What does limescale build up actually do to your coffee maker?
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The best coffee makers make brewing a morning cup as easy or complex as you'd like it to be. Built with convenience in mind and with the top models celebrated for their ease of use, our morning saviours sit quietly in the corner ready and waiting to pour us the perfect cup, sometimes at the touch of a button.
However, there is a little work required for a coffee maker to continue producing your morning brews without a hiccup — descaling.
Every time your coffee maker boils water, that water leaves behind a range of mineral deposits. These deposits could spell disaster for the inner workings of your machine if left to build up too much, with magnesium and calcium being the worst offenders. This is a particular concern, and will happen far quicker, if you live in an area with harder water.
Over time, these deposits calcify and form a white, chalky coating over the internal heating system, temperature gauge, water dispersal system, and the inside of your carafe. Those are pretty integral parts of your coffee maker, and they certainly won't work as well with a thick layer of limescale clogging them.
Leaving these deposits to cling to the inner workings of your coffee maker will block the water flow, stop your machine accurately gauging the temperature of your coffee, and make it work harder to brew each cup. All of this will lead to a coffee that's not quite hot enough (with a weaker flavor to boot), higher energy consumption, and overall damage to the components under the hood as well. Too much limescale can even clog the spray head and reduce the water moving through your system as well.
That means a worse experience for both you and your trusty brewer, so regular descaling at intervals of at least every three months is required to break down any deposits that have built up. We can show you exactly how to clean your coffee maker, and how to descale a Nespresso as well.
Tabs is a deals editor on our sister site TechRadar. She spends most of her time searching for the best prices on top consumer tech, but has also written about everything from flower delivery to mattresses. Happiest with a DualSense controller in her hand, she's also contributed to GamesRadar and T3 and specializes in gaming hardware and computing.
