Did you do the whole run a cycle with white vinegar thing?
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2025
129 points (97.8% liked)
Dull Men's Club
3312 readers
346 users here now
An unofficial chapter of the popular Dull Men's Club.
1. Relevant commentary on your own dull life. Posts should be about your own dull, lived experience. This is our most important rule. Direct questions, random thoughts, comment baiting, advice seeking, many uses of "discuss" rarely comply with this rule.
2. Original, Fresh, Meaningful Content.
3. Avoid repetitive topics.
4. This is not a search engine
Use a search engine, a tradesperson, Reddit, friends, a specialist Facebook group, apps, Wikipedia, an AI chat, a reverse image search etc. to answer simple questions or identify objects. Also see rule 1, “comment baiting”.
There are a number of content specific communities with subject matter experts who can help you.
Some other communities to consider before posting:
5. Keep it dull. If it puts us to sleep, it’s on the right track. Examples of likely not dull: jokes, gross stuff (including toes), politics, religion, royalty, illness or injury, killing things for fun, or promotional content. Feel free to post these elsewhere.
6. No hate speech, sexism, or bullying No sexism, hate speech, degrading or excessively foul language, or other harmful language. No othering or dehumanizing of anyone or negativity towards any gender identity.
7. Proofread before posting. Use good grammar and punctuation. Avoid useless phrases. Some examples: - starting a post with "So" - starting a post with pointless phrases, like "I hope this is allowed" or “this is my first post” Only share good quality, cropped images. Do not share screenshots of images; share the original image.
.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I have manufacturer de-scaler (espresso machine)
That's probably citric acid then. It's usually one or the other.
That's the way to do it. Citric acid is cheap and basically tasteless, very good for decalcifying.
Thanks my friend I will try that if vinegar ever goes wrong
Easy to find wherever canning supplies are.
Love when the light comes on and I have an excuse to give it extra attention.
like ‘yes bb i got u’
Citric acid works significantly better.
You just mix it with water?
Depends what I’m cleaning. If cleaning the group head of my espresso machine, I just put it directly in the portafilter with a blind. When descaling, yes, just mix it with water.
I heard you shouldn‘t use vinegar as this fucks up the taste? Or is this big decalcifyer propaganda?
It won't mess up the taste as long as you run a water cycle or two afterwards.
Yeah. I use 1:3 vinegar:water, and then two more clean cycles of all water, and I can taste my coffee better afterwards. Maybe I should run the clean cycle before the maker says to, but I'm not a perfect person.
It can damage the seals. Citric acid works much better and is safer. Will also never leave an after taste.
It also only needs one rinse cycle after
Then I just have an excuse to open it up and replace the seals
"Nah, it's just ice cream"
I'm too dull to understand I'm afraid
But apple cider vinegar cures polio, that's just RFK.
I'm not ready for this amount of excitement. Calm it down, guys!!
Thank you for the reminder (have never cleaned mine)
Never? How long has it been?
I plan to do this tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the first coffee after descaling.
That’s good, it clogs up the pipes if you don’t and can break the compressor. Depending on where you live and if you have a water softener it can happen pretty quickly
Dang! Must find food-grade sillicongrease ....
What do you have to use? Yeah some types of bean are especially oily Edit: What beans
About time to lubricate the brew group
I roast my own beans! Should I join a crew?
Does the coffee taste any different after a good machine cleaning?
Tastes like vinegar if you do it wrong
Never, I don’t use vinegar
Nope! Citric acid is tasteless