How to Clean a Wine Carafe
Unless you rinse a carafe out right away, wine often leaves sticky residue, especially at the bottom of the carafe. This is, of course, most noticeable if the wine is a red wine.
It can be difficult to remove this sticky sediment from the carafe. Even pouring soap and water in the carafe overnight won't always do the trick. A faster, easier way does not involve soap.
Does this Spark an idea?
Things You'll Need
- Dry measuring cup
- Rock salt
- Liquid measuring cup
- Vinegar
- Bottle brush
- Sponge
Instructions
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1
Use a dry measuring cup to pour 2 cups of rock salt into the carafe, as suggested by the Crystal Decanter website.
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2
Measure out 1 cup of white vinegar in a liquid measuring cup. Pour this into the carafe.
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3
Gently swish the salt and vinegar around in the carafe, so all sides are covered with the fluid. Push a bottle brush down inside the carafe and brush it to remove some of the stains and sediment.
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4
Allow the salt to fully dissolve. After it has dissolved, let the fluid sit in the carafe for an hour, as suggested by the Crystal Decanter website.
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5
Pour the fluid out of the carafe and then rinse it out well with warm water. If any wine residue remains inside the carafe, brush it with the bottle brush.
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6
Wet a sponge in warm water. Add a few drops of vinegar to the sponge. Wipe this over the outside of the decanter to remove any stains or residue on the outside.
Leave the carafe open to air-dry.
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Tips & Warnings
Look for bags of rock salt either in your supermarket or hardware store. Rock salt is used to melt ice on walkways and also for making homemade ice cream.
References
- Photo Credit carafe of cranberry nastoyka image by sorokka from Fotolia.com
