How To Clean a Coffee Maker

Simply washing your coffee pot is not enough to keep it from imparting impurities into your coffee and tainting the taste. The essential oils of coffee build up on coffee brewing equipment and become rancid, which affects the flavor of your coffee as it leaches into subsequent brews.

Scale, or hard water deposits, also build up and need to be removed along with a variety of other impurities that can be dealt with effectively providing you with a more wholesome and flavorful cup of premium gourmet coffee.

If you have an Automatic Drip Coffee Maker then you should take care of it by cleaning it regularly. Likewise other coffee brewing devices need to be repeatedly cleanse to preserve their ability to produce quality brewed coffee. If you use the coffee equipment daily then you should probably clean it at least once a week.

Pre-mixed products are available on the market, and some coffee equipment manufacturers even have very specific directions in how to go about cleaning your coffee equipment. Two well known brands of descalers / cleaners are Urnex and Dezcal.

Making Your Own Coffee Cleaner

Some people may opt to make their own cleaner for financial or convenience reasons, and this is a viable solution, but not optimal.  Branded products have been tested and refined over years and are specifically formulated to remove calcium, lime and coffee oil build up. A DIY home-based solution is better than not doing it at all however!

To make your own at home, use two parts water and one part white vinegar in a mixture and create enough volume of this liquid to completely fill the coffee pot. If you have never seriously cleaned your coffee equipment then make the solution even stronger with vinegar, perhaps 50-50.

If you don't have any vinegar then you can use an ounce of citric acid in about five cups of hot water and then add three cups of cold water. Another mixture uses two denture tablets which are first dissolved in the water in a separate container and then poured into the coffee pot. Avoid using baking soda because it can clog your coffee machine.

Clean Machine = Better Coffee

Place a filter into your drip filter coffee maker in the usual manner and then pour mixture you have prepared into your Coffee Maker. and turn it on. Allow the full “brewing” process to take place as the hot water flows into the waiting coffee pot.

Once the water has finished flowing through the coffee machine discard the liquid mixture in the sink and also throw away the filter. Turn the coffee machine off and let it cool.

Now thoroughly rinse out the coffee pot and repeat the whole procedure again just using regular water with nothing added. You may want to rinse it one more time as well just to make sure any vinegar or other substances have been completely removed from the coffee brewing equipment.

Cleaning Your Coffee Pot

To clean the actual coffee pot itself a good trick used by many restaurants is to put about one-fourth of a cup of table salt or rock salt in the coffee pot (make sure the pot is not hot) along with around 2 cups of ice and one-fourth cup lemon juice which may be either fresh lemon juice or from a bottle.

Once you put this in the coffee pot then swirl it around to clean it thoroughly. This can also be done to the coffee pot when it is brand new to remove any impurities.

Simple Steps on How to Clean a Coffee Maker

Tips For Keeping Your Coffee Equipment Clean

Dedicate a special water pitcher for use in pouring the water into your coffee pot each day to brew coffee. This is better than using the coffee pot which may transfer oils and other impurities into the machine and harm the coffee equipment, and the taste of your coffee, which will get worse over time.

To keep the equipment extra clean, some people like to place a second paper filter on top of the ground coffee before brewing.

This filter can be pushed down snugly on top of the roasted and ground coffee, helping to contain any splatter and mess that can make the machine less clean over time. The goal is to keep your coffee equipment perfectly clean for the finest premium gourmet coffee experience.

Coffee pots should not be washed with regular soap because it will tend to combine with the coffee oils and lead to a rancid taste over time. This is also what happens when you wash your coffee pot in the dishwasher. Use the methods described above for cleaning your coffee pot if you are a connoisseur in search of the finest specialty coffee experience.

Burnt Coffee Pots - How to Clean a Coffee Maker

If your coffee pot is burnt on the bottom due to leaving it on the machine until with little to no coffee in the pot, then use one teaspoon of salt and two cups of ice along with juice from one-fourth of a lemon and swirl this around in the coffee pot until the ice begins to melt.

This should effectively remove the burnt material. You might need to do this a couple times if the burnt on stains are acute. Make sure you wait until the coffee pot cools off before putting ice in it as the rapid cooling could cause the pot to crack creating a hazard.

Don't take the short-cut of just trying to use soap or cleanser because it will leave behind residue that will harm the flavor of the brewed coffee.

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