De-scaling kettle

[Deleted User]

My present kettle does not have an element in contact with the water. It seems to be lasting a lot longer and is always quick to boil

Queenie

kittie wrote:

My present kettle does not have an element in contact with the water. It seems to be lasting a lot longer and is always quick to boil

Is it concealed by the base plate? That's the type I have anyway; like nabowla I live in a hard water area and, like yourself, it didn't seem to attrack much limescale initially. Eventually it might though (mine does) just not in the same "furry" way that it did when I had an exposed element. Just keep an eye on the base plate, especially around the edges where it joins the sides of the kettle.

Zziggi

do i use good old white vinegar or brown vinegar?

Does it matter which?

Queenie

Zziggi wrote:

do i use good old white vinegar or brown vinegar?

Does it matter which?

Preferrably white because the brown can cause staining if used repeatedly.

Poppycat

put a strong solution of white vineger dilted with water, and kept boiling the kettle a few times then left overnight. I tried it before boiling kettle and left overnight and it didnt work. Kettle was quite furred up with limescale its now clean.

franney

Can the vinegar be reused to descale other things after the kettle or is it "use once only" kind of jobbie?
I'm kinda new to the OS way of doing things and haven't got to grips with vinegar yet

janb5

I keep the bottles of malt vinegar I use for kettle cleaning just for this purpose and reuse the liquid( I keep a separate bottle for my chips!) I also find it useful when vegetable parers go rusty. I just put a vinegar in a small container and leave it for a couple of hours, rinse and it`s clear again.

Poppycat

I am sure it can be resused although I would reuse it quite quickly.

One problem with boiling kettle with vinegar is that kitchen stunk for a few hours, so best do it late at night.

You can see the limescale disolve quite quickly once you start to boil the water/vinegar solution. Although if its quite scaled up it may take a while.

We keep a bootle of white vinegar handy for jobs and another malt vinegar filled from a jar of pickled onions, the Bransten pickle variety that have been on offer at Morrions a while back, they lovely. Vinegar is nice on chips.

janb5

I should have said in my post that I clean my kettle overnight and I fill it with the vinegar( malt) and then leave it until the following morning when I decant the vinegar back into the bottles. I dont boil it at all until during this porcess. Once completed I rinse it well about 3 times and then bring to boil- discard water and then boil again with fresh water.

black-saturn

I use white vinegar and bring the kettle almost to the boil, swish it round and keep repeating the process until it's all gone. Makes the kitchen smell like a chip shop for a few minutes but it works really well.