle the spout carefully—fine scratches on the surface can cause ground coffee to adhere, creating dosing fluctuations that worsen over time.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Cleaning Your Coffee Grinder

Here are the critical mistakes that damage equipment, waste time, and compromise coffee quality—and how to avoid them.

Just Say No to Water

The biggest mistake is treating your commercial grinder like a kitchen appliance you can rinse or spray down. Even small amounts of water penetrating the grinder cause short circuits and expensive repairs. Mahlkönig's electronics are precision instruments—excessive moisture can damage them.

Never use spray bottles, steam cleaners, or water jets anywhere near your grinder. Never immerse any components in water. When you wipe with a damp cloth, make it barely damp and keep it away from electrical areas entirely.

Compressed Air? No Way

Many cafe staff assume compressed air cleans better because it seems more thorough. But compressed air can force debris deeper into grinding mechanisms and can damage sensitive internal components. We specifically warn against using compressed air or blow guns on our grinders.

Use vacuum suction instead—it removes particles without pushing them into places where they can cause long-term problems.

The Dishwasher is Not a Shortcut

Even parts that seem durable aren't dishwasher-safe. The heat and chemicals cause color fading and material changes that affect both appearance and function. Mahlkönig explicitly states that drip trays and hopper lids aren't dishwasher-proof.

Hand-wash everything with mild soap if needed and dry thoroughly. It takes two extra minutes but saves you from replacing damaged components.

Surface Scratches Are a Problem

Using metal brushes, knives, or abrasive cleaners on any grinder surface creates microscopic scratches where coffee particles stick. This is especially damaging on the spout, where scratches cause dosing fluctuations that compound throughout busy service periods.

Stick with nylon-bristled brushes and microfiber cloths, and materials and cleaning supplies that are considered food grade or food safe.

Maintenance Tips to Keep Your Coffee Grinder in Top Condition

Consistent maintenance is a skill that involves reading your grinder's performance and adjusting your approach based on what you observe. We suggest training good grinder maintenance practices for all your team members, and assigning a grinder champion who owns the maintenance and cleaning schedules to make sure there’s always someone who’s paying attention and ready to keep your grinder working at full performance.

Cleaning Schedules Based On Your Volume

Your cleaning frequency should match your coffee volume, not an arbitrary calendar.

Warning Signs to Look Out For

Your grinder tells you when it needs attention if you know what to watch for:

Final Best Practices

Systematic cleaning is good for your coffee, good for your customers, and good for your business. The time you invest—5 minutes daily, 15 minutes weekly, plus GRINDZ cycles every 1-5 days—directly impacts profitability through reduced waste, consistent shots and happier customers, and extended equipment life.

Follow our protocols, use GRINDZ as designed, and stick to the systematic approach that keeps your operation running smoothly. Your customers taste the difference, even when they don't realize why their coffee experience is consistently excellent.

Ready to optimize your grinder maintenance? Connect with your local Mahlkönig distributor for hands-on training and cleaning supplies for your specific model. Browse additional Mahlkönig models—Grind‑by‑Time, Grind‑by‑Weight, Allround, and more—at our full professional grinders collection.