Cleaning Your Coffee Maker Without Harsh Chemicals

When we remodeled our kitchen a few years back, I wanted a brand new coffee maker in stainless steel to match all of our new appliances.  Anywho, my coffee maker is a going on 3 years old now and it still looks pretty good for its age.  Let me show you how I keep it looking nice!

By the way, this is one of those coffee makers that does not have a heating element to keep the pot warm.  It has an insulated carafe and it keeps coffee warm for hours.  Sometimes if there is coffee leftover from the morning (very rare) it is still warm when I get home from work in the evenings, not hot, but warm.  Pretty nice!  HERE's a link to where I got ours.

Our machine shows when it needs to be cleaned which is awesome so you don't have to keep up with it.  The clean button lights up and glows until you clean it.

The only thing I use to clean our maker is plain white vinegar.  That's it, nothing else goes through this machine for cleaning.  We have really hard water so it causes lots of build up.  The hot vinegar running through the machine breaks all that up and sends it out.  I always make sure to put a coffee filter in the basket to catch anything that the vinegar sends through.

Here are a few before and after pictures for you to see the difference a little vinegar and then of course some soapy water can make.

This is where the water canister sits.  Since the vinegar doesn't touch this part of the machine, I just add a little vinegar to a spray bottle and clean up this area with a paper towel.

This is where the actual coffee filter basket sits.  What a mess huh?  I use the vinegar in the spray bottle here too.

After I've ran the vinegar through the cleaning cycle I then run 4 full cycles of plain clean water to clean out all of the vinegar from the inner workings.  The final thing I do is give the water canister, the filter basket and the carafe (not shown) a good scrubbing in some nice hot soapy water.  Dry completely and reassemble the machine.

Now its not only shiny on the outside, but sparkly clean on the inside too! Coffee time!

This coffee maker right here is the one we are thinking about getting next! Can't wait!


Want to see more of my cleaning tips for using vinegar? Just click on the links below.

Cleaning an HE Washer with Household Products

My Easy Way to Clean an Area Rug

Spot Cleaning Carpet with a DIY Cleaning Solution

Remove Hard Water Buildup Naturally 

DIY Carpet Cleaning 

Cleaning Your Hairbrush the Easy Way 

Cleaning Your Oven

Cleaning Your Sink's Spray Nozzle

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

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