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?
Everyone else is saying vinegar, which will certainly work.
But if you're like me and cannot stand the stench of vinegar, then I recommend citric acid. 2 tablespoons to a liter of water is a good place to start, but you can most likely find dosage specific to your machine with some googling.
Also, you can get ~2kg of citric acid for 15~25 $or€. I use it to descale everything from coffee contraptions, to shower heads; and a big bag of it lasts us 1½ years. Our water is fairly hard too, about 160 TDS.
Agree with this alternative, also very reasonable. That being said I've found if you clean things regularly with vinegar you start to sensitize to the smell fairly quickly. I can barely smell it anymore.