Best Way to Clean Descale your Kettle (and the Cheapest way)
Best way to clean a kettle... it's white vinegar! Follow the steps below.
Chalky deposits in your kettle? Here's how to get rid of them.
With us Brits consume around 100 million cups of tea every day - thats almost 36 billion a year!
We all love our kettles but when was the last time you cleaned and descaled it?
Doing this every four to eight weeks will not only prevent you from ingesting solid minerals, but it can also help your appliance last longer.
How to descale a kettle
This task takes a couple of hours, so make yourself a cuppa first! We recommend descaling last thing at night, so your kettle is fresh and clean for the morning.
For a hassle-free and cheap way to descale a kettle
- Fill it to just below half capacity with water and bring it part-way to boil.
- Before it starts to bubble, switch off the kettle and add distilled white vinegar, taking it to about ¾ full, take care to do this slowly and carefully to avoid splash back. Don't boil the vinegar itself because the smell will fill your kitchen!
- Leave to soak overnight, ventilating the space if necessary (make sure the kettle is unplugged and there's a note on it so nobody uses it accidentally!). In the morning, the limescale will come away easily.
- Rinse thoroughly to remove any lingering vinegary odours, and boil up fresh water after the treatment. You can skip heating the water entirely for light, everyday limescale, but heating the water will provide better results for more stubborn residue.
These amounts aren’t set in stone either; as long as the water and vinegar are roughly in equal parts, you can use less of each if your limescale is predominantly surrounding the element.
You should aim to descale your kettle every four to eight weeks to keep it clean - don't let scale build up, as it's more difficult to remove the longer it's there. Heavy deposits might need a repeat treatment to completely break them down.
