Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire did vinegar kill my coffee pot?

got a Mr Coffee ,coffee maker about 3-5 years old. Decided it was time to clean it with vinegar per the op . manual, you know run 3 cups of vinegar thru machine ,shut off let set half hour run last cup of it thru then run pot of water thru to ,rinse out remaining vinegar.It cleaned a little calcium or what ever out of it .That was monday ,Tuesday made one pot of coffee ,it work fine ,made second pot later ,it squirt a few squirts of coffee and the pump stopped ,hot plat still worked .It dead ,it just funny it worked fine till i cleaned it ,did the vinegar kill it? even thought they say to clean it with it ? it just funny it died the day after i cleaned it ,

Have a Mr Coffee. Have cleaned it a lot with vinegar. Still works.

Maybe the vinegar dislodged a chunk of calcium that has blocked up the pipework somewhere?

Next one you get, clean it more often.

Likely. 3-5 years old and how many times have you cleaned it? Put more vinegar through it and let it sit. It will eventually dissolve the calcium. It's possible but not likely it ruined it. Most don't have pumps, they rely on a hearing element to flash steam & it rises up condensing and dripping onto the grounds.

Try cleaning it with some CLR. Give it a couple of extra rinses afterwards with plain water.

I learned my lesson some time ago.
Throw it away or sell it at a garage sale.
Buy a new one for $20.00 or less.
Don't put any water through it other than
distilled water. Never wash it with soap
Only rinse it as needed. No vinegar.
No cleaners of any kind.
JMHO- You can't wash a plastic coffee
pot enough times to get that cleaner
chemical taste and smell out of it.
You might want to run a few pots of
weak instant coffee through it before
you try to make drinking coffee with it.

Good luck

I’ll second the earlier poster that it’s clogged by a piece of calcium. I’ve cleaned my Mr Coffee makers for decades with vinegar. My last Mr Coffee maker died last month that I bought in 2003. It was cleaned every couple of months with vinegar. After 17 years it wouldn’t come on one morning

I have owned several different coffee makers, at times I have cleaned with vinegar and other times used CLR. Never had one quit because of cleaning, likely you have a blockage somewhere try cleaning with CLR as sugested to un-block. More frequent cleaning will prevent future problems.

While they do eventually quit working altogether I really doubt a simple cleaning with vinegar would cause that to happen. The last time I had to clean ours it took 2 - 3 vinegar flushes for it to start working normally again.

This. The calcium buildup coats the elements. That insulated them from the water. That causes them to work harder. Eventually the heating element burns out.

Vinegar is the preferred method of cleaning a pot. It dissolves the calcium, but you need to do about every 3-6 months to keep the buildup from getting too thick.

You got your moneys worth out of that one.

I’m amazed so many of y’all clean your coffee makers. In the last 20 years I’ve cleaned my 3 coffee makers by running water thru them a grand total of twice. I may wipe them down once every 5 years

Most people don’t clean them

We have hard water too. After years of using coffee machines of various brands, coffee pod systems etc. we decided to just go low tech. I bought a Melita filter holder for like $3 and filters. Just heat up your water in a stove-top kettle, put the Melita filter holder on top of your cup, put coffee in the filter and pour the hot water in the filter. Let gravity do it's thing and voila' - coffee in my cup. It works every time.

A Mr Coffee has the elements in the water? We have a Hamilton Brewmaster. The elements never get wet.

It’s a Mr coffee. When ya buy one, you might as well by a spare or two.

My cuisinart lasted about 8-9 years. Actually it still works. I just replaced it with another one.

Mr Coffees are junk. Trash it and get a Bunn.

Most common drip coffee makers basically heat water like electric on-demand water heaters do. Cold water is heated as it passes through a small diameter line by an external heat element which quickly brings it to correct temperature.

Jeebus.....who cleans a coffee maker?