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🔧 Owner's Guides · 2026Breville's own descale steps for the Barista Express, Barista Pro and Bambino Plus: the alert, the button sequence, the rinse, how often, which descaler.
Written and reviewed by the CoffeeLabAdvisor editorial team · Published 7 September 2026
Descaling a Breville is a machine-run cycle you start with a button sequence, not a scrub: dissolve Breville's descaling agent in the tank, enter descale mode, let the machine push the solution through the coffee, hot-water and steam paths in turn, then run the same cycle again with fresh water to rinse. The sequence differs by model — the Barista Express enters from 2 CUP + POWER, the Barista Pro has DESCALE in its menu, and the Bambino Plus enters from 1 CUP + STEAM held for five seconds — and every one of the three instruction books says the same thing about frequency: replace the water filter every two months and you descale less.
One descale pass: solution from the tank goes through the group head, the hot-water outlet and the steam wand in turn. The rinse is the same pass again with fresh water.
Every one of these machines runs two separate maintenance cycles, and owners mix them up because on the Barista Express one light does both jobs. The cleaning cycle is a backflush: a cleaning tablet dissolves on a blanking disc in the portafilter and the machine pushes the solution back through the shower screen to strip coffee oils from the group head. The descale cycle is a chemical pass through the whole water path — heater, pump, group, hot-water outlet and steam wand — to dissolve the mineral scale that hard water leaves behind. The BES870 manual is explicit that the cleaning cycle “is a back-flushing cycle and is separate from descaling.”
How each machine tells you which it wants: on the Barista Express the CLEAN / DESCALE light flashes for a cleaning cycle and comes on solid for a descale. On the Barista Pro the LCD shows a FLUSH alert for the cleaning cycle and a DESCALE alert for descaling. On the Bambino Plus the 1 CUP and 2 CUP buttons flash alternately after 200 extractions to ask for a cleaning cycle, and the descale alert is the 1 CUP + STEAM pair flashing alternately with 2 CUP for fifteen seconds. Read the alert before you open a sachet: descaling a machine that wanted a backflush leaves the coffee oils exactly where they were.
Breville's descaling agent — the sachets of descaling powder the machines ship with, or the BES007 pack sold separately — and the manuals write the procedure around it. A 2 L (68 fl oz) container that fits under the group head and steam wand together, because the Pro and Bambino Plus procedures ask for one and the Express pushes a comparable volume through in two passes. Fresh cold water for the rinse. Twenty to thirty uninterrupted minutes: the Express times out of descale mode after five minutes without input and has to be restarted from the beginning, and the Bambino Plus asks you to let the machine cool completely before entering descale mode. Remove the water filter from the tank first on the Pro — its manual says to “Ensure that the water filter is removed from the water tank before adding the descaling powder when descaling the machine” — and treat that as good practice on the other two.
One warning appears in identical words in the Express and Bambino Plus books and applies to all three: “The water tank should never be removed or completely emptied during descaling.” The cycle draws solution from the tank throughout, and pulling the tank mid-cycle leaves the pump running dry and the path half-treated.
The Express has no menu, so descale mode is a button chord and the stages are driven by hand. From the BES870 instruction book, in order:
Breville's own tutorial for the machine is titled “How to perform a descale” and walks the same sequence on video. If the machine turns itself off partway — it does after five minutes without input in descale mode — start again from step 3.
The Pro automates the stages the Express asks you to trigger by hand, and its manual states plainly that “The LCD will display a DESCALE alert, when a descaling cycle is required.” From the BES878 instruction book:
Two details that matter: the tank has a dedicated DESCALE fill line, lower than MAX, and the cycle is designed around that volume; and the dial prompts are not optional — if the LCD is waiting for the steam dial and you are waiting for the machine, nothing happens.
The Bambino Plus has three buttons and no screen, so its alert and its entry chord are both light patterns. Its manual: “The machine will indicate that it requires descaling when the 1 CUP and STEAM button and the 2 CUP button flash alternately for 15 seconds.” Pressing any of them cancels the alert and returns the machine to ready; it does not perform the descale. From the BES500 instruction book:
The pause-and-refill is the Bambino's version of the rinse cycle; skipping the refill and simply cancelling at the pause leaves descaling solution in the path, which is the single most common way this procedure produces a machine that tastes wrong afterwards.
Across all three procedures the step people skip is the second pass with fresh water, and it is the step that decides whether the machine comes out of the process working. Descaling solution left in the heater and the lines does two things: it flavours the first shots, and, because the path was not flushed under the same pressure it was treated at, loosened scale can sit where the flow narrows. Our Barista Express troubleshooting guide has a whole section on trouble right after descaling for exactly this reason, and its first instruction is the one here: complete the full rinse with fresh water — refill, run water through the group head and the steam wand until it flows clean and steady — before concluding anything is wrong.
After the rinse, pull one blank shot with an empty basket and one with coffee, and purge the steam wand into a jug. If the flow is weak or absent after a proper rinse, that is the point at which the cause has stopped being something a rinse can reach; the machine is under Breville's warranty and their support line, or the “How to perform a descale” tutorial for your model, is the right next step rather than forum surgery.
None of the three manuals gives a descaling interval in weeks. They give an alert — the light, the LCD, the flashing buttons — and they tell you what changes how soon it comes. The Express book: “Replacing the water filter every two months will reduce the need to descale the machine.” and “If you live in a hard water area, we recommend you change the water filter more frequently.” The Pro book carries the same two-month rule, adding a figure of 60 tank refills as the alternative measure. The filters are the lever: the BWF100 charcoal filter fits the Express and the Pro (and the Infuser and Duo-Temp Pro), and its own listing states a change every two months and sells six as a year's supply. The Touch, Impress, Oracle and Dual Boiler families take the different BES008 cartridge instead, which its listing says to replace every 90 days.
Two practical corollaries. If you use filtered or bottled water the Express manual says to remove the filter from the tank altogether, and the descale alert will still come, later, because even soft water carries some minerals. And if the alert arrives much sooner than every few months with a fresh filter in place, that is information about your water — hard water is the usual reason — rather than a fault, and a water-hardness test strip from a hardware store tells you which case you are in.
All three instruction books describe the procedure with Breville's descaling powder — the sachet the machine ships with, sold afterwards as the four-pack BES007, whose listing names the Barista Express and Bambino Plus among the machines it is for. Third-party descalers formulated for espresso machines exist and many owners use them; we have not evaluated them against Breville's and this page does not rank them. What this page will not do is recommend vinegar: we found no Breville instruction book or support page that endorses it for these machines, the procedures are written around a measured dose of a specific agent, and a home-mixed acid at an unknown strength is the one variable the procedure was designed not to have. If you want the cheapest safe option, the manufacturer's own sachets bought in a pack are it.
Because the alerts are confused so often, here is the other cycle in one paragraph per machine, from the same manuals. Express: put the 1 CUP basket in the portafilter, the cleaning disc on top and one cleaning tablet on the disc; lock the portafilter in and put a large container under it; make sure the tank is full and the drip tray empty; switch the machine off with POWER; then press 1 CUP and 2 CUP together and add POWER, holding all three for about ten seconds. The cycle runs about five minutes with water flowing intermittently from the spouts and two beeps at the end; check the tablet has fully dissolved and repeat if not. Pro: disc and tablet in the basket, portafilter locked in, drip tray emptied, tank to MAX; MENU, then the GRIND AMOUNT dial to FLUSH, and follow the LCD. Bambino Plus: disc and tablet in the basket, portafilter locked in, a 2 L container under portafilter and wand, tank to MAX; hold 1 CUP and 2 CUP for five seconds to enter cleaning mode, then press either to run it; the lights alternate during the cycle and the machine returns to ready when it finishes. The tablets are the BEC250 pack, whose listing states they suit all Breville espresso machines.
The four consumables the three manuals assume: the descaling agent, the cleaning tablets for the other cycle, and the two Breville filter formats — check which one your model takes before ordering. Each was verified against its live Amazon listing on 2026-09-07 and the fitment on every card paraphrases the listing's own statement.
The descaling agent the instruction books assume you are using; one sachet per descale cycle on the Express. Listing states the official Breville descaler, formulated for Breville espresso machines, coffee makers and kettles, and names the Barista Express BES870 and Bambino Plus BES500 among the machines it is for.
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For the flashing CLEAN light and the FLUSH alert - the backflush cycle, which is not descaling. Listing states official Breville tablets that remove coffee oils and residue from the shower screen and filter baskets, suitable for all Breville espresso machines, with a non-corrosive formulation.
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The two-month filter the manuals credit with reducing how often you descale; six is a year. Listing states the filters fit the Barista Pro BES878, Barista Express BES870, Infuser BES840 and Duo-Temp Pro BES810, plus earlier batches of the Oracle, Oracle Touch and Dual Boiler, with a recommended change every 2 months.
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The other Breville filter format - for the Touch, Impress, Oracle and Dual Boiler families, not the Express or Pro. Listing states the filter is designed for the Oracle Dual Boiler BES995, Oracle Touch BES990, Oracle BES980, Dual Boiler BES920, Barista Touch Impress BES881 and Barista Touch BES880, replaced every 90 days.
Check price on Amazon →Dissolve one Breville descaling powder sachet in 1 L of water and fill the tank; hold 2 CUP and then POWER together to enter descale mode; when the indicators are solid, press 1 CUP for the coffee path, turn the steam dial right for steam and left for hot water; repeat to empty the tank; then rinse the tank, refill with fresh water and run the same three steps again; press POWER to exit.
Remove the filter from the tank, fill the tank to its DESCALE line and add the agent; press MENU, turn the GRIND AMOUNT dial to DESCALE and press; press 1 CUP and follow the LCD, turning the steam dial to hot water and steam when prompted; then empty the tank, fill to MAX with fresh water and press 1 CUP again for the three-stage rinse, which ends with a beep and READY.
Fill the tank to the DESCALE line with the agent added, put a 2 L container under the portafilter and wand, turn the machine off with 1 CUP + STEAM and let it cool; with it off, hold 1 CUP and STEAM for five seconds; press either to start; when it pauses, refill the tank to MAX with fresh water and press again to run the rinse; it flashes and goes to standby when done.
When the machine asks: a solid CLEAN / DESCALE light on the Express, DESCALE on the Pro's LCD, or the alternating 1 CUP + STEAM and 2 CUP flash on the Bambino Plus. The manuals give no fixed interval; they say replacing the water filter every two months reduces the need to descale, and to change it more often in hard water.
We found no Breville instruction book or support page that endorses vinegar for these machines; the procedures are written around a measured dose of Breville's own descaling agent, which is what this page follows. If cost is the concern, the manufacturer's sachets bought as a pack are the cheapest option we can point to that the procedure was actually designed for.
The clean cycle is a backflush with a cleaning tablet on a blanking disc, removing coffee oils from the group head; the Express asks for it with a flashing light, the Pro with a FLUSH alert, the Bambino Plus after 200 shots with alternating 1 CUP and 2 CUP. Descaling is a chemical pass through the whole water path to remove mineral scale. The manuals call them separate cycles.
Sources for this page: Barista Express procedure, alert, cleaning cycle and filter advice: Breville BES870XL/A instruction book (Care & Cleaning: Cleaning cycle, Descaling, Replacing the water filter), breville.com/content/dam/breville/us/assets/miscellaneous/instruction-manual/espresso/BES870-instruction-manual.pdf, read 2026-09-07 · Barista Pro procedure, alerts, flush cycle and filter advice: Breville BES878 US/CA instruction book (Descaling p.19-21, Flush cleaning cycle, Replacing the water filter), assets.breville.com/BES878/BES878_USCM_IB_I22_LR.pdf, read 2026-09-07 · Bambino Plus procedure, alert and cleaning cycle: Breville BES500 US/CA instruction book (Care & Cleaning: Cleaning cycle, Descaling, To descale), assets.breville.com/Instruction-Booklets/USCM/BES500_USCM_IB_Q21_FA_WEB.pdf, read 2026-09-07 · Breville's video tutorials titled How to perform a descale for the Barista Express, Barista Pro and Bambino Plus at breville.com/inspiration (each page states the alert in its intro), read 2026-09-07 · Product fitment and replacement intervals (BES007 descaler, BEC250 tablets, BWF100 and BES008 filters): each product's own Amazon listing via the Creators API, read 2026-09-07 We have not lab-tested brewers; where a figure is a manufacturer's, the page names the manufacturer, and machine capabilities come from our own published review records.