Were you ever taught how to descale your coffee maker? Or properly clean it? I sure wasn’t. And because of this I have something to admit. It’s shameful, and it’s gross, but I have to say it. Whilst we give our coffee machine a quick clean every now and then, I’ve only thoroughly cleansed it once. And descaling? That hasn’t even happened yet. That’s on the “things I’ll get around to at some point this year” list.
Some of you probably widened your eyes at those statements, unable to do anything except stare at my deplorable words. However, I’m willing to bet that there are a fair amount of readers who read both sentences and then wondered why I’m making a big deal out of them.
Why cleaning and descaling is so important
It turns out that not thoroughly cleaning your coffee machine regularly is actually pretty bad, as it’s a hotbed for bacteria. I knew that the majority of kitchen appliances would be far from sterile, but I didn’t realise quite how high on the list of grimey items the humble coffee machine would sit. Descaling is also so important, especially in you live in a hard water area (like we do, oops).
How to clean and descale your coffee maker
Thankfully, Quill have provided this great infographic which details why cleaning and descaling is so important, and how to do it. The DIY solutions use only safe ingredients and make a great, eco-friendly alternative to commercial cleaning products. You can also find more information on the topic over on Quill’s website. There’s no excuse not to descale and clean your coffee maker after reading this!
Click to Enlarge Image
What type of coffee maker do you have? Do you clean and descale it regularly, or is this something you need to start doing (like me)? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like and pin! You can see another great infographic from Quill on healthy baking swaps here.
We don’t own a coffee maker but I think my Mum would love one as she loves her coffee. It’s so important to keep these appliances as clean as possible xxx
Definitely – looks like you’ve got a good birthday present idea there!
First of all, I feel like an awful friend because I have just now seen your new site 🤭 I love it though! And love the new logo, really fits!!
I don’t have a coffee maker, but yea after reading this, I agree, it should be descaled because no one wants the possibility of drinking their morning coffee with a sprinkle of germs! 😄
Thank you so much! Lena made it and I love it. I can imagine that if you did have a coffee maker you’d be really good at keeping up with this!
This was very informative post. Thanks for sharing. I am going to go do that now.
Thank you!
Scary!!! I didn’t think about such things. But very useful info. I drink coffee daily, will need to do this routinely from now on.
Honestly I seem to forget about all this sort of stuff! Will be doing this more often too, now.
This is such an informative post!! I really need to do this on my coffee maker too. Now would be the perfect time to do so since I have so much time on my hands too. Thanks for sharing!
We’ll all have sparkling houses by the end of the lockdown!
I managed to destroy my last coffee maker by trying to descale it with the wrong commercial product. I’ve been too scared to do it since on the new one, but now I see how disgusting they can be, I’ll try one of these natural solutions! Great article!
Oh nooo! I use mostly natural products around the house now and I’ve found them all to be really good (plus so much cheaper!)
I think I’m the only person in the world that does not drink coffee. I was a barista when I was in my teens and since then, the smell of coffee has always brought back nightmares haha
Rosie
Okay, that’s understandable! You can clean and descale your kettle instead then haha
I never thought about how gross a coffee maker could get! This was very informative, thank you!
Me neither, slightly disturbing!
We have a coffee machine and thankfully, it came with a lot of cleansing products! My husband used to be a barista so he’s quite fussy with his coffee haha. Luckily we live in Scotland so the water is great, so we don’t have to worry too much about limescale, but this was super interesting – thanks!
Very jealous – we have the worst limescale in the country!