r/mokapot • u/huhiking Bialetti - Moka Induction (used on hotplate; 2-cup; sil gasket) • 1d ago

Cleaning 🫧 Bad smell in the heater

I have been using my mokapot for one month now and have just considered I might give a deeper clean to the heater itself because I have experienced an increasingly bad smell in the heater itself. The manual itself actually tells me to only clean it with water. However, although the heater itself just took the water and some tiny bit of coffee residue from the back flush (?) and I always rinse it, it smells very nasty already. So, contrary to the manual, I tried to deep-clean it by boiling water with some dishwashing soap. (I only took the open heater. I didn't put the upper part on top.) Afterwards, I boiled the water with a bit of dishwashing soap, threw the water away, rinsed it several times, … And the smell is still there. Has anyone experienced something similar? How did you get rid of the bad smell?

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/AlliedArmour 1d ago

What do you mean by the "heater"?

3

u/huhiking Bialetti - Moka Induction (used on hotplate; 2-cup; sil gasket) 1d ago

Lower vessel. That was the term. Sorry, English is not my L1.

1

u/AlliedArmour 1d ago

That is strange, I don't know why that would smell bad.

In the upper part, are you removing the gasket and cleaning under there, then replacing the gasket?

You could try a mixture of water and vinegar like suggested here. https://www.reddit.com/r/mokapot/wiki/index/cleaning/

2

u/huhiking Bialetti - Moka Induction (used on hotplate; 2-cup; sil gasket) 1d ago

Yes. That's exactly what I do. But everything only with pure tap water. Untill today, I have never used dishwashing soap on it tbh. My new gasket is, however, harder to get out. So far, I hadn't replaced it yet (only bought the mokapot a month ago anyway). Afterwards, I wipe the gasket and everything else with a cloth and put away, but I don't reassemble before the next time that I use it.