You know those brown coffee stains that appear on your mugs, coffee-makers and anything else touched by the loving embrace of the world's most popular drug? You can get rid of those, like all the way. All you need is a little bit of this magical powder and some hot water.
Frequent coffee drinkers usually have a few cups stained with a brownish tint. Then there's the grime that builds up on coffee-making devices. It's been a few months and your lovely brewer has lost its pristine glow. You probably thought they were stained that way forever but wait!
The stuff I have is called Cafiza but it's also marketed as Puro among other things. They're all made by a company called Urnex in New York. In fact I ordered the Puro and they sent me Cafiza but whatever.
In the video I clean out a steel thermos but I've used it to clean the carafe and all the removable parts in my drip brewer. You can run it through your coffee maker too. It's actually marketed as a way to clean your espresso maker. Just make sure you use the right amount, as in NOT VERY MUCH and that you rinse it thoroughly. I usually use vinegar when rinsing to make sure all the cleaner's gone. You don't want to taste this stuff (just trust me).
The magical powder is a mix of three ingredients—trisodium phosphate, sodium tripolyphosphate and sodium percarbonate. I didn't know what they were either but after some googling I found out that trisodium phosphate and sodium tripolyphosphate are both used as food additives. Sodium percarbonate is one of the active ingredients in Oxiclean. Nothing too serious and they're all in things you probably already eat or use to clean. That said this cleaner is concentrated stuff and will irritate skin and eyes and is “harmful if swallowed”. So be careful when you're dealing with the powder. Once it's diluted it's fine and I've never had any trouble when washing stuff in it.
A 20-ounce container will set you back about $15 but it lasts a while. I've had the same bottle for 3 years and still have a third of it left.
I think the reason this works so well is that it's specifically designed for coffee stains. I've never seen anything else make them disappear like this, especially without any elbow grease. It makes your coffee gear look new and is one of those rewarding cleaning times when you think, "You know, maybe I can keep this thing for years and years".