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the vinegar process. You might also want to give the filter basket a run through the dishwasher.

After your vinegar cycle has completed (however many you feel are necessary), remove the filter and replace with another fresh one, fill the reservoir with filtered water only, and run one more cycle through your maker to ensure that the vinegar taste has rinsed out. You may worry that you will have a vinegar taste, but if you use a 25% solution, one rinse will do the trick. It's certainly light years cleaner than the oil-and-mineral concoction you were drinking before.

How to Clean the Coffee Carafe

The glass pot your coffee drips into needs care too. The daily splash of water you rinse it with is not enough to remove the mineral build up from the water that sits in it every day (your coffee is 98% water). Rinse the pot well with very hot water. Make a paste of baking soda and water on a non-abrasive sponge and give it a good scrubbing. Afterward, rinse the pot again with hot water.

Be careful to never use abrasive sponges or scouring pads. A scouring pad or sponge with an abrasive surface can undo all the work you've just done. Whenever a harsh cleansing pad is used on your glass carafe, tiny scratches can mar the surface. Once your coffee pot is scratched, even if the marring seems imperceptible, those scratches trap the unwanted oil and mineral deposits like magnets. Metal coffee containers are even more susceptible than glass. Treat your pot with the utmost care when cleaning it, or pay the price with a bitter brew.

How Often Should You Clean Your Coffee Maker?

Everyone disagrees on the frequency of cleaning, and that may be because everyone drinks a different amount of coffee. The frequency with which you clean the coffee maker should be gauged by how often you brew coffee in it. For most households who brew a pot each morning, once a month should be plenty. If multiple pots are brewed daily (like with your coffee maker), once a week may be in order.

Clean your coffee carafe as often as possible, giving it a thorough rinse and scrubbing daily, if you can. If in doubt, you can never clean your coffee maker too often. Err on the side of clean.

Sometimes our lives may seem like a battlefield, with work and household stress gnawing away at us. Take a clue from those World War II soldiers. Clean your coffee maker well, and you can take the break you deserve and need with a clean-tasting, perfectly brewed cup of coffee.

Learn more about this author, Elizabeth Kelly.
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