What is a very good Espresso machine

[germantown rob]

Originally Posted by floydpink

Not to be argumentative, but I just read this and thought other Gaggia owners may find it interesting..

The New Baby does not have external tubes as your diagram suggests. the solenoid mounts to the group housing and has internal channels to the boiler and group (and below to drip). The solenoid on the new baby is easily clogged so the VERY minimal benefit that might be had from back flushing is not worthwhile in my opinion... I would prefer to run water forward through the group

I have been looking at what folks at CG and HB have to say on the matter and well I got nothing but controversy. I think you made an important point about how easy it is to remove the group head and clean it that way and those that say not to backflush point this out. Those that say to do backflushing point out what a 3 way solenoid is, how it works, and it is cheap to replace. If Gaggia's solenoid can't handle it then it will fail by just normal use anyway. The point of the 3 way is to remove pressure after a shot is done, in other words it is backflushing oily residue and grinds. If you have ever ground to fine and chocked your machine you in essence just backflushed it again with oily gritty back flow. Every post I saw saying not to do it does not supply any real info as to why not, no diagrams, not failures (other than I backflused a few times and now I have this ___ problem). People that say to backflush with a 3 way solenoid do supply all the needed info on why, how, diagrams, etc.

I am not saying you should do this, you keep a clean machine your way and that works for you. There is a chance that since you have not done this before you might push a buildup of crude right into your solenoid and make it fail. This would suck and without a back up solenoid may keep you from liquid gold till you replace it. If you choose not to do this the cleaner you bought should work fine for all you're cleaning needs so it won't be wasted.

I would like to add that the Silvia has the same controversy with far more people saying backflushing should be done and so forth.