How To Clean A Ninja Coffee Bar (In 4 Easy Steps!)
Ninja makes some of the most popular cooking products in the world, especially when it comes to their blenders. Their Ninja Coffee Bar line is quickly becoming a mainstay for people who want to get coffee at the drop of a hat. In fact, if you go to a typical office, you probably will see a Coffee Bar in your rec room. But, how do you clean it, and how often should you?
To work through the cleaning process, follow the steps below:
- Prep your Coffee Bar by removing the coffee grinds and filter, and adding a cleaning solution to it.
- Press the “Clean” button, letting it run for a minute.
- Press the “Clean” button one more time, then clean removable parts with a scrub brush.
- Run through the cleaning process with water to rinse out the coffee maker.
The Ninja Coffee Bar is a beautiful piece of technology that can whip up a cup of Joe perfectly. They still need to be properly cleaned, though. Let’s take a look at the fastest way to remove residue from the Coffee Bar and keep things sanitary.
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The Easiest Way To Deep Clean A Ninja Coffee Bar
Unless you love the taste of old coffee and built-up mildew, you’ll do what you can to sanitize everything in your Coffee Bar. Thankfully, this process is relatively quick and easy compared to the days of yore. Here’s what you’ll need to do, step by step.
- Remove any coffee grinds and filters from your Coffee Bar. Toss out the coffee, and rinse out the filter. You do not need to replace the filter, as the filter’s meant to be permanent.
- Add a cupful of white vinegar to the reservoir, then fill the rest of the reservoir with water. You should use a coffee mug’s worth of vinegar in this step if you have a serious buildup issue.
- Press and hold the “CLEAN” button once, letting it run for a minute. Pause the machine and let it chill out for around 30 minutes to an hour. This will help the vinegar eat away at the hard water deposits in and around the reservoir. Place the carafe underneath the spigot.
- Then press and hold “CLEAN” again, and let it work its magic for the next eight minutes. You will see the cleaning vinegar and water sitting in the carafe below.
- Get rid of the water in the carafe, then rinse out the filter, carafe, basket, and reservoir again. This can be done with a gentle wiping or a full scrub-down in the sink, depending on what part you’re talking about.
- Run the “CLEAN” function again, this time with water in the reservoir. Once it’s done, toss out the hot water in the carafe and you’re done.
Should You Ever Have To Replace The Coffee Filter In A Ninja Coffee Bar?
If you remember the days of the 90s where every single coffee machine had a coffee filter requirement, those days were brutal. A single day where you run low on filters would mean a bad time for everyone involved. Thankfully, there is some good news when it comes to Ninja’s Coffee Bar line: all their filters are permanent.
While you do have to get your filters cleaned every so often, it’s exceedingly rare that you will actually have to change one of them. (That makes it better than the water filters in most fridges!) You should only have to change a filter if either of the following situations are true:
- Your filter has been left to rot and has significant mold and mildew. At this point, negligence may have made this filter a hazard to use, even if it’s been heavily cleaned. Certain types of mold can eat away at the materials in filters, even if they’re made to be washable.
- Your filter got torn. Hey, sometimes it happens. We can’t always explain how or why, but a torn filter is a nonfunctional filter.
How Often Should You Clean Your Ninja Coffee Bar?
The best way to make sure that your Ninja Coffee Bar is sanitary and ready to work is to clean it daily. However, we all know that’s not exactly normal and that can take a lot of time out of your day. At the very least, you should try to give the Coffee Bar a deep cleaning for hard water buildup once every two to three months.
If your Coffee Bar is part of an office setting where there are 10-plus people all using it day in, day out, things get different. In this situation, you should clean your coffee maker at least once a week.
How Can You Tell If A Ninja Coffee Bar Is Due For A Cleaning?
If nothing else, Ninja is stocked with a bunch of excellent engineers who are able to make a darn good coffee machine. One of the nifty little features that the Ninja Coffee Bar has is a “Clean” indicator light. This indicator light detects calcium deposits and other buildups in the machine’s system. When it gets past a critical mass, it lights up, letting you know it’s time to deep clean everything.
Why Is My Coffee Bar’s Light Always On?
Did you recently clean up your machine, only to see the light still on? Believe it or not, this is a known and fairly common issue, and it has three main causes.
The obvious issue is that you may need to give your machine a more thorough cleaning. It’s also worth noting that the Ninja Coffee Bar’s light will also come up after a cleaning if the cleaning has been deemed incomplete, you pressed the wrong buttons or if you need to restart your machine. So if any of those are true, it may be time to give your Coffee Bar a more thorough cleansing.
What If I Want To Just Give My Coffee Bar A Quick Flush?
Sometimes, you don’t want to go for a full descaling session. You just want to be able to rinse out that one weird coffee flavor that you got that tasted awful. When this happens, you’re able to do this pretty easily. All you have to do is tap the “CLEAN” button. Don’t hold it down like you did for the deep cleaning.
How Long Does It Take To Clean A Ninja Coffee Bar?
This all depends on what you mean by “clean” and how thorough of a cleaning job you want to have done. To make things simpler, we’re going to give you approximate times on each type of cleaning people tend to do on their coffee machines:
- A simple system flush will only take between one to two minutes, tops. This just runs water through your system to get rid of debris.
- Pushing the CLEAN button once and having it run on an automated single run will take five to eight minutes. The difference in timing will depend on the model. Smaller models will take a shorter time to clean, while larger models may take the full eight minutes.
- If you want to do the full descaling, deep-cleaning procedure that we listed above, you should set aside about an hour of time for cleaning at a minimum. Not all the time will be spent actively cleaning your machine, but it will be needed. If you have deep scaling, you will need to set aside about an hour and a half.
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Related Questions
Can you use apple cider vinegar to clean a coffee machine?
If you don’t have white distilled vinegar on hand and need to clean a coffee machine, it is possible to replace the white vinegar with apple cider vinegar. However, this isn’t always a good idea. While white distilled vinegar tends to immediately evaporate, leaving behind new flavor residue, apple cider vinegar can leave a slight aftertaste behind.The good news is that you can easily get rid of the aftertaste with a quick system flush after you’re done cleaning. So, if you need to, ACV is an option you can pursue.
Is descaling solution a better option than distilled white vinegar?
Many people swear by using a descaling solution when they’re cleaning out their coffee makers, and that’s understandable. Descaling solution has been a mainstay among professional cafe baristas for ages, but things are starting to change on that front. It’s generally accepted that descaling solution and distilled white vinegar are equally potent when it comes to cleaning coffee makers.The choice is yours when it comes to cleaning your coffee maker. Vinegar tends to be far cheaper than descaling solution, which is why it’s the more popular option these days.
How long does a Ninja Coffee Bar last?
If you bought a Ninja Coffee Bar, you might be wondering how soon you should replace it. If you use it regularly, you can expect it to last about a year to two years. Sadly, this is actually fairly common in the coffee machine world, so don’t assume it’s a quality issue. It’s just industry-wide obsolescence.
Ian Haynes is a digital marketing specialist and has successfully written hundreds of home improvement guides. Outside of his work, Ian likes fixing old bikes and exploring Brooklyn with his Labrador.
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