New Junior HX - Water wand/spout issues

[VBMJuniorHX]

Hi all,

Recently joined coffee snobs and first post here. My cousin and I recently purchased a new VBM Junior HX. The machine is fantastic and works well.

The only issue is that the water coming from the hot water want/spout has a strange rubbery taste to it and ruins any black coffee it touches. It looks slightly murky but no major discoloration. The steam and milk seems to be ok, however my cousin believes that he got the smell of it after expelling a fair bit of steam as a test.

Given this is a brand new machine it seems strange that the water would taste and smell funny?!?!

Tried to search for similar issues all of the net with no luck. Would appreciate anyone's opinion as we are quite lost...

Thanks in advance.

[Javaphile]

Your first point of contact should be who you bought the machine from. Have you done so yet?


Java "Rubber flavor? Yuck!" phile

[VBMJuniorHX]

Yes. The guy we purchased from suggested we flush the boiler a couple of times. He's passed my contact details on to the ECA and a tech is going to call me back. See how we go.

[Dimal]

That horrible burnt rubber taint can sometimes be due to an accumulation of milk sucked back into the boiler, due to not following correct milk texturing technique....

Mal.

[mulquemi]

Hello VBMjuniorHx,
Interesting subject you've provided here,any coffee machine and especially bigger boiler machines need to be flushed regularly to remove or reduce stored stale old water ,generally the heat exchanger water supply is less likely to become stale due to it's smaller volume whereas the boiler ,being much larger capacity will more then likely have poorer tasting contents (larger surface area=higher incidence of "yuck"present.
I have so many coffee machine's on hand ,I sometimes become lazy to the extent of not maintaining a fresh storage in the La Cimbali/bezzera.My good wife then suggests that the water has an "iodine taste"to it.....few thorough exchange/flushes of water quickly solves this predicament!
Hope that helps your bad experience,a bit at least.
Have a quick look at your user guide/instruction manual,flushing of stored water is usually it's mentioned there ,somewhere.
Cheers,
Mick.

[VBMJuniorHX]

Thanks Mick/Mal/Java for your responses. ECA got back to us and advised on a procedure to flush the boiler. They said 2-3 times should be ample. We completed 6 with no joy. It did improve, however we ran some hot water into a cup and let it cool down it was disgusting.

Milk is not the issue as we are following the right procedure of purging the wand after use and wiping it down etc.

Not sure what the way forward from ECA will be, however our opinion of the VBM has definitely been tainted by this experience. Not to mention that upon arrival there was rust on the feet of the machine and in some of the weld spots in the drip tray. Fair bit of water in and around the machine under the plastic covering.

Will keep you all posted on the outcome.

cheers.

[GreenBeanGenii]

Is there any remote chance this could be a returned machine that got sold as new?