Monday, November 25, 2013

Messy Monday: How to Descale a Coffee Maker

If you have hard water like me, descaling (removing the built-up calcium deposits from your water) your coffee maker is a monthly occurrence. But of course when that once a month comes, I'm always low on vinegar. You would think I would simply stock up on more vinegar since I go through so much. But no, instead I figured out how to descale my coffee maker without using half a pot of vinegar.



•Add vinegar to coffee pot, try to get somewhere between the 2-4 cup lines.
•Finish filling coffee pot with filtered or distilled water.
•If you have a filter basket, make sure it's clean. If you use paper filters, make sure you have a fresh filter. 
•Pour water/vinegar mixture into coffee maker & run through till done. 
•Without dumping your water or changing your filter, run vinegar/water mixture through again. Only this time turn off coffee maker halfway through.
•Allow to sit for at least 15 min.
•Turn coffee maker back on & complete brew cycle. 
 •This time throw out the vinegar/water mixture & replace with fresh filtered or distilled water.
•Run through cycle & empty pot when complete.
•If you need to (or want to), run through another cycle of just water.
•Remove filter.
•Wash coffee pot & filter basket (if applicable).

2 comments:

  1. thanks for a reminder-- I have to run vinegar in my coffee maker a couple times to make it work well-- I have a bunn-- great coffee maker-- but it always has an extra pot of coffee set in the reserve so I have to turn it to vacation and cool it down cause its always on and then vinegar twice and the water twice to really clean it then two more water to reset it back to coffe non vacation-- alot of work but worth it-- A Bunn coffee maker last for years mine is almost 10 years old -- I love coffee

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    1. It is time consuming, but so worth it to not buy a new coffee maker every year. I think the longest we've had one last is about 5 years or so. I think the next one I'll have to look into a Bunn though!

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