Descaling Your Teapot or Coffee Pot
The insides of both conventional and electric tea kettles and automatic drip coffee maker can become clogged with lime scale from hard water. A build-up of lime scale on the inside of the kettle or coffee maker will cause it to use more energy to boil water and make it taste more bitter.
Depending on the hardness of the water in your area, you should descale your kettle or coffee maker to keep the insides sparkling clean every few months or so.
To descale your teapot you will need:
1/2 cup of vinegar1 quart of water
- Begin by mixing water and vinegar together until they are thoroughly mixed.
- Pour mixture into teapot until it is about 3/4 full.
- Boil water for approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
- Pour mixture out and the limescale should be gone.
- Rinse out several times and then boil 3/4 of kettle again with plain water to get rid of the vinegar taste.
To descale your coffee pot:
You should use approximately the same process for your automatic coffee pot periodically.
Use the measuring lines on your coffee pot to add vinegar at a 4:1 ratio, meaning that if you have a twelve cup coffee maker, add vinegar to the 3 cup line and add water for the other nine cups.
Run the coffee maker through a cycle (without adding any coffee of course). After you done the vinegar cycle,, run it again with clean water and you will see a difference in the glass pot and you will taste a difference in your coffee.
To help keep scaling down for both items and improve taste, use filtered water every time you boil water or make a new pot of coffee.
