The composition of water contains many dissolved chemicals. Including calcium and magnesium. Will the water be soft or hard, depends on its saturation with such salts. When boiling hard water, a stainless, enameled or modern electric kettle is covered from the inside with a rough scum.
What threatens limescale?
An unpleasant phenomenon is scale. It is harmful not only because it spoils the look of dishes, worsens the taste of water. Over time, scale begins to destroy the metal. Rust penetrates the water.
With the formation of limescale in an electric kettle, the energy consumption for boiling water begins to increase. The heating element heats up worse and burns out if the scum is not removed from it. A started electric kettle is switched off due to salt deposition, never reaching a boil.
Limescale does not conduct heat well, so the water heats up for a long time.
How to deal with it
The most affordable, tested means against lime deposits are: ordinary vinegar, powdered citric acid, baking soda. They were also used by our grandmothers. How to clean the kettle from scale with vinegar? Pour water into the dishes, add a little vinegar and bring to a boil. Ascorbic acid is sometimes used. When the coating is dense, lay down in a thick layer - in turn apply solutions of vinegar, soda and citric acid.
In order to prevent calcareous deposits, the water that they are going to boil is driven through special softening filters. The walls, as well as the bottom of the dishes are regularly cleaned, monitor the condition of the heating element.
Cleaning dishes from scale
Apply several simple techniques to combat stubborn calcareous deposits, which are easy to master on their own.
- Add vinegar to the water kettle. When using vinegar essence - for a liter of water about a tablespoon. If you use table 9% vinegar, you need half a glass. Boil water for about a quarter of an hour. Then stand the solution for about night. During this time, the scale will become loose and begin to peel off easily. So it was great to clean the kettle from vinegar scale!
Now you can rinse the kettle from the inside with the hard side of the sponge. To completely get rid of the vinegar smell, you must thoroughly rinse it with clean water.
- Another good way to clean dishes from limescale is to combine vinegar with ascorbic acid. After pouring water into the kettle, pour a couple of tablespoons of ordinary vinegar and add ascorbic acid. About the same amount of powder is needed. After waiting until all this boils, they wait fifteen to twenty minutes. Turning off the kettle, leave it for twelve hours to insist. The scale will be easy to clean. If you smell vinegar after rinsing, you can boil the dishes for about fifteen minutes with plain water.
- For particularly resistant scale, a three-stage cleaning can be applied. With its help, it is possible to clean the kettle from scale with vinegar and soda, adding citric acid. The cleaning process consists in triple boiling water. First, ordinary baking soda is added. One tablespoon per liter. Boil for an hour, then drain the solution. For the second boiling take citric acid. Also per liter of cold water - one tablespoon each. After an hour of boiling, everything is drained, after which they fill the kettle again. This time, with water with 9% vinegar, about half a glass per liter of water poured. This method will help in the most difficult cases.
You need to know!
Using limescale vinegar in a kettle, follow the safety rules! Do not forget that acetic acid is called differently. This indicates the degree of its concentration. As a chemical, acetic acid is obtained in the form of a white powder and a 90% solution is prepared.
A strong concentration (70-80%) is called vinegar essence.
The usual table vinegar used in cooking is 9% solution.
Knowing the percentage concentration helps to properly dose and use this substance safely.
If acetic acid or essence gets on your skin, it will cause a serious chemical burn! Even vinegar fumes with a careless inhalation cause a burn of the larynx and nasopharynx. Inadmissible contact with mucous membranes of the eye. Essence can seriously injure the skin. Try to leave the kitchen while processing the kettle.
Electric kettle cleaning
It is also quite possible to clear the kettle of lime vinegar. To do this, you will have to turn it on repeatedly in twenty minutes. But there is another way, which takes much less time. Gently clean the plastic with a heating element citric acid.
One bag is enough to boil water in the kettle for about seven minutes. If after such a single procedure all the calcareous deposits are separated in pieces from the walls of the kettle and lie at the bottom - rinsing thoroughly, you can continue to use it.
If plaque still adheres to the walls or to the heater, it is necessary to drain everything and patiently repeat the cleaning again. Even the thickest scale will give up.
Prevention of limescale
Hard water is characterized by a high content of mineral salts. When boiled, they disintegrate, releasing carbon dioxide. They settle on the walls of the kettle.
It is impossible to completely avoid the appearance of calcareous deposits. After a while, you will have to clean the kettle from the scum with vinegar. However, observing simple rules, it will be possible to maintain cleanliness for a long time.
- Use filtered, preferably softened, water. You can take bottled.
- When washing the kettle from the inside, do not use abrasive cleaners or metal nets. From them, microscopic scratches appear on the surface. So the scale forms even faster.
- Do not boil water a second time.
Rinse the kettle for mineral flakes. Refill the water again.
- As necessary, you need to clean the kettle from scale with vinegar.
Use of water in bottles
When buying such water, carefully read the information on it on the label. The manufacturer indicates the hardness of the water. The numbers indicated there mean:
- up to 1.5 - the mildest;
- from 1.5 to 3.0 - soft;
- from 3.0 to 6.0 - water is moderately hard;
- from 6.0 to 9.0 - hard;
- above 9.0 is the toughest.
To reveal the individual taste of tea, it is recommended to buy "moderately hard" bottled water. “Softest” water and “softest” - will keep the kettle without scale for a long time. But over time, you still have to clean the kettle with lime vinegar.
Purchased funds or home?
On the shelves of supermarkets a variety of anti-scale products are offered, both imported and domestic products.
Often, the composition contains harmless organic acids (for example, citric, or sulfamic, or adipic). It may turn out that the preparations contain particularly corrosive substances.
Therefore, as a result of such cleaning, a sparkling stainless steel teapot may unexpectedly be decorated with black spots. They may not succumb to attempts to remove them.
To clean electric kettles with an untested product is all the more risky. It happened when the trilon, used as one of the constituents of the descaling powder, destroyed the nickel-plated coating of the heating disk. Such kettles only had to be thrown away.
Before buying an unfamiliar agent against limescale, ask about its packaging. If the composition of the product is not clearly stated, there is no instruction or it is written in a foreign language - this is alarming.
With the words "natural acids" or "excipients", the manufacturer withholds the real composition of the product from customers.
Look for the names of specific substances included in the proposed product.
It is better not to use doubtful means. It is much safer to use the tried and true means and clear the kettle of limescale with vinegar. After all, you can not risk the health of the whole family.
If the choice is made in favor of a purchased anti-scale product - carefully read the description with the instruction; observe the dosage exactly.