Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Middle of the night, cant sleep, so I'll bother the board with a useless topic.

Yesterday I cleaned my coffee maker.
It's a Cuisinart model 2750 "Extreme Brew".
I confess, I used tap water in this, (unlike my espresso machine which is loaded with distilled only).
San Jose has HARD water, there is no shortage in calcium over here.

The coffee maker has a "Clean" warning light, meaning it senses that the calcium buildup needs to be knocked down.
Cool - that's my queue to ATTACK!

I chose DISTILLED VINEGAR as my acid of choice, although I did contemplate phosphoric and glacial acetic acids. (I even thought of using bleach with ammonia to create chlorine gas and combine into an aqueous solution of hydrochloric acid, but that's stupid twisted overkill -- and it's really, really DANGEROUS -- SO DON'T EVER MIX BLEACH AND AMMONIA TOGETHER).

This machine has the carbon filter biscuits to clean the water before it's heated. I tossed them and have yet to get new ones. Maybe this weekend.

The owner's manual says to use 50 percent solution of vinegar and water and send it through the brewing cycle. Then brew clean water through to rinse, and you're done! Unfortunately, that leaves a slight vinegar smell and taste. It's not a desired paring with coffee.

Stores sell coffee maker descalers or decalcifiers, I imagine they are citric acid based, possibly mild acidic such as vinegar.

Me, I went the more aggressive route. Seven cups of straight distilled vinegar. I used a filter to capture any sediments. Brewed it through, so now I have a stainless thermal pot of hot vinegar. I poured the hot vinegar back into the coffee maker reservoir and hit the BREW button again. In chemistry we learned that hot acid reacts much better than at room temperature.

I dump the vinegar, quick rinse with a spray hose, then filled with tap water and brewed to rinse. I know from experience there will be a vinegar residue causing the after taste, so one final step. 10 cups of distilled water with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. The soda and acid WILL SEEK EACH OTHER out and neutralize the vinegar.

Final quick rinse with tap water. Done.

It's an illness I know, I like to STOMP on problems.
So how do YOU go about cleaning your coffee maker?
Any suggestions or critiques?

Our Nespresso Latissima has a glow light as well. We use their proprietary cleaning product. Similar process though their instructions are a bit incomplete No after taste after the prescribed rinse and the light goes off --- so it must work, right
I did ignore the light for about 5 months once and I couldn't sense a difference in performance... However, after the cleaning it was markedly faster; so the diminution in performance is subtle.

I also use straight vinegar (16 oz) to clean, followed by 2 pots of tap water. The vinegar clean consists of starting the brew cycle then turning it off after 30 seconds and letting it sit for 30 minutes. Turn on again, finish the cycle then follow thru with 2 pots of tap water. Works well!

The simple pleasure that is a French Press...

We boil water in a T-Fal electric kettle but we always pour out the excess and boil new water so in a couple of years there's no visible residue in the bottom of the pot.

We have very hard water. Once I forgot to put any citric acid or vinegar in my sous vide bath on a three day cook and ended up with pits of calcium on the heat sink. It happens that fast! A few days in an empty bath very heavy on the citric acid took care of it.

The drip coffee maker gets tap water and a regular vinegar clean; the espresso maker will be getting a citric acid solution.

--Lisa

I used a retail descaling product. Our coffee maker tells you when its time, but it doesn't sense anything, it just goes by the number of shots you made. You can tell it whether your water is soft, very soft, hard, etc. Ours is very soft, so even when it complains (we have it at the lowest setting) I take my good time getting around to cleaning it. My more manual drip maker has a clear tube where the water goes up, and they tell you to look for it getting cloudy. It has never been descaled and is essentially still very clear.

I suspect most with an indicator use some kind of time/shots deal, not an actual sensor (though it is not out of the question)

I do the half vinegar half water recommended by the manufacturer, followed by 2 rinses of clear water. By the 2nd rinse no vinegar smell is left.

I use this stuff http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dgarden&field-keywords=cleancaf&sprefix=cleanc%2Cgarden&rh=i%3Agarden%2Ck%3Acleancaf to clean my coffeemaker. It works fabulously well. Once thru with the brewer, then I pour the used cleaner into my stainless carafe, then pour that into my stainless travel mug. All come out sparkling clean in a very short amount of time and with little effort.

Lisa,

I know what you mean. We have extremely hard water as well. I just do a white vinegar water run for my circulator about every two months.

Amy

Tunaroe:

I use a French Press and a Moka Pot these days, so no special cleaning is required. When I was using the office espresso machine (currently not), I cleaned it using a citric acid/distilled water solution. Plus, you know, partial dismantling and a scrub brush.