How To Descale Your Coffee Maker

As an avid coffee drinker for more than 20 years I’ve gone through my fair share of coffee makers.  During that time I’ve had to descale a few.  The good old fashioned drip machines that I had when I first started were pretty simple to clean.  Dump some vinegar into the reservoir and brew it through then follow with a couple pots of water.

Today’s new fangled single serve machines are a bit more complicated but are still easy to clean.  They have water tanks or reservoirs, too but they also usually contain a small amount of water deep within the machine itself.  Even with that difference the newer coffee makers still need to be descaled for best performance.

I used to own Keurig coffee machines but switched about five years ago.  I wasn’t thrilled by them anymore because they didn’t seem to have a long shelf life.  It could’ve just been the ones I chose but I searched high and low for a comparable replacement and ended up choosing an icoffee machine which has since been discontinued.  Anyone with an icoffee machine or other similar single serve coffee maker can use this method to clean it.

If you don’t want to read the step by step directions you can scroll to the bottom of the post and watch the video.

Your machine should be turned on when you clean it because you will be running multiple brew cycles through it.

Descaling your coffee machine

1. Empty reservoir tank completely.
2. Fill the tank halfway with white vinegar.
3. Run the machine through brew cycles until you’ve run the vinegar out or your machine signals it’s time to fill.
4. Keep remaining vinegar in the tank and add clean water till full.  Run the entire tank through brew cycles until it empties again.
5. Remove reservoir tank and clean it along with any other removable parts.  Replace all parts and tank.
6. Fill the tank with clean water and run brew cycles until the tank is empty.
7. Fill the tank and your machine is ready to brew coffee.

I usually run a quick no coffee cycle through the next morning just to make sure it’s clean then I use like normal.

It’s super easy to do though it is a little time consuming.  Still you will be amazed at how much faster your machine will brew and how much better your coffee will taste.