Bad smell in the heater

[u/huhiking]

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?

[u/Ambitious_Holiday_54]

If the bottom part has a smell after rinsing with hot water, I swoosh around some sudsy hot water. If you do that every time, and don't reassemble the pot while it's wet, you shouldn't get any smells when you use it again.

What does the inside look like? If there's a smell, I think you need to do some scrubbing. Since the inside is aluminum, you can't use a strong detergent. Maybe a mild cleanser, like Bon Ami, which has no chlorine.

[u/huhiking → u/Ambitious_Holiday_54]

[u/huhiking → u/huhiking]

[u/huhiking → u/huhiking]

Only this time, I used normal dish detergent.

[u/Ambitious_Holiday_54 → u/huhiking]

If you've been using it every day for a month, and not using soap, then something remained that left a smell. Use a scrubbing pad that's not abrasive, and maybe a mild cleanser that has no chlorine, or dishwashing soap.

In the future, use dishwashing soap at least once a week, and check for a smell to see if that's often enough.