An all-important part of making great coffee is keeping your tools clean, and that includes the inside of your coffee machine. We’ve made cleaning your Ratio easy so that you can keep making delicious coffee. There are two main types of buildup to clean from the Ratio itself: Coffee oils and scale.
Coffee Oils
Coffee is full of oils – they’re part of what makes coffee delicious, but they also build up in your carafe and dripper. Luckily, removing them is easy. We recommend using Clearly Coffee from Urnex which safely removes coffee oil buildup as well as helps to prevent oil and scale buildup in the future.
- Add one packet of cleaning powder on top of a paper filter and run half a cycle of water through your Ratio machine.
- Allow it to soak for 5-10 minutes, then discard the solution and thoroughly rinse everything with clean water.
- For a deeper clean, use a brush to scrub the inside of your carafe after soaking.
Descaling
Scale buildup occurs in your machine’s reservoir and tubing due to the natural mineral content of your water. Not only can it be a bit unsightly, but over extended periods without cleaning it can also affect the functionality of your machine. To make maintenance easy, we have Halefresh.
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Fill Ratio to about an inch below the top fill line
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Add 2 OZ of Halefresh to the Ratio
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Start the Ratio and let it run through the whole cycle
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Fill Ratio with cold water to top fill line
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Start the Ratio and let it run through the whole cycle
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Repeat steps 4 and 5 again
We recommend doing this about once a month, but if you look at the glass supply line on the Eight and see that it’s a bit cloudy, you know it’s time to descale.
To avoid buildup, we also recommend avoiding using a Ratio glass carafe (or any carafe you normally serve water in) to fill the reservoir as well as promptly rinsing your carafe with hot water after use. If you use the coffee serving carafe to fill the water tank, you’ll be transferring coffee oils to your clean water tank.
Outside
Now that your machine is pretty on the inside, let’s clean the outside. For cleaning your Ratio’s external surfaces we recommend using the Microfiber towel. It’s handy for wiping up spills and moisture and, with a bit of hot water and a touch of soap, it’ll safely clean most spills and stains on your machine.
Be sure to check the showerhead periodically, as the condensation that builds up there will have plenty of coffee oils and may require a bit more attention. Lastly, be sure not to leave water or coffee under your carafe sitting on the machine's surface to avoid stains.