Ronaldinho
New member
I have an older (10+ years?) Gaggia Carezza - not the new one with a bunch of automatic features, but one with a pro-size portafilter. It's not the prettiest machine, but it's served me well.
Overall, I've been quite happy with it. I had the pump lock up once, but got it fixed, no biggie.
In the past few months, I've started to have a persistent problem with a need to descale. The water shoots out of the screen at odd angles, and sometimes only one or two "jets" of water make it through. Eventually, it gets to the point where only a tiny bit of water comes through, a dribble of sour coffee which is obviously no good at all.
I've done the descaling with lemon juice mixed 2-to-1 with water (using the lemon juice you get in the little plastic lemons) a couple of times, and that seems to work ... for a week or three. But I can see even within a couple of days thinks are getting a little more clogged. I tried running three lemons-worth of juice through in a row, but after the first one it didn't appear to make a noticeable difference (and honestly it was clear that all the output ports behind the shower screen were not working perfectly, but enough of them were that the coffee was fine).
Can anybody recommend a more powerful approach to descaling? Will vinegar be more effective? The commercial descaling solution you can buy? Is there a better way to descale than just running the dilute lemon juice through the machine?
Overall, I've been quite happy with it. I had the pump lock up once, but got it fixed, no biggie.
In the past few months, I've started to have a persistent problem with a need to descale. The water shoots out of the screen at odd angles, and sometimes only one or two "jets" of water make it through. Eventually, it gets to the point where only a tiny bit of water comes through, a dribble of sour coffee which is obviously no good at all.
I've done the descaling with lemon juice mixed 2-to-1 with water (using the lemon juice you get in the little plastic lemons) a couple of times, and that seems to work ... for a week or three. But I can see even within a couple of days thinks are getting a little more clogged. I tried running three lemons-worth of juice through in a row, but after the first one it didn't appear to make a noticeable difference (and honestly it was clear that all the output ports behind the shower screen were not working perfectly, but enough of them were that the coffee was fine).
Can anybody recommend a more powerful approach to descaling? Will vinegar be more effective? The commercial descaling solution you can buy? Is there a better way to descale than just running the dilute lemon juice through the machine?
