Coffee Maker Cleaner: Should You Clean your Coffee Maker with Vinegar?

Why You Need to Clean Your Coffee Maker

Should you clean your coffee maker with vinegar?
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

When I talk about cleaning your coffee maker, I am talking about cleaning the INSIDE of your coffee maker. Water carries dissolved minerals that are deposited inside your coffee maker. When the water evaporates from liquid into steam, it leaves mineral deposits inside your coffee maker. These deposits of lime, calcium, and other minerals result in slower water flow through your coffee maker. Some effects of mineral deposits inside your coffee maker:

• It takes longer to make coffee. A coffee maker with severe mineral deposits can take more than twice as long to make a pot of coffee.
• It can affect the taste of your coffee. One side effect of slower brewing can be that the coffee starts to become stale before you drink it, especially if it is sitting on a burner
• Your coffee maker can stop working due to excessive mineral deposits. The flow of water through your coffee maker can slow to a trickle and even stop completely. You will not longer be able to make coffee!

How Often Should You Clean Your Coffee Maker?

How often you need to clean your coffee maker depends on the hardness of the water that you use to make coffee. In my area, the water is hard- meaning it carries a lot of dissolved minerals. Even though my house has a water softener to remove some of the minerals, it still affects my coffee maker after about 1 month of brewing 1 pot of coffee per day.

If the water is not hard in your area, and you only brew one pot of coffee per day, you may be able to go 2 or 3 months between cleanings. If your water is hard and you brew more than one pot of coffee per day, you may need to clean your coffee maker more than once per month.

Should You Clean a Coffee Maker with Vinegar?

Vinegar contains an acid- acetic acid. The acid in vinegar allows it to dissolve minerals readily. Vinegar is also edible, although it has a sour taste and strong acidic smell. These characteristic- being acidic and edible- make vinegar a good coffee maker cleaner. Many coffee maker manuals suggest using vinegar to clean coffee makers.

Vinegar for cleaning coffee makers
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

However, the strong odor and taste of vinegar are factors that make it undesirable to use as a coffee maker cleaner. My wife can tell from anywhere in the house when I start cleaning the coffee maker with vinegar! It also leaves the taste of vinegar behind- you should run 2 pots of water through your coffee maker after cleaning it with vinegar to remove the vinegar taste so it won't taint you coffee.

What is the Best Coffee Maker Cleaner?

If you don't like the odor and taste of vinegar, there are other options. You can buy coffee maker cleaners that contain acid other than acetic acid. A common type is coffee maker cleaner that uses sulfamic acid. This is available in liquid form or in power form that you mix with water.

Dip-it liquid coffee maker cleaner- no bad smell!
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

I tried a brand of sulfamic acid coffee maker cleaner called "dip-it". I found that it worked as well as vinegar, but without the bad smell and taste. dip-it costs about $3.50 for a 7 oz bottle of liquid that can clean your coffee maker twice.

After running 5 cups of water with 1/2 a bottle (3.5 oz) of dip-it through your coffee maker, rinse by brewing 2 pots of cold water only and you are ready to make coffee again.

You can also get the powder form of sulfamic acid in a brand called Mr. Coffee Coffeemaker Cleaner. You mix the power with water and run the mixture though your coffee maker in the same way as when brewing coffee. A box of Mr. Coffee Coffeemaker Cleaner contains 2 packets of powder- enough to clean your coffee maker twice.

Mr. Coffee coffee maker cleaner powder
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

As with vinegar and the dip-it liquid coffee maker cleaner, you'll need to rinse your coffee maker by brewing cold water only twice before making coffee.

Coffee Maker Cleaner can Fix a Broken Coffee Maker!

After 8 months of making great coffee with my Melitta coffee maker, the coffee maker suddenly stopped working. It produced only steam. Almost no hot water reached the brew basket, so I got no coffee. Believe me, it was a rough start to the day! Here's a description of how I survived making coffee with a broken coffee maker for a few days. This method of making coffee also works in a power outage with no electricity.

I assumed the failure was caused by a clogged or stuck check valve in the tube from the reservoir to the heating element. I contacted Melitta customer service with a description of the problem. I expected them to have me send the unit in for repair, or even replace the unit since it was still under a 1 year warranty.

The response from Melitta came back on the next business day. They recommended cleaning the coffee maker with vinegar. I had been cleaning my coffee maker with vinegar every month or two. I think it had been even more than two months since I cleaned it when it stopped working. Our water is hard and has lots of mineral content. But I was skeptical that deposits would cause the coffee maker to suddenly stop working.

I decided a vinegar treatment was worth a try. I filled the reservoir with white vinegar, 4% concentration, and turned the coffee maker on. At first just steam came out the top, but eventually there was a slow drip of vinegar into the pot. It took about 90 minutes to run the first tank of vinegar through. I picked up some stronger vinegar- 5% concentration. This went through in about 10 minutes! I ran one more tank of vinegar to get it really clean. I was back in business.

I didn't realize how important it is to clean your coffee maker regularly. I'm going to clean my coffee maker once a month to prevent this from happening again. I'll clean it on the first of every month so I don't forget.

Coffee Maker Cleaner Recommendations

• Clean your coffee maker with coffee maker cleaner once a month
• Use either vinegar or a sulfamic acid product
• Vinegar is cheap and effective, but smells horrible when you heat it in your coffee maker
• Use a coffee maker cleaner with sulfamic acid such as dip-it or Mr. Coffee Coffeemaker Cleaner if the smell of vinegar bothers you
• Coffee maker cleaner such as dip-it or Mr. Coffee Coffeemaker Cleaner takes up a lot less room in your pantry than a large bottle of vinegar

Recommended Reading:

How to Make Great Coffee at Home

Copyright © 2013 Dr. Penny Pincher. All Rights Reserved. Coffee Maker Journal

How to Make Great Coffee at Home

How to Make Great Coffee at Home

How to make a great cup of coffee
Source: Image Courtesy of Julius Schorzman CC-SA-20

If you want to make great coffee at home, you’ll need to make coffee differently than most people. You may need some additional equipment, for example a coffee bean grinder and a coffee maker with a cone filter basket and thermal carafe. The good news is that these items are not very expensive. You may also need to buy your coffee in a different way- whole beans rather than ground coffee. You may need to change the main ingredient in your coffee- the water you use. The better the water, the better the coffee will be. Making great coffee is not very difficult or expensive, but you need to know a few tricks to get the best tasting, freshest coffee possible.

Great Coffee Begins with Whole Coffee Beans

Great coffee beans make great coffee!
Source: Image courtesy of Nate Steiner CC-20

There are lots of high quality coffee beans available in stores and on-line. Look for Arabica coffee beans- not Robusta. Robusta coffee beans have a sour flavor and are not nearly as good as Arabica beans. Green coffee beans are roasted to develop flavor. During roasting, coffee beans will make a cracking sound as they transition from green coffee to light roast coffee (“first crack”). The beans will crack again as they transition from medium roast to dark roast (“second crack”). Light roast coffee tends to be more acidic. Medium roast is sweeter. Dark roast develops spicy flavors, and French roast (or double roast) takes on a smoky flavor. The darker the roast of the coffee beans, the more oily the beans will appear. My current favorite is medium to dark roast. I look for coffee beans that are just slightly oily.

I avoid “flavored” coffee beans. You can buy coffee beans flavored with hazelnut, caramel, and other flavors. I like the flavor of natural coffee much better. If you like flavoring, add a bit of flavoring syrup after you have brewed the coffee, but do not use flavored beans. I suspect that coffee companies use their stale coffee beans or low quality coffee beans in flavored coffee. You can cover up a lot of problems by flavoring the beans…

Unlike cheese, the more words used to describe the coffee beans, the better the quality of the beans. Some good attributes in coffee beans are single origin, shade grown, and organic. While these attributes alone do not ensure high quality coffee beans, if attention is being paid to how the coffee is produced and sold, it is likely to result in high quality coffee beans.

I buy enough coffee beans to last for about 1 week and keep them in an airtight container in a cool dark place. While it is important to keep coffee beans cool to protect flavor, I do not recommend placing coffee beans in the refrigerator or freezer. Coffee beans easily pick up flavors from their environment and could pick up stray flavors from your refrigerator or freezer. Exposing cold coffee beans to room temperature air also causes moisture to condense on the coffee beans. I prefer to store my coffee beans in a pantry or cupboard at about 75 degrees.

Grind Coffee Beans Just Before Brewing Coffee

Great coffee starts with whole coffee beans. For the best tasting coffee, you’ll need to grind the beans immediately before brewing. When coffee is ground, it starts to lose flavor. You can buy whole coffee beans at the grocery store and use a grinder at the store if you want to use coffee grounds at home. However, this is still not nearly as good as grinding whole beans fresh for every pot of coffee that you brew. For great coffee at home, you will need a coffee grinder. You can get good coffee grinders starting at around $30.

Blade coffee grinder- not as good as a burr coffee grinder
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

The main varieties are blade grinders, disc burr grinders, and conical burr grinders. Avoid blade grinders unless you are on a tight budget. I found that disc burr grinders are a good value. Conical burr grinders provide the best tasting coffee, but these are the most expensive type of coffee grinder. This article describes the types of coffee grinders with pictures.

Use Filtered Water to Make Great Coffee

Since water is the main ingredient in coffee, you want to use the best quality water you can get. Using a water filer can remove unwanted minerals and flavors from your tap water. You can buy carbon filters that are built-in to a water pitcher. If you have a refrigerator that dispenses water, this is a great way to get water for coffee. Just make sure your filer has been changed recently- most refrigerators need a new filer every 6 months.

Use the Right Kind of Coffee Maker to Make Great Coffee

Basket Filter vs Cone Filter

Auto drip coffee makers are very convenient. They heat the water to the correct temperature and drip it over the ground coffee at the correct rate to extract maximum flavor from the ground coffee. The type of filter basket that your coffee maker has is important to flavor extraction. The main types of filter baskets in coffee makers are described as either cone filters or basket filters. Basket filters have a flat bottom, while cone filters are wider at the top and narrow to a point at the bottom.

Coffee makers with cone filters extract more flavor from your coffee beans. Water flows through more of the coffee beans in a cone filter than in a basket filter. In a basket filter, the water tends to flow down through the ground coffee directly below where the water drips out inside the coffee maker. This results in some of the coffee grounds being underutilized. In a cone filter, water is forced to flow through the coffee grounds more evenly, resulting in better flavor extraction. This article explains the differences between cone filters and basket filters.

Glass Carafe vs Thermal Carafe

If your coffee maker has a glass carafe that sits on a burner to keep it warm, you are not getting the best coffee that you can. Heating the coffee on a burner makes it taste stale very quickly. Instead use a coffee maker with a thermal carafe to keep the coffee warm without heating it on a burner. The ideal temperature for brewing coffee is between 195 and 205 degrees. Coffee should not be heated after it is brewed- this results in stale, bitter tasting coffee. This article reviews my favorite thermal coffee maker.

Where to Start to Make Great Coffee at Home?

There is a lot to learn and possibly some coffee equipment to buy. I would suggest the place to start would be to use filtered water with your existing coffee equipment.

The next step: get a coffee grinder and start grinding whole beans just before brewing. You'll notice a big improvement in the flavor of your coffee!

After that, consider getting a coffee maker with a cone filter and thermal carafe. This will help you to make great coffee at home. I like the coffee I make myself at home better than Starbucks or Intelligentsia coffee from a coffee shop.

Copyright © 2013 Dr. Penny Pincher. All Rights Reserved. Coffee Maker Journal

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Travel Coffee Maker Buyer's Guide

Travel Coffee Maker- How to Make Coffee when Traveling

When you are away from home and want coffee, you basically have 2 options: you can buy coffee, or you can bring a coffee maker with you. If you are going to be away from home for more than a few days, buying coffee every day can get expensive- especially if you are at a tourist location or visiting an expensive city. If you need a couple cups of coffee per day, you could be spending $6 per day buying coffee at a coffee shop. It doesn't take many days of this before buying a travel coffee maker starts to make financial sense.

What are the Most Important Features in a Travel Coffee Maker?

Size, cost, and durability are the most important features to look for in selecting a travel coffee maker.

Travel Coffee Maker Size

Size is probably the most important feature in a travel coffee maker. If you are like me, you don’t have a lot of extra space in your luggage. In addition to the coffee maker, you will also need to pack some coffee grounds and coffee filters so you can use your travel coffee maker. Look for the smallest and lightest coffee maker that will make enough coffee. Most travel coffee makers weigh about 3 pounds and stand about 12 inches high.

Travel Coffee Maker Cost

There is good news on travel coffee maker cost- you can get some very inexpensive small coffee makers that make ideal travel coffee makers. Some models that include a thermal travel cup start under $20. Many 4 and 5 cup coffee makers that would make good travel coffee makers cost less than $35. If you want the convenience of a single serve coffee maker, you can get a Keurig Mini for $99. If you can use a coffee dripper (see description below), these can be purchased for about $10.

Travel Coffee Maker Durability

Your coffee maker will get some abuse if you travel with it. It will need to survive in your luggage. You don't want to bring something fragile that will require careful packing, so a good travel coffee maker should be durable. You may want to avoid a glass carafe for a travel coffee maker. You can choose small coffee makers with steel carafes. There are also small coffee makers that use a thermal cup instead of a carafe. There are also models that do not have a carafe- you provide a cup that is not included with the coffee maker.

Types of Travel Coffee Makers

There are three primary types of travel coffee makers:

Auto drip. This is the easiest to use and probably most similar to your coffee machine at home.

Espresso maker. You could pack a small espresso maker. If you want coffee rather than espresso, simply mix a shot of espresso with hot water to make café Americano.

Pour-over coffee dripper. There are several ways to make coffee without a coffee maker, one of the simplest is to make pour over coffee. One is to use a coffee dripper. This is a plastic or ceramic cone that uses cone filters. Place a cone filter and coffee grounds in the dripper, place the dripper over a coffee cup, and pour hot water into the coffee dripper to brew coffee. You will need to get hot water to use a coffee dripper to make coffee. You can microwave water in a coffee cup at the hotel to get hot water.

Auto Drip Travel Coffee Makers with Carafe

Small 4 and 5 cup coffee makers work well as travel coffee makers. Some have a steel carafe rather than a glass carafe, which should be more durable for travel. These coffee makers can make enough coffee for 2 people at once.

Black and Decker 4 cup travel coffee maker with glass carafe
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

Cuisinart 4 cup travel coffee maker with steel carafe
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

Mr. Coffee 5 cup travel coffee maker with steel carafe
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

Auto Drip Travel Coffee Makers without Carafe

There are also small coffee makers that do not have a carafe. I like the ones that brew directly into an insulated travel mug. This would be ideal if you are traveling alone and only need coffee for one person. You can also get small coffee brewers without a carafe the brew into any cup that you provide. This reduces the size and weight of the travel coffee maker since you do not need to carry the carafe.

Black and Decker travel coffee maker with thermal cup
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

Kitchen Select travel coffee maker brews coffee into a cup that you provide
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

Single Serve Travel Coffee Maker

The Keurig Mini is a small Keurig coffee machine that could be packed and used as a travel coffee maker. Using K-cups while traveling would be more convenient than dealing with coffee grounds and filters. At $99, the price of the Keurig Mini is a bit higher than the other travel coffee maker options.

Keurig mini travel coffee maker- take your k-cups with you!
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

Espresso Maker Travel Coffee Maker

A small espresso maker could be used as a travel coffee maker. This would be a fun way to get your daily dose of caffeine while traveling!

Use a small espresso maker as a travel coffee maker
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

Travel Coffee Maker Filters

I always use a paper filer to make coffee- the paper filter removes oils from coffee that can contribute to cholesterol. Some travel coffee makers have a permanent nylon filter. This is handy, but doesn’t filter the cholesterol out of your coffee. I recommend using a paper filter to avoid issues with cholesterol. Using an espresso maker or French press to make coffee has the same issue. If you are not using a paper filter, you are getting some cholesterol from your coffee.

Hotel Coffee Makers- Use at Your Own Risk!

Don’t most hotel rooms provide a small coffee maker and some coffee pods so you can brew coffee in your hotel room? Yes, but there are a couple issues with using hotel coffee makers. First, the coffee is not very good- I have yet to brew a great cup of coffee using the pods and the hotel coffee maker. Second, the coffee maker may not be cleaned regularly, or may be wiped down with the same dirty rag used to clean the counters and other surfaces of your hotel room. I once saw a TV news story showing video from a hidden camera to reveal how maids cleaned coffee makers in hotel rooms- and it wasn't pretty. I would recommend either buying coffee at the hotel coffee shop or bringing your own travel coffee maker rather than using a hotel coffee maker.

Hotel coffee makers are often not cleaned properly- use at your own risk!
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

Travel Coffee Maker Recommendations

• There are some interesting travel coffee makers that include a thermal travel mug instead of a carafe- this would be really handy for one person while traveling
• If you are traveling with others who drink coffee, pack a small 4 or 5 cup coffee maker, can of coffee grounds and box of filters on a longer trip if you don't want to buy coffee
• If you have a bit more room, pack a Keurig Mini and some K-cups
• Hotel rooms often provide a coffee maker, but consider it dirty and rinse it out if you decide to use it
• Use a paper filter when brewing coffee to avoid cholesterol from your coffee

Copyright © 2013 Dr. Penny Pincher. All Rights Reserved. Coffee Maker Journal

Intelligentsia Coffee

Intelligentsia Coffee

I had a day off this summer and was walking around downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa after dropping my son off at an activity.  I saw a sign in a storefront that made me stop and study it.  Signs that mention coffee sometimes have this effect on me.  I had heard of Intelligentsia Coffee before and decided to investigate.

Intelligentsia Coffee Store Window Sign
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

The Intelligentsia Coffee sign was in the window of The Early Bird, an independent coffee shop on 2nd Street near the Paramount Theater.  The store was clean and bright.  It was a week day, and regulars were ordering sandwiches and afternoon coffee.  The late lunch crowd was mostly lawyers and bankers.  Intelligentsia coffee was proudly offered and I couldn’t resist trying some.

Intelligentsia Coffee at local coffee shop
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

The price for a 20 oz cup of Intelligentsia coffee was $2 even.  Unfortunately it was afternoon, so I limited myself to decaf.  The decaf offering was Intelligentsia Librarian's Blend.  The flavor had citrus notes, a bit sour, bright, with a spectrum of flavor on the light side.  This roast is not smoky at all, at least compared with my typical dark roast selections.  I liked this roast more and more the more I drank it walking around downtown.  It’s a really good light roast with lots of bright flavor.  This light roast reminded me that coffee is a fruit product made from the seeds of coffee cherries.  I drank it black- it would be good with a bit of honey.  I decided to walk back to the coffee shop and check on how refills work...

Cup of Intelligentsia Coffee
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

I asked the friendly barista about refills- she said “go for it”.  I’m liking this place even more now!  I refilled with Decaf Librarian’s Blend, adding honey this time.  I’ll try to visit sometime in the morning to try Intelligentsia dark roast.  Based on the popularity of Intelligentsia coffee, I have high expectations.

Where to Find Intelligentsia Coffee

Intelligentsia Fresh Roasted Coffee
Image Source: Dr. Penny Pincher

Here are the best places to find Intelligentsia coffee:

Local coffee shop.  If you’re lucky like I was, you can find a local coffee shop that serves Intelligentsia coffee.  Coffee shops can order coffee, and apparently signs, from Intelligentsia.  Try searching the web for Intelligentsia coffee and the name of your city to see if any local coffee shops are brewing Intelligentsia.

Intelligentsia coffee bars in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.  If you live in one of these cities, you can go straight to the source.  Intelligentsia was founded in Chicago and has retail shops in Los Angeles and New York as well.

Order Intelligentsia coffee to make at home.  You can order bags of Intelligentsia whole bean and ground coffee from amazon.com:

• El Diablo Dark Roast
• House Blend
• Black Cat Espresso
• Black Cat Classic Blend
• Organic French Roast
• Decaf Black Cat Espresso

The Intelligentsia website offers more varieties including seasonal varieties and also provides a coffee subscription service.  You can sign up for automatic shipments of your selected coffee at specified intervals.  You can have them ship a bag of coffee every week if you want.

Copyright © 2013 by Dr. Penny Pincher.  All Rights Reserved. Coffee Maker Journal