Have you ever noticed how after you buy a brand new coffee maker (drip brew), you’re able to make great tasting coffee… but after a few months, you start noticing that the coffee doesn’t seem to taste as good as it used to?

Cleaning your coffee maker is important and the best way to do this is to descale it.

What is scale?
Scale is the build up of minerals inside your coffee maker, generally referred to as “lime scale”. The build up is typically due to using hard water when brewing your coffee.

Why is lime scale bad?
Scale causes lots of problems in coffee makers. Not only does it make your coffee taste bad, it also causes other problems, such as building up over the mechanisms inside the coffee maker that make the water heat up, which means your coffee may not be brewed at the optimal temperature, it can clog up your coffee maker in different places inside the machine and scale can even make it malfunction or stop working altogether.

How can I prevent scale from building up in my coffee maker?
Many people use tap water for brewing their daily coffee. The hard water from the tap can quickly cause lime scale to build up over the course of 2-3 months. You can prevent scale from building up by using high quality water (bottled water). You’d probably want to use high quality water so you can make the best tasting coffee, anyway (if you think the water from your tap tastes gross, why would you use it to make your coffee?). High quality/bottled water may not completely eliminate scale, but it will slow the build up of it down some.

*It’s important to note that some coffee makers have special instructions for cleaning and descaling in any other way could void your manufacturer’s warranty; please review the instructions that came with your coffee maker and if there’s a discrepancy on how to descale, use your coffee maker’s instructions instead of the tips offered below.

How to descale your coffee maker
Now that we’ve discussed prevention, we need to get your coffee maker descaled and brewing better tasting coffee now. Here’s the process for descaling:

• Make sure your coffee maker is cold (hasn’t just been used)
• Place a new filter into your drip-brew coffee maker
• Fill the coffee pot half way with equal parts water and distilled white vinegar
• Run the mixture through the coffee maker, dump out the mixture once complete
• Repeat this 1-2 more times
• Let the coffee maker cool
• Remove the old filter and insert a new one
• Clean the coffee pot and add fresh water (no white vinegar this time)
• Run the water through the coffee maker, dump out the water once complete
• Repeat this 2-3 more times
• Not a bad idea to make 1 pot of coffee and dump out to ensure any remaining vinegar is completely removed… just don’t use Weekly Roast coffee, use some of the stale stuff you have in the pantry 

One word of caution, make sure you only use a mixture of half white vinegar and half water when going through this process. If you use only white vinegar, it will be a lot harder to get the vinegar taste and smell cleaned out. You can also use a citrus based decalcifying solution or a professional descaling solution. White vinegar works just as well and is typically cheaper.

Try descaling your coffee maker using the tips above and then enjoy a cup of freshly brewed coffee. Repeat this process every 2-3 months and I bet you’ll taste a big difference.

Return to our Coffee Library to read more coffee tips.