The Crucial Tip That Keeps Your Nespresso Machine From Growing Mold

There's nothing worse than spotting mold in an appliance that you use to make food or drinks. In the short term, digesting certain types of mold may result in allergy symptoms, nausea, and diarrhea. Long-term exposure can cause respiratory and neurological issues and even poisoning. You need to know how to prevent mold in your coffee-making equipment. Luckily, there's a preventative solution: leaving your pod slot open to dry after use. This hack is one thing every coffee enthusiast should know about Nespresso machines.

The air-drying strategy takes around an hour; it's an easy change to implement. If you don't leave it open, trapped moisture could create a breeding ground for mold. Clearly, this is a mistake to avoid when using your Nespresso machine, and the hiccup is something that at-home baristas know all too well to avoid. Nespresso aficionados on sites like Reddit recommend that new users air the machine out, highlighting it as a slight caveat to the Vertuo manual suggestion to always keep the lid closed when inactive. Temporarily airing pod slots is a valuable trick to eliminate mold before it takes hold.

There are more ways to keep your Nespresso machine clean and safe if you're feeling inspired by the "leave it open" hack. An effective strategy to transform coffee quality and lengthen machine longevity is to use filtered water. Depending on where you live, tap water can be hard or soft. Hard water is full of minerals that can cause limescale to accumulate in appliances like coffee makers. Using filtered or bottled instead, you minimize all those deposits and limit descaling and deep cleaning tasks to once every six months. Always keep the tank full to avoid accidentally causing extra pressure through steam pockets, burned-out heat elements, or damaged pumps. It's surprisingly easy to unknowingly run your machine on empty.

Maintenance and storage choices also make a huge difference. Investing in a spray bottle for optimal Nespresso machine cleaning can help reach those awkward nooks and crannies. Be mindful of where you actually store your Nespresso machine, too, as humid environments can accelerate damage over time. Preventing mold and protecting your machinery requires a few tricks up your sleeve. It's a good thing you'll be rewarded with better cups of coffee.