Find Out How Much Citric Acid To Clean Coffee Maker

Maintaining your coffee machine involves cleaning it consistently. While many people use white vinegar or other similar descaling agents for this purpose, it’s not a viable option for everyone. The reason is, vinegar tends to leave behind a potent smell that is hard to remove. Consequently, a number of individuals prefer using citric acid as an alternative for cleaning their coffee machines. When utilizing citric acid, it’s important to know the correct quantity needed and the procedure to use it. But, the question arises: how much citric acid is required to clean a coffee maker? Continue reading with us to discover the amount of citric acid necessary to achieve a clean coffee machine.

Why Citric Acid

Since there are some other stuff out there that you can use to clean up your coffee maker, and get a perfect result, you might wonder if citric acid is a good choice. But, that’s a total misconception. Citric acid is good enough. Most descaling solutions has citric acid as part of the ingredients and they are mostly expensive, while citric acid is relatively cheap. If citric acid is part of the ingredients of what you would buy with some quite exorbitant prices, then why not go for citric acid itself. A bag of citric acid costs around $10 and will last forever. It doesn’t leave off strong smells as other descaling solutions will and it works effectively. And I believe this is a good reason to choose citric acid over the others.

So How Much Citric Acid Do I Need

To effectively descale your coffee maker with citric acid, you will need about 2 tablespoons of citric acid powder. This is a fairly constant measurement and works for almost any coffee maker size. Unlike when using other solutions like white vinegar, there is no need to always measure out based on the size of the coffee maker. 2 tablespoons of citric acid will always do a great job. This will be about 20% citric acid solution.

How Do I Descale My Coffee Maker With Citric Acid

Descaling your coffee maker with citric acid is easy and not stressful. It follows the same process as cleaning with vinegar or even brewing coffee, just that there are no coffee grounds. There are only a few steps, which we will go ahead and discuss.

Wash the removable parts of the coffee maker. That is, the brew basket, the carafe and possibly the water reservoir if it is detachable. Rinse under hot water. After that, put them all back in their positions on the coffee maker.
Fill the reservoir with water all the way up.
Open up the citric acid. Get a tablespoon and fetch out two tablespoons. Dump into the water reservoir.
Close the water reservoir and turn on the coffee maker for a clean cycle.
Let it brew until when the tank is completely empty.
If the clean cycle has been completed, pour out the water that has been collected in the carafe.
Fill the water reservoir with clean water, this time without citric acid. This is a rinse cycle to remove any excess citric acid.
Let the coffee maker run a water only cycle. Once it’s done, dump out the water and rinse the removable parts under hot water.
Your coffee maker is clean again and ready to brew you delicious cups of coffee.

How Often Should I Clean My Mr Coffee Maker

The best answer would be, as often as can. What will really determine how often you clean your coffee maker will be your type of water and how often you brew. If you have hard water, you will have to clean more often than someone that has soft water because your coffee maker will be prone to developing scales faster. For references as regards how often you should clean your coffee maker, check in your user manual and see what the manufacturer says. If you also brew more than once a day, there is a likelihood that your coffee maker will need to be descaled more often. At least once in every two months.

How To Maintain Your Coffee Maker

To fully optimize how your coffee maker works, and keep it in good shape for as long as possible, you need to properly maintain it. And the following tips will guide you on how to:

Clean: Clean your coffee maker as often as you can. Your coffee maker’s greatest enemy is scales. Which is constantly formed on your coffee maker, since it has water running through it always. You can do that by following the manufacturer guidelines on cleaning your coffee maker which you can find in the user manual. Come to think of it, cleaning your coffee maker regularly will help prolong its lifespan.
Keep It Dry : Never immerse your coffee maker in water for any reason. Always keep it dry. In case you are brewing and coffee unavoidably spills on your coffee maker, do make sure you clean it up immediately and keep your coffee maker dry.
Clean With Only Soft Material: If you want to wipe down the body of your coffee maker, do that with only soft material. Do not use any abrasive material. This will help to prevent scratches on your coffee maker which will make it look rough and unattractive.
Clean the removable parts after each use: To make sure that your coffee maker is in a good shape, always wash the removable parts such as the brew basket and the carafe after each use. This will help you to avoid clogs in your coffee maker, and prevent old coffee from getting in your fresh brew.

Conclusion

Citric acid is a good choice when it comes to what to use in descaling your coffee maker. It is cheap and easily accessible. It doesn’t leave off any strong smell which is most people’s turn-off with vinegar. And it works just as effectively too. The process of cleaning is the same as the brewing process. Just add the citric acid without the coffee grounds. And your coffee maker will be good as new. You can then enjoy freshly brewed coffee from your coffee maker.