Monday, January 27, 2014

How to Clean Your Coffee Maker and Keurig Brewer

I am going to show you how to clean your coffee maker and Keurig brewer. If you love coffee like us it is important to do regular cleaning of your drip coffee maker and any K-Cup brewer like my Keurig.

Hard water deposits on your heating element and and other parts of the coffee pot really take a toll on the life and quality of your appliances. If your coffee is perking slower than you know you have build up that needs to be removed as well as a constant moist environment can lead to bacteria. Manufacturer instructions call this cleaning "descaling" and this should be done every three to six months depending on the mineral content of your water.





Here is all your are going to need and you probably have them right now. Baking soda and white vinegar.


For cleaning the coffee maker internally and removing those hard water build ups, take a cup of vinegar and pour into your coffee maker and let perk through. Follow up with three pots of fresh water to remove any vinegar. You can use vinegar to wipe down and shine up the exterior and wipe around on the inside where coffee grounds can gather. I will often tip it over near the sink and give some little sprays to clean out any leftover vinegar and old grounds.

Now for the Keurig I do basically the same thing. I take a cup of white vinegar and run the Keurig through a cycle and then follow up with three cups of fresh water. If you have a water reservoir you should only clean that section with soap and hot water. Never get any kind of spray cleaner in the reservoir.

Also, take an old toothbrush and scrub all the nooks and crannies with the vinegar. You cannot clean a keurig with bleach, only white vinegar.


Now to scrub the pot and heating element of the coffee maker I use baking soda.


Baking soda on a sponge with hot water will scour the hard deposits from water and coffee stains off of your pot. Believe it or not this pot I just cleaned is nine years old. Works great and is totally non-toxic.


You can find my other uses for cleaning with baking soda here.
I have over a dozen posts for cleaning with vinegar so you can search for those on my sidebar using the search tool. Sounds like time to collect those all in one post. 
Time to order some coffee and here is the cheapest place to buy k-cups.

8 comments:

  1. Great tips! My coffee maker tells me when it needs to be cleaned. I love that because we do have very hard water. Your yellow keurig is so cute!

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  2. Great tips! My coffee maker tells me when it needs to be cleaned. I love that because we do have very hard water. Your yellow keurig is so cute!

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  3. Good post! I clean mine keurig with vinegar also. The little cup that the k-cups go in is removable. I always take mine out and rinse it well. A lot of coffee from piercing the pod collects there.

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  4. Thanks for the tip, Elaine. I use vinegar to clean my coffee maker. But we have SUCH hard water (well water) that I had no idea how to clean those hard water stains. I tried the baking soda and it worked. Still needs a bit more scrubbing but it looks so much better!

    xo
    Claudia

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  5. Hi Elaine-
    great tips!
    I use this same method to clean out my coffee maker.
    Don't forget when cleaning the element...unplug it!
    :)
    Pat

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  6. Thank you for sharing this! I am on my third Keurig, with the last two having the pump go out, I suspect from mineral deposits and such. I am being very careful to descale this one often!

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  7. Yes, I have used this method. The problem I have now, however, is that I have a white lid on my coffee pot and even though I have washed it after each use it is stained. I even tried soaking it in straight bleach, ugh. The problem is that after perking it sits for a long time as I drink off and on during the morning hours. This is what caused the staining since I didn't immediately wash it. Ah well. I was wondering what brand your red one was.

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  8. Thanks for the tips, I am a big coffee fa also!

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