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Everyone says to use vinegar for cleaning your coffee maker. I tried it and my coffee tasted awful for a month.

I ran a full cycle with white vinegar and water like all the guides say. Did the rinse cycle twice after. The next morning, my coffee had a weird sour taste. I thought it was the beans, so I switched brands. Still bad. It took over 30 pots of coffee, about three weeks, for that vinegar taste to finally go away. I learned that sometimes the 'simple' hack creates a new problem. Has anyone found a better way to clean a machine without ruining the flavor?
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3 Comments
verap52
verap521mo agoMost Upvoted
I read somewhere that the issue is the vinegar sits in the rubber seals and gaskets inside the machine. The porous rubber soaks up the vinegar smell and it takes forever to leach out. A buddy of mine who works on small appliances said he uses citric acid powder instead. You mix a tablespoon with water and run it through just like vinegar but it doesn't stink and rinses out way faster. I've done that to my own machine a few times now and never had the aftertaste problem. You can find citric acid in the canning section of the grocery store or just buy it online cheap. Way better than having your coffee taste like a pickle for a month.
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barbaraw16
barbaraw161mo ago
Guess @emery_taylor and I are brewing vinegar coffee for the next month.
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emery_taylor
Ugh, same thing happened to me! I had to run so much plain water through mine to finally get rid of that nasty taste.
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