There’s not many things more satisfying than that first cup of tea on a dark October morning – but it can leave a bitter taste in your mouth if you’ve overlooked one simple task this month. Cleaning your kettle is an extremely unexciting prospect, yet cleaning experts stress that it’s important to scrub out your kettle once per month or your morning cuppa might leave a bitter taste in your mouth – literally.
That’s because limescale deposits, especially in hard water areas, build up over time and slowly line your kettle with a layer of dirty brown minerals which are largely harmless but taste gritty and unpleasant and can encourage bacteria. The easiest and quickest way to remove limescale from a kettle doesn’t require any expensive or specialist cleaning products: all you need is white vinegar.
According to Better Homes and Gardens, manufacturers actually recommend cleaning your kettle once a month.
They explain: “Limescale are mineral deposits made up of calcium and magnesium. These deposits are leftover when hard water is boiled away. Limescale looks like small white or off-white coloured stains inside your kettle.
“It forms when heated or even just left standing in your kettle. If you live in a hard water area, then getting limescale is quite common, and almost unavoidable.
“Some manufacturers actually recommend you clean your kettle around once a month if you use it daily. Others advise that you descale the inside of it any time limescale is visible.”
According to Good Food, you should use white vinegar to clean your kettle.
It says: “We tested two descaling methods on kettles that were in need of some TLC: distilled white vinegar and water, and an eco-proprietary kettle descaler.
“Fill your kettle half with distilled white vinegar and half with water. Boil the kettle. Pour all of the water out. Fill your kettle with water again and boil to remove any lingering vinegar. Repeat this step as necessary.
“We’d recommend opening a window or putting on your extractor fan, as this method can produce a steamy, vinegary fog once the kettle has boiled. This is a cheap, if slightly pungent, method of quickly descaling your kettle. It proved very effective and doesn’t require much time investment and is free of harmful chemicals.”