Descale A Coffee Maker Without Vinegar Using A Cleaning Ingredient You Already Own

Your coffee maker can potentially be a great home for mold and yeast — if you don't clean it regularly. While many people know that vinegar is a versatile cleaning tool and can be used to clean a coffee maker, it's not the most pleasant to use due to its pungent smell. It also requires quite a bit to be effective. Fortunately, if you're looking for a way to descale a coffee maker without vinegar, you don't have to look further than another common household ingredient you probably already own: hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide can do a particularly great job of cleaning a coffee maker and preventing mold growth. The ingredient is a strong oxidizing agent and actively releases oxygen, allowing it to kill microorganisms and serve as an effective disinfectant and cleaner. Correctly using hydrogen peroxide in your coffee maker can help you descale it effortlessly and will make your coffee maker look like new again. It will also allow you to enjoy a delicious, mold-free cup of joe.

As with using other genius hydrogen peroxide hacks around the kitchen, cleaning a coffee maker with hydrogen peroxide is a pretty straightforward process. To start, you'll simply need to add 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide to a coffee pot full of water. Then, run it through your coffee machine as you would when brewing coffee. This will disinfect the machine and does a great job of killing bacteria. 

After you've let the hydrogen peroxide go through the machine, however, your job isn't quite done. Before you move on, make sure to run a couple of additional brewing cycles using only clean water to ensure that the hydrogen peroxide has been completely eliminated from the coffee machine. With this, the job will be done and you can immediately start using your machine to brew coffee again. Be sure to repeat this process from time to time if you notice that your coffee maker has started to look dirty or if you've noticed any additional mold or yeast growth.

If you don't have any hydrogen peroxide on hand and don't want to use distilled white vinegar to clean your coffee machine, there are a couple of alternative ingredients that you may want to consider using instead. Alcohol can also serve as a great disinfectant when used in a coffee machine or coffee pot. Simply get some vodka or rubbing alcohol and pour it into the coffee machine's reservoir, up to the quarter full mark. Then, fill it the rest of the way with water to make a ratio of 25% alcohol and 75% water. Run the machine as normal. As when using hydrogen peroxide, flush the machine twice using only clean water.

Baking soda can also be used if you want to ditch vinegar when cleaning a coffee machine. To use it, add ¼ cup of baking soda to a coffee pot full of water. Remove any clumps that are present and then run the mixture through a cycle on your coffee machine. Then, thoroughly flush the system with clean water to complete the job.