What is the best way to clean grout?

[Mindy Jensen]

I installed a tile floor, grouted it and then sealed the whole thing. I double sealed the grout, and it STILL looks filthy.

Can anyone give tips for cleaning grout? Also, what do you use to seal it?

[Hattie Dizmond]

Depends on the color of the grout, but I'm guessing, since you think it looks "filthy", that it's white.  If so, I still swear by a paste of baking soda and bleach.  

Make the paste like cake batter and pour it along the grout lines.  The moisture - bleach - will seep into the grout slowly, all the better to perform the bleaching.  Once the mixture is mostly dry, use a squirt bottle with bleach to moisten the baking soda and a tooth brush or scrubbing brush to scrub the grout line.  

Baking soda has an amazing amount of very gentle abrasiveness, which should lift any surface stains that remain from the bleaching.  As a kid there was very little my grandmother didn't believe baking soda and something could clean.

As for sealing, I like Miracle Sealants 511.