In this article, we’ll show you how to clean a Bunn coffee maker so that it maintains its optimal performance for a long time, providing you with great tasting cups of coffee everyday. It’s not difficult at all, but there are some handy tips and tricks you should know that will make cleaning your coffee maker a lot easier.
Bunn is one of the leading coffee machine producers in the world. You can find their machines in professional setting like diners, cafes and restaurants as well as in homes of coffee lovers. What attracts buyers to Bunn is their reliability and longevity.
Cleaning and maintanenance are key to having a Bunn coffee maker for a long time. Without frequent cleaning and maintenance, your Bunn coffee maker might start producing coffee with a funny taste or it can even break down because of all the mineral deposits.
How to Clean a Bunn Coffee Maker
External Cleaning of Bunn Coffee Maker
The recommended external cleaning interval for Bunn coffee makers is at least once every week. The more frequent you clean your Bunn machine the better, but twise a week is a good balance.
Steps to Clean your Bunn coffee maker externally:
- Unplug the machine from the electricity to eliminate the possibility of accidentally turning it on while cleaning.
- Prepare a mix of soap and warm water for cleaning the outside of the machine.
- Soak a cloth in the soap and water mix and thoroughly wipe down the external parts of the Bunn coffee maker. Make sure to not miss any parts.
- Rinse the cloth with fresh water and wipe down the machine again to remove any soap. It is very important not to leave any soap on the surface for too long. Even mild soaps can cause seever damage if they are left in surfaces for too long.
If your glass carafe has many coffee stains and looks anything like the one in the following picture you can follow our guide on cleaning a a glass coffee pot to leave it like new again.
How to Descale a Bunn Coffee Maker
Unfortunately, external cleaning is only half the battle. Coffee machines can build up mineral deposits or limescale over time, more frequently in regions with hard water.
When water evaporates from a surface it often leaves scale deposits which are mostly made out of calcium. If you don’t descale your Bunn coffee maker regularly, mineral build up could clog your machine and change the flavor of your coffee and even ruin it beyond repair.
In the following picture you can see extreme scale deposits in a water reservoir of a Bunn coffee maker that was not cleaned regulary.
Step 1
The first thing you have to do is make sure there is no coffee in the machine. Check the coffee basket (pictured below) and maker sure it is clean.
Step 2
We are going to use 32 oz. of white vinegar. Go ahead and add the 32 oz. of white vinegar where the water goes in the Bunn coffee maker (Pictured below).
Next, close we are going to close the lid (pictured below). What this does is let the vinegar go down to the heating element area.
The water that was on the heating element area gets push out and into the carafe. (pictured below)
We are going to leave the Bunn coffee maker on (Pcitured below) until the carafe gets full.
Step 3
When the carafe gets full (pictured below) you turn the machine off. This will leave the vinegar inside the heating element area to start working to remove scale buildup. We will leave it off for 2 hours.
Thw switch at the front of the Bunn coffee maker (pcitured below) is for the warmer plate. As we are not using the warmer plate we will leave it turned off.
Step 4
Now we discard the water in the carafe and check the coffee basket (Pcitured below). We rinse the coffee basket with fresh basket.
Step 5
As we wait the 2 hours for the vinegar to work on the heating element, we can go ahead and clean the brew head (pictured below).
To remove you simply unscrew it. When you remove the brew head check to see if it need any cleaning. You can see ours in the picture below is a little dirty. You take it to the sink and rinse it with water.
The brew head has tiny holes that also nead to be cleaned because they often get clogged. You can see the tiny holes in the picture below.
We recommend cleaning the tiny holes of the brew head with a paper clip, like the one in the picture below.
To clean the tiny holes in the brew head with the paper clip, just insert the tip of the paper clip in each one of the tiny holes to unclog them.
Step 6
Once the 2 hours have passed, fill the Bunn coffee maker carafe to the 10 mark (pictured below) with fresh water.
Add the water to the Bunn coffee maker where the water goes (pictured below).
Place the carafe back to its place (pcitured below).
Then close the lid (pictured below). This will push the water to the heating element and push out the vinegar that was in the heating element.
You can remove the carafe lid and coffee basket (like in the picture below) so that the water more easily falls inside the carafe.
We recommend doing 3 full carafe of fresh water rinses to completely remove any vinegar residue in your Bunn coffee maker.
In the 2nd and 3rd full carafe rinse we recommend you to turn the heating element on (Pictured below).
Step 7
Once the 3 full carafes of fresh water has passed through the machine, you can go ahead and put back the brew head (pictured below).
Go ahead and place back the coffee basket (pictured below).
Also go ahead and place back the lid on the carafe to have the Bunn coffee maker reassembled (Pictured below). The cleaning process is complete so you can go ahead and brew a great tasting cup of coffee.
In the picture below you can see the cleaning instructions for the Bunn Coffee Maker from the manual.
FAQs on How to Clean a Bunn Coffee Maker
How Often Should You Descale a Bunn coffee maker?
Bunn recommends to descale every 3 months. If the water where you live is hard, more frequency may be needed.
What to Avoid when cleaning your Bunn Coffee Maker?
There are a few thing to avoid when you clean a Bunn coffee maker:
Don’t use cleaning products with too much chemicals. Doing so may ruin the machine.
Don’t disassemble any parts that are not listed in this article, as it may cause more complexity than initially intended.
Don’t use soaps with any kind of intense scents, as this can transfer to the coffee grounds and change the taste.
Don’t clean your machine when it’s still plugged in or still hot, as this can cause electrical injury.
How to clean a coffee maker?
We recommend you to follow a specific guide on how to clean a coffee maker for the brand(s) you own. Each brand has different requirements of white vinegar quantity. Some require a mix of white vinegar with water and some require just white vinegar.
Please follow our specific guides for the following brands of coffee makers:
Black and Decker
Braun
Breville
Cuisinart
Hamilton Beach
Keurig
Mr. Coffee
Ninja
Oxo
Final Thoughts
Learning how to clean a Bunn coffee maker isn’t as fun as learning how to make great coffee with it, but it is equally important. With regular cleaning and maintenance, a Bunn coffee maker can provide great tasting coffee consistently for many years.
Hopefully, this article has helped you learn how to properly clean and care for your machine and has taken the guesswork out of what can be an intimidating process if you’ve never done it before.
Take notice that the more frequent you clean your coffee maker, the less deep cleaning or descaling you’ll have to do and the longer you’ll be able to enjoy your machine.
Hello, I am Cristy. I love cooking but what I love most is keeping my kitchen tools and appliances top notch. I enjoy writing about everything I have learned around the kitchen. I believe that keeping your kitchen tools well cleaned and maintained produces the best dishes and drinks. Besides writing and cooking I enjoy traveling, camping, hiking and music.