This is another half blog-post, half documenting a fix for posterity thing. The afflicted device is a Gaggia Magenta, though I believe this is a common problem across the Gaggia line, and the error message is “error 5” with a picture of a wrench under it. Not a fantastic first-run experience but it’s solvable.
My wife’s pain threshold for fiddly and particular process diverges significantly from my own, but she sometimes enjoys coffee. So, after looking around for a full-auto coffee maker with the specific criteria of “has a steam wand, but does not have an internal milk reservoir or tube”, we’ve bought a Gaggia Magenta coffee maker, and now she can have coffee with the press of a button.
I contend that it is not quite as good as the coffee I make, but she values a degree of convenience over whatever psychokinetic paracontraptions I seem to favour, so I’m going to call it a win. Now that it’s set up, it’s lovely.
Getting there was more of a chore than I had expected; apparently a common problem with Gaggia coffee makers is that if they sit on the shelf for too long, the dried-up pump can seize, resulting in an “error 5” on first run. To resolve this, the pump needs to needs to be loosened up and “force primed” rather than just getting up and running on its own.
It’s not a great experience, but the solution is relatively easy.
You can find few videos about it if you search on “Gaggia error 5 fix” or “Gaggia error 5 force prime”, but all of them show you somebody with a particular tool using it to inject water into the coffee maker with sometimes mixed success. But as far as I can tell, they all have a moment where our repairman says “I just had this thing lying around”, which when you’re talking about a specialized tool being used for a one-off job is notably unhelpful.
For future reference, whoever finds their way here via whatever search becomes: the perfect tool for this is a bike tire sealant injector with a flexible tube. Here are two examples; you want the cheapest one you can find that works with Presta valves. In the Magenta – and I assume it’s the same across all Gaggia fully-automatic coffee makers this tube fits perfectly over the little nipple valve inside the machine, once you’ve taken out the water reservoir.
Unplug the machine and remove the water reservoir. Pour about half a cup of water into the place the removable reservoir was – it’s fine, just let it run in – and then fill the syringe halfway with water and put the tube snugly over the valve. About a minute of gently working the plunger up and down will loosen up the pump mechanism enough that when you plug it back in, the machine should be able to finish its normal prime-and-flush cycle without problems.
Beyond that, if you’re a fan of lighter roast coffees, they’re probably wasted on this machine. Get something darker roast than your usual fare and be ready to throw away the first few cups while you’re getting it dialled in. Once you get there, considering the tradeoffs, the results are pretty good.