How To Clean A Coffee Maker With Bleach (Quickly & Easily!)

A good ol’ cup of coffee is just the thing to start your day, but coffee is only good to drink if it comes from a clean coffee pot. Sometimes, neglect can get so bad, you actually may need a hardcore cleaning agent in order to fully sanitize your coffee maker. Thankfully, doing this is fairly easy and won’t take too long.

To clean your coffee maker, mix two teaspoons of bleach to a gallon of water. Fill the coffee reservoir with the solution and let it run its course. Once the bleach solution has made its way through the coffee machine, flush the machine by adding water to the reservoir at least four times. Let your machine air dry prior to use.

Because bleach can be potentially lethal in the wrong hands, it’s important to know a little bit about this cleaning method before you use it. This guide will give you the truth about why this cleaning method is controversial.

The answer to this one is mixed, to say the least. Your coffee maker is a food prep thing, and bleach is toxic for ingestion. Bleach is also remarkably caustic, which means that some coffee makers may not be able to work with this method without sustaining damage. So, there are a lot of problems with this cleaning method, to say the least.

With that said, bleach kills germs like few other things can. So if you want to use it to kill off lots of fungi and bacteria, it will be effective. The bottom line is that you need to use this method carefully, dilute your bleach heavily, and that you need to know how to flush out your bleach from the coffee machine.

Generally speaking, most coffee makers will be able to handle bleach. Unfortunately, this is not something that is always going to work out for more delicate coffee makers or espresso machines. If you want to make sure that you don’t accidentally destroy your coffee machine, check the user manual before you start cleaning it.

Most user manuals will tell you whether or not bleach can be used to clean your machine. If you do not have your owner’s manual (okay, we forgive you!) the best thing you can do is avoid using bleach on machines that are known for having sensitive controls.

This all depends on the state of the coffee maker, as well as whether you just ran a bleach solution through it. If you haven’t cleaned it with bleach, then vinegar might be a better option. If you just ran bleach through the coffee’s system, do not add vinegar to the reservoir under any circumstances.

Bleach, when mixed with vinegar, turns into a poisonous gas. This is why you should not try to flush bleach out with vinegar. It can literally kill you. Stick to water, and make sure that you have flushed out all the bleach before you fix a cup of coffee.

In most cases, there is no good reason why you would need to clean a coffee maker with bleach. There are safer methods you can use and frankly, bleach is best left to cleaning mold off walls or deodorizing a garbage disposal. The only time it’s really warranted is if you are cleaning a coffee maker that has been heavily neglected or has mold that ran amok.

Even with cases where mold has gone a little crazy, you still might want to keep bleach as a last resort. The best way to explain this is that it’s better used as a restoration attempt than it is a regular cleaning option. It will take longer to clean a coffee machine with bleach than it would to clean it with white distilled vinegar.

Honestly, the most you should use when getting your coffee maker cleaned is two teaspoons to a gallon of water. Any more, and you will be dealing with serious bleach residue that could harm your body as well as the machine in question. If you are chemically sensitive or only need light cleaning, use a teaspoon of bleach per gallon of water, max.

Or, better yet, you should consider cleaning your coffee machine with vinegar instead. Vinegar is a far safer option and also will not harm your coffee machine.

Did you add a teaspoon too much or add tablespoons of bleach rather than teaspoons? Mistakes happen, unfortunately, there are not many solutions that you can rely on to make your coffee maker safe again. Bleach is difficult like that! If you want to give it a try, then consider flushing your coffee maker with water until bleach testing strips show no remains.

If you cannot effectively flush your system or if you want to stay on the safe side, do not bother trying to flush out the coffee machine. Even with test strips, there’s a small chance that you won’t get all the bleach out. Rather than try to fuss over your machine, just get a new coffee maker. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Related Questions

How often should you clean a coffee maker?

Coffee makers will need to have their filters changed daily, ideally after each time the coffee machine is used. However, that’s not all they will need in order to remain functional. Once every two to three months, your coffee maker should be given a deep cleaning along with a descaling treatment using bleach, vinegar, or baking soda.If the coffee maker in question is heavily used (for example, an office machine), then you may need to clean it on a monthly basis. It’s best to use your judgment while you’re looking at the coffee maker’s sanitation levels.