How to remove scale in an electric kettle with citric acid, vinegar, soda

Our life has long includ­ed devices, with­out which exis­tence becomes more com­pli­cat­ed. Elec­tric ket­tles are one of those devices. Very sim­ple in every­day life. Water is poured into it and con­nect­ed to the mains. It will boil water by itself and shut itself off. But over time, an unpleas­ant scum appears in it. Water acquires an unpleas­ant odor and taste. The switch-off tem­per­a­ture of the ket­tle drops and the water remains unboiled. Water acquires an unpleas­ant odor and taste. How to remove it, how to remove scale in an elec­tric ket­tle?

What is scale and how to remove it?

The nature of the appear­ance of scale is due to the fact that water con­tains a lot of salts. Salts at high tem­per­a­tures quick­ly set­tle on the met­al parts of the ket­tle, and espe­cial­ly on the heat­ing ele­ment. The deposit appears due to the con­tent in the water:

• sil­i­cates;
• cal­ci­um sul­fates;
• Mag­ne­sium and cal­ci­um car­bon­ates;
• Iron hydrox­ides.

It will not work to remove scale from the ket­tle by sim­ply rins­ing. For an effec­tive strug­gle, the host­esses tried many meth­ods. Most of them do with­out the use of chem­i­cals. Pots in the kitchen do not get scaled up just because food is cooked in them. Prod­ucts con­tain those sub­stances that do not allow salts to set­tle on the sur­face. How to get rid of scale in an elec­tric ket­tle so as not to buy a new one?

Folk remedies for descaling

Prac­tice has sug­gest­ed sev­er­al descal­ing sub­stances that are in the kitchen:

1. Lemon acid;
2. 9% vine­gar essence solu­tion;
3. Soda.

But this list can be added with oth­er sub­stances — fresh lemon juice, lemon­ade, Pep­si-Cola, pota­to peels. Any­thing that has an acid in it can work. Pota­to peels con­tain many vit­a­mins, and vit­a­mins are acids. But before you remove the scale in the elec­tric ket­tle, it is advis­able to clean it a lit­tle with a hard kitchen wash­cloth. This will speed up and improve the process.

Recipes and methods for descaling

Many peo­ple know how to descale an elec­tric ket­tle using a solu­tion of ordi­nary cit­ric acid. But there are dif­fer­ent ways. The elec­tric ket­tle must be filled with water, and then pour up to 100 g of cit­ric acid pow­der into it. Then it is turned on and, after turn­ing it off, it is allowed to stand for about 15 min­utes. After set­tling, the water is drained and fresh water is poured.

If such clean­ing was car­ried out rarely, then the result may not be 100%. But on sur­faces, the deposit will become loose. It must be removed. There is no need to tell how to remove scale in elec­tric ket­tles using kitchen uten­sils. A steel wire wash­cloth, brush, or a not-so-sharp knife works best.

When remov­ing loose scale with a met­al wash­cloth or a knife, try not to dam­age the plas­tic sur­faces and the body of the heat­ing ele­ment.

After machin­ing, it is nec­es­sary to re-clean. How to remove scale in the ket­tle com­plete­ly? You can try to use cit­ric acid again, but you can use vine­gar. To do this, pour 2/3 of the full water lev­el into the ket­tle, and fill the rest with vine­gar. It is advis­able to use 9% vine­gar.

The ket­tle is turned on, and after boil­ing, it is left to stand for 10–15 min­utes. The solu­tion is drained and the ket­tle is washed sev­er­al times with water. The neg­a­tive point is the pres­ence of a strong vine­gar smell, which can only be elim­i­nat­ed by suf­fi­cient ven­ti­la­tion.

Removal of old deposits

There is anoth­er option — how to clean the elec­tric ket­tle from scale. This option is suit­able for very old and per­sis­tent scale. The process con­sists in the sequence of boil­ing an elec­tric ket­tle, first with a con­cen­trat­ed soda solu­tion, and then with a solu­tion of cit­ric acid. For the first boil, you need half a glass of soda for a full ket­tle.

After boil­ing with soda and set­tling, the ket­tle is thor­ough­ly washed, because the remain­ing solu­tion can neu­tral­ize some of the cit­ric acid. This will weak­en the effect. How to descale elec­tric ket­tles with cit­ric acid has already been described here.

Dur­ing the set­tling of an elec­tric ket­tle with con­cen­trat­ed soda, it is nec­es­sary to exclude acci­den­tal con­sump­tion of it.

Light scale can be washed off by boil­ing a ket­tle with two or three cir­cles of fresh lemon. Pour a full ket­tle of water, put a lemon in it, boil and let stand for at least an hour. Bet­ter to leave it overnight. With such clean­ing, there will be no unpleas­ant smell in the ket­tle, and the sur­faces will shine like new.

Non-standard way

Pep­si Cola cleans well. To do this, you need to take 1.5 liters of this ton­ic drink, pour it to the lev­el in the elec­tric ket­tle and turn it on. After boil­ing, let it stand for 15–20 min­utes, then drain the con­tents and rinse with water.

It is imper­a­tive to rinse the ket­tle after boil­ing with one or anoth­er sub­stance, even when remov­ing light scale. This must be done, because all deposits go into solu­tion. The ingress of such a solu­tion into the body is unde­sir­able.

Video instruction for descaling

2 table­spoons with a slide of cit­ric acid are poured into the ket­tle. It fills up to the water lev­el. The ket­tle turns on. After boil­ing, the cit­ric acid solu­tion is drained, and the result is imme­di­ate­ly vis­i­ble. Pay atten­tion to the alarm clock. The entire pro­ce­dure takes no more than 5–6 min­utes.

You can also see oth­er instruc­tions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxu5sltiAqI