Cleaning Your Single Serve Coffee Makers
Our single serve coffee makers are often the key to success for an easy morning with immediate coffee. Although these convenient and quick machines may seem straightforward, they require maintenance just like any other appliance. Regular cleaning will ensure your coffee maker will provide optimal performance for years to come.
Many single serve coffee makers utilize water reservoirs which can be a hotspot for mold and mineral deposits over time. Regardless of the brand you use, there are some signs to look out for when it’s time to clean your appliance.
- Longer than usual time to brew
- Filling less than a full cup of coffee
- Extra grounds or granules in your coffee
- Unexpected moldy or mildew-y smells
- Mineral buildup on visible parts of the machine
Most of the time a mineral buildup, visible or not, will be responsible for these problems. Here are the steps you can take to get that coffee maker in pristine condition.
- Empty any water from inside the reservoir.
- Remove the parts you can, and clean with warm, soapy water in the sink. Some coffee maker brands have dishwasher-safe components. If your coffee maker has any espresso or milk steamer attachments be sure to disassemble and clean those too.
- Next, take a small cleaning brush and dip it into vinegar. Go around and clean the base of the machine where the reservoir is as well as where the cup pods go. You’ll usually have some grounds trapped here.
- Reusable filters often have grounds congested in the mesh. Although these filters are usually dishwasher-safe, try soaking them in a cup of vinegar and use a small brush to loosen any granules in the mesh.
- Next comes the inside of the coffee maker. Reassemble all the parts and components, then fill the dry reservoir with 4 cups of white vinegar and 2 cups of water.
- Run the machine several times with no filter in place. Once you run a few cups of vinegar, let the machine set for a few hours and then run the rest of the cycles until the solution has run through the machine.
- Clean out the reservoir and fill with regular water.
- Run the machine with just the plain water to ensure the reservoir is clean and no vinegar is left behind.
Your single serve coffee maker is now clean!
Sources: HGTV