Coffee Pot Stains

I have a large aluminum party sized coffee pot. It has ugly water mark stains on the outside. It also has coffee stains on the inside. Does anyone have a solution for this?
- Gretchen

Answers:

Coffee Pot Stains

The best thing I've found for cleaning aluminum coffee pots is cream of tartar. Put a tablespoon for a regular sized coffee maker, probably 3 or 4 for the large pot. Run it through a cycle and all inside stains will be gone. For the outside stains, S.O.S pads and a little elbow grease will take a lot of stains out and shine it back up. - Susan (08/21/2001)

Coffee Pot Stains

Be aware that that black gunk is actually a coating on the aluminum surface, and it contributes to the mellow flavor of coffee. You may NOT want to clean it all off. If you DO, you'll find you're going to have to run 10 or 20 fresh pots of coffee through the coffee maker before your coffee tastes right again. If you want to just do a light to moderate cleaning, you can use a mild solution of baking soda and let it sit overnight. That will take off a large portion of the stain, but not clean down to the bare aluminum, which would spoil the flavor of the coffee. If you MUST clean out all of the stains, a weak solution of Clorox bleach allowed to soak overnight will get it all. Be careful about experimenting with mixing cleaning agents, particularly when working with bleach. Some combinations can produce poison chlorine gas - NOT what you want to deal with!

(12/25/2004)

By NurseBob