How to Clean a Countertop Ice Maker (Guide with Photos)

If properly maintained, your portable ice maker should last for many years and be a great benefit to your home.

Check out the video above, which will walk you through the steps covered in this article.

An important step toward maintaining your portable ice maker is making sure that it’s cleaned regularly. If you’re not careful, mold or harmful bacteria can grow inside your ice maker and make you sick.

Can Bacteria Grow in Ice Makers?

All ice makers get surprisingly dirty over time. It’s because it provides the perfect location for bacteria and mold to grow. Bacteria and viruses can live in freezing temperatures, meaning they can be transferred to your ice.

The best way to keep bacteria and mold from a portable ice maker is to make sure that it stays clean.

Cleaning your ice maker at least once a month (more if you can) ensures that your ice is always fresh, tastes great and that your portable ice maker works properly.

How Often Should A Portable Ice Maker Be Cleaned?

A portable ice maker should be cleaned every 3 to 6 months. If you notice the following warning signs, you should clean your ice maker immediately.

• Your ice smells funny.
• Your ice has a strange or unusual taste.
• You visually see dirt on the ice maker interior walls
• The ice is smaller than usual or melts faster than it should
• It’s cloudy in appearance (If you have an ice maker that produces clear ice)
• Your ice maker isn’t working properly (Troubleshooting your ice maker)

My Top 3 Cleaners for Portable Ice Makers

Keeping your ice maker clean is vital to your well-being, and the quality of ice you serve to your family or customers. A great way to guarantee that your portable ice maker is producing the best ice possible is to use a quality ice maker cleaner.

There are three things that you should consider before you purchase a cleaner for your ice maker.

It’s recommended before using any cleaning solution, you read the instructions on the back of the bottle.

Related: The Best Homemade Cleaning Solution – Save Money!!

This will give you all the necessary steps for proper use. Below are my top three portable ice maker cleaners.

Use the links provided to get the best price online on all the cleaning solutions above.

I’ll be using the Essential Values Ice Machine Cleaner to clean my ice maker in this article.

Can You Use Vinegar to Clean a Portable Ice Maker?

Absolutely!

Vinegar is a great natural cleaning solution for your portable ice maker. It’s not only natural, but it also dissolves lime and hard water that will cause your ice maker to malfunction. Just add two cups of white vinegar per cup of water to your ice maker or a spray bottle. Vinegar will kill 82% of mold species, including black mold, on porous and non-porous surfaces.

The problem with using vinegar for cleaning is that it’s slower than other cleaning solutions. If you are set on using a natural solution, then vinegar will do the trick. If your ice maker is extremely dirty and needs more care, then the solutions above will work well.

Steps to Cleaning a Countertop Ice Maker

To help you properly clean your portable ice maker, I recommend that you follow these simple steps.

It doesn’t matter what portable ice maker brand you own; whether you’re cleaning an Igloo, Emerson, Magic Chef, Frigidaire, or a hOmelabs portable ice maker, the steps that I provide will be the same.

Let’s get started.

When cleaning your portable ice maker, you want to ensure that it’s turned off and unplugged.

Unplugging your unit will protect it from getting damaged, and you’ll want to move it close to a sink so that you can begin draining the water in the reservoir.

Before you begin to clean your portable ice maker, you’ll need to drain the remaining water.

On the bottom or the side, you’re going to notice a small plug.

On my portable ice maker, it’s a small screw cap with a little plastic plug inside the drain hole.

Bring your portable ice maker to a location where the water can drain into the sink, a bowl, or a bucket. Remove the drain plug and let all the water flow from the water reservoir.

Draining all the water from your unit may take a few minutes.

Put the drain plug back into the portable ice maker.

Add water with a cleaning solution.

I use the Essential Values Ice Machine Cleaner in this tutorial. The label says to use 1/4 of the bottle (40oz or about 120 mL) in 1 gallon of water.

Use a one-gallon container and add 1/4 (40oz or about 120 mL) of the solution to the jug. Mix it all together and then add the water and solution to the water reservoir (you will probably have to remove the ice basket to fill it up with water and then put it back inside the unit).

For a bonus tip, add water and solution to a spray bottle for those hard-to-reach areas.

Now, plug your portable ice maker back in.

Turn your ice maker back on, and begin the ice cycle.

This is going to take several minutes. As your ice maker produces ice, throw the ice away in the sink.

Allow the ice maker to cycle through the ice-making process several times – the more times it cycles, the cleaner it’s going to make your unit.

Ensure you have water and solution left in the reservoir to scrub down the ice maker later. I ran the ice cycle until the water reservoir was half empty (or half full, depending on your perspective). The ice cycle ran for about 40 minutes.

Remove the ice basket from inside the ice maker. You can place it to the side until we’re done cleaning the unit.

While the ice basket is removed from the ice maker, it’s a good time to rinse it off with some soap and warm water. You’ll notice that it’s pretty dirty and needs a good washing.

You can add some warm water to your sink and let it soak for a while. Remember that your ice basket is in contact with your ice all day long. Your ice goes from the storage basket to your mouth – make sure the ice basket is clean.

You can let your storage basket soak while you’re cleaning the rest of the unit.

When the storage bin is done soaking, give it a good cleaning, rinse and dry it off.

Next, turn off the ice maker and unplug it. I know, again!

The storage bin should be removed, and the cleaning solution cycled through the entire unit, it’s time to do a more thorough cleaning.

With some cleaning solution left in the water reservoir, use a cloth and wipe down the entire ice maker.

The key to a complete clean is to reach the places that cannot be reached with a cloth. We can do this using two separate methods.

First, I used a spray bottle to spray deep inside the ice maker.

I use a small brush to get into those really hard-to-reach areas. You can pick up the spray bottle on Amazon here, and the brush that I use on Amazon here.

After completing these steps, your ice maker should be perfectly clean. You should even smell the difference.

For this step, drain the water out of the ice machine again. As we instructed above, remove the drain plug, and drain the water into the sink or bucket.

This may take a few minutes, depending on how much water is left in your water reservoir.

With the drain plug removed from the ice maker, pour fresh water into the water reservoir, and let it drain directly into a bucket or sink.

In my kitchen, we have a removable tap, and I can rinse the ice maker with the tap.

You can use a spray bottle with fresh water and spray the areas that you cannot reach.

Repeat this step several times. Make sure you rinse and then rinse again!

Do not skip this step, or your ice will taste like the cleaning solution used to clean the unit. Rinse your portable ice maker thoroughly after washing it.

Next, dry inside the ice maker. You’re going to notice small pieces of debris that make it’s way to the bottom of the water reservoir.

Wipe away all those pieces from the bottom of the ice maker and do your best to dry it.

Now you can put the drain plug back in the ice maker.

Almost done. In order to ensure that all of the cleaning solution is gone, make more ice and just toss it into the sink.

Plug the ice maker in once again.

Now it’s time to run the ice cycle.

Please don’t use this ice; dump it all into your sink. After several ice cycles, you can taste the ice to make sure there is no taste of soap or a cleaning solution.

If the ice tastes great, then you’re done.

Drain the water from the ice maker again, using the drain plug. After the water is drained, you can place the drain plug back and fill up the water reservoir with fresh water.

Don’t forget to wash the outside of the ice maker. Normally, dirt that lies on the exterior will eventually make its way into the interior. Plus, a shiny ice maker looks great in your kitchen.

You may need a stainless steel cleaner if the portable ice maker is stainless steel. I like using stainless steel wipes because they are easier to use and a lot faster. I picked some up on Amazon here.

Success! Your ice maker is clean.

Simple Steps For Maintaining Your Portable Ice Maker

A regular maintenance schedule will help preserve your portable ice maker’s life and ensure that you’re making the highest quality ice possible.

Here are some simple steps to maintaining your portable ice maker.

It’s good practice to unplug your ice maker if you’re going to be away for a long time.

I would suggest emptying all the ice and water, wiping down the walls of your ice maker with a cloth, and letting it air dry before you leave on vacation or storing it away for the winter.

Storing a wet ice maker will cause mold to grow.

If you’re going to be away for more than a couple of days, what’s the point of your ice maker going through the ice cycle? It’s better to turn it off, empty the water, dry it off and store it away.

Always keep your portable ice maker clean.

Another good tip for regular portable ice maker maintenance is keeping your ice maker clean. As mentioned above, cleaning your ice maker isn’t hard, but it does take time.

Make sure you take the time to wipe it down with a damp rag and let it air dry. Keeping your ice maker clean helps your ice maker to work correctly, and your ice tasting great.

Ice makers can become surprisingly dirty over time, and wiping it down each week with a damp rag helps them to run as designed. You don’t always have the time to clean your ice maker as thoroughly as we mentioned above, but wiping it down and rinsing it out should be done on a weekly basis.

To ensure that your ice is always tasting its best, I recommend changing the water in your reservoir each day.

Wash your ice storage basket

Take the time to wash your ice tray each day to make sure that it’s free from impurities and bacteria. Your ice is sitting in that basket all of the time, so you want to make sure that you have taken the time to wash it with some soap and warm water. Seriously, it takes 5 minutes.

Add some warm water to your sink and place the tray inside the sink with the water. You want to be careful not to use harsh chemicals when cleaning any part of your ice maker because the taste of those chemicals will be transferred to the ice.

Don’t use any cleaning solution that would harm the ice maker

You want to make sure that you don’t use anything to clean your ice maker that will cause long-term damage.

It’s always good to use “ice maker-friendly” cleaners, and never use boiling water which will end up melting the plastic, which is the main construction of your ice maker.

The best practice for cleaning your ice maker is a mild detergent and a damp rag. Use the cleaning solutions that we suggest above.

Descale your portable ice maker regularly.

Lastly, a big problem with an ice maker is hard water. Often an ice maker needs to be cleaned from calcium build-up inside the unit. Calcium build-up can mess with the sensors and cause your ice maker to malfunction.

There are two ways to tackle this problem. I would suggest that you purchase a descaler from Amazon. Check out my TOP PICK for a portable ice maker cleaner above, it’s both a cleaner and a descaler.

The second way is to use a teaspoon of vinegar with some warm water. This natural solution will dissolve the calcium, and return your ice maker to good working order.

Conclusion

This post gives you a few ways that you can keep your portable ice maker clean, and working correctly.

Maintaining your unit is not difficult, but it does take some time.

You want to be consistently cleaning your portable ice maker because this can add years to your machine and improves the flavor of your ice.

I would say that it’s necessary to clean your unit every second week for heavy use, and a minimum of every month for regular use. You will begin to see signs when your portable ice maker should be cleaned (we listed those signs above).

This reminds me, I need to go and clean my portable ice maker.

If you have any other tips for keeping portable ice makers clean, let us know in the comments below.