I don't know about you but the perfectionist in me is bothered by the simple knowledge that my coffee equipment is not sparkling clean. It's the knowledge that I COULD have a perfect cup if I wasn't getting the taste of a hundred other cups in with my perfectly brewed morning coffee.
Now, I could acknowledge the fact that I still have a wonderful cup of coffee nada practice contentment around that along with some good old-fashioned radical acceptance but that would be too practical and we wouldn't get a blog post about tips and trick of cleaning coffee paraphernalia.
That being said, here are a couple nifty ways of going about cleaning all those hard to get places in your coffee-making do-dads.
1.) White Vinegar
Cafés with espresso machines usually use a poisonous concoction to clean the heads and portafilters but since we aren't using our coffee machines or devices all day (no judgment if you are) some simple white wine vinegar will do. Whether it's a French Press, Aeropress, stained Chemex or regular ol' Mr. Coffee, just throw a tablespoon of vinegar in some hot water and act as if you are making coffee with it. Run through a cycle of your coffee machine, let it sit for 4 minutes whatever it is, do your thing until the stain goes away. It IS better to be frugal with the vinegar because if you overdo it, all of your coffee then tastes like vinegar.
2.) Rice
This one is more for your grinders but it's basically the same idea. Take a regular kitchen ingredient (in this case rice) and use it in lieu of coffee. Whether its a burr grinder, hand grinders or blade grinders just throw a handful of rice in there, grind it as fine as possible and then empty out the rice. The rice will absorb all the oils and push out all the remaining grounds resulting in a fresh grinders with no ghosts of coffees past. If you are using a burr grinders or a hand crank grinders, it might serve you well to perform this on various settings to make sure you get everything.
That's all the wisdom I have for today!
So long folks and, as always,
Drink Valiantly!
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