Restaurant Equipment Tips: Burnt Coffee in the Morning

Tessa — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:45:00 GMT

I love a good cup of coffee to start my day, but the morning can quickly slip by without anyone noticing that empty coffee pot baking on the heating plate... What do you do about that burnt brew at the bottom? I googled this question and found an answer I recall hearing once before (years ago--confided by a server at a steakhouse where I worked). It may not exactly be a trade secret, but here's a reminder about how to get those coffee pots sparkling:

How to Clean a Blackened or Burnt Coffee Pot

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
Ever leave the coffee pot on over night? Can't get rid of the discoloration at the bottom of your pot? This article will show you how.

Steps

Place 1 teaspoon of salt into the coffee pot.
Add 2 cups of ice into the coffee pot.
Swish around the solution to start melting the ice. If the ice isn't melting, add a little bit of cold water into the coffee pot.
Continue to swish the mixture in multiple directions. You should begin to see the burned color coming off of the pot.

Tips

If the pot is severely discolored you may have to repeat this several times, but eventually it will come clean.
The swish motion is important. Make sure while you're swishing that you are doing this over all the discolored areas. Missing areas will not get the pot entirely clean.

Warnings

When adding additional water, it is important that it is cold. Hot water mixed with the ice will cause the pot to crack or shatter.
Salt and ice mixture on the skin can freeze it so make sure to keep them separate until you put it into the pot. Frostbite is painful and the skin can take several weeks to heal.
Do not use cleanser, although it seems faster. Coffee pots often have lips that could hide a bit of the cleanser even when it is rinsed. Those bits could end up in your coffee. Think hygiene and not eating grit. This is especially important in restaurants where customers expect sterile equipment.

Things You'll Need

A discolored coffee pot
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups ice
Cold water

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Clean a Blackened or Burnt Coffee Pot. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Serv-U proudly offers coffee makers and accessories by leaders in the industry (think the likes of BUNN brewers, Hamilton Beach urns, and Service Ideas French presses for example).

And if you're ready to free your inner barista (hey, even McD's is doing it!), we've got a great selection of grinders and espresso machines to choose from. You'll be producing latte art in no time!

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(Latte art pic courtesy of "adactio" on Flickr.)

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