Personalized Gift Baskets

If you are after the freshest, most flavorful cup of coffee in the morning – you NEED a clean coffee maker. A build up of oils from your coffee beans and hard minerals from your water – yes, even filtered water – will dramatically effect the taste of your coffee, and the life of your coffee machine.

You probably spent a fair whack of cash to buy your coffee machine, so why throw that money out the window by not doing regular maintenance? Doing regular maintenance on your coffee maker will give it a much longer life-span. And why bother buying nice fresh coffee, if you are just going to run it through a nasty, smelly coffee machine?

Step-by step guide to cleaning your coffee machine:

1. Throw out any old coffee grinds from your filter and rinse everything with boiling water.

2. Make yourself a vinegar cleaning mix (2/3 boiling water and 1/3 vinegar, or citric acid). Pour this cleaning mix into your machines water reservoir and coffee pot. Let stand for at least 10 minutes.

3. Put your machine through a full cycle. Don’t forget to empty out your decanter first of course.

5. When the cycle has finished, let the machine sit for another 15 minutes or so.

6. If you haven’t cleaned your machine in a while, you might want to repeat steps 2-5 a second time.

7. Now give everything a good rinse with fresh hot boiling water. Run one or two cycles through your coffee brewer to get rid of the vinegar taste.

8. And there you have it… You now have a clean coffee maker!

If you follow these steps every 1 or 2 dozen cycles, you will have far better coffee, and keep your machine running for longer. If you aren’t a regular coffee drinker, you should still do this every few months to stop the calcium build up in your pipes. Maybe write down a reminder on your calendar so you don’t forget!

Billy is the editor of a coffee maker website (coffee maker reviews). All sorts of information about coffee machines and how to choose one, including more advice for cleaning coffee makers.