[Closed] Coffee machine descaler

I just get the large bottles on ebay, £17 for 2x500ml, thats 8 descales at £2.12 a time. Well over a year supply at my usage 🙂

You can mix up citric acid with some water or use some generic descaler - it's all pretty much the same.

JP

White vinegar and water mixed. The strength of the mixture varies but the internet can provide some approximations. Cheap, safe, readily available.

Vinegar sounds like the stuff, I’ve got some in the cupboard. Cheers!

White vinegar and water mixed

This, run it through a few times then run clear water through a few times too.

I do this with mine every 3mths or so (limestone heavy water down this way)

Puly caff is what is typically recommended but the above should work.

+1 for Puly.

Descaler from B&Q in a little yellow bottle. If you didn't know, they have loads of useful household chemicals in there.

with our gaggia when I do the descale I back flush with a coffee detergent and blanking disc as well; gets the oil out of the relief valve thingy, soak all the group head parts in it too.

I think Puly is more of a cleaner for the group head and internals around that. More of a weekly thing if it’s being used daily. Descaling is good for the back end - boiler, pump etc. Though, I tend to find the more often the machine is used, the less it needs de-scaling. It’s when it’s switched off for days/weeks and everything dries out that you can get more problems with scale. Supermarkets/Wilkinson/Range normally sell sachets of concenteate if you don’t fancy arsing around with vinegar or citric acid (not that there’s anything wrong with them of course).

I just use filtered water in The coffee machine. It’s chaeaper than descaler and makes a nicer coffee.

The machine doesn’t know you use that kind of water though so every six months or so it chucks a red light at you and sulks till you run their jungle juice through it.

6 months, ha our Miele one at work requires the descaling cycle every few weeks and won't brew any more coffee till you do it.

Next time you order your beans from Happy Donkey read through their articles and grab yourself some descaler, puly CAF, puly grind, maybe a filter screen and group gasket. Together with a brush or two, a new tamper and knock out box it will revitalise your coffee experience. Think of it as a belated new year resolution.
If that all too much, just read the cleaning articles on the website.