Hey guys Im a proud owner of Delonghi Magnifica S automatic espresso machine for 6 months now. Our water is super hard with loads of scale and I have been cleaning (descaling) machine with Delonghi EcoDecalc, but friend recommends this one (much cheaper):
Is this safe to use? It says it contains citric, lactic and malic acid. It also says to use 50 ml on 500 ml of water while Delonghi EcoDecalc should be 100 ml on 1700 ml (I think) of water. Its almost 2x difference and I was thinking if acids are simmilar I should use 100 ml of acid for full tank anyway.
We abuse our machine by making loads of coffe and tea. With scale settings on max we get descaling alarm every 3-4 weeks. It used to be on medium settings, but machine almost clogged completely once...so thats why max settings. Delonghi liquid is not cheap, but dont want to take any risk for 30€ a year. On the other hand, I dont want to pay 10€ for a 2-3€ product just because it says Delonghi on the bottle.
What do you use for your machine? How often do you descale?
Will emphasize what's already being said about food grade white vinegar. However, I'll put a plug in for a Reverse osmosis system. No longer super expensive and filters last years. Pretty much eliminates scaling but more importantly you are going to get a better tasting brew. Excellent daily drinking water too.
All the expensive coffee machines say not to use RO water. Apparently RO water is slightly acidic and can damage the copper heating elements over time. I've a RO system and love the taste (really lack of any flavor), but stopped using it on my coffee machines.
Works great in my expensive Jura for past 10 years!
I'm pretty serious about water. I ph test it after filter changes (you can get decent ph meter for not too much) and if you are comparing to hard water which will be buffered by definition, yes will read as more acidic (but still well out of corrosive range) , but I imagine flushing high acid descalers through it periodically would be more stressful for the system than continuous RO water. The taste is so worth it alone. You will notice a difference. If you are really concerned you can do what I do for my RO drinking water. I add just a couple drops of minerals to it. I've checked the pH and this raises it and buffers it. Would still be way less gunky to the system than hard tap water.
RO water can get more acidic simply by absorbing co2 from the air. It really doesn't actually matter, though, unless you are letting it sit open to the air for a while. Even if the pH does get low, it shouldn't matter much cause the titratable acidity would be really low