Scaling the Tea Kettle

This is an easy one.  We have very hard water where I live, but I went ahead and got one of those glass teapots anyway.  *Oops.*  Instead of sitting on the stovetop looking shiny and transparent, it *of course* gets all covered with scale on the inside every single time you use it.

But this gives me an opportunity to find out what works for getting sediment out of teakettles.  I'll tell you one easy thing that works really quite well: squirting the kettle out with the sprayer at my sink.

I just turn the kettle upside-down and squirt.  Now, our sprayer has a strong stream.  If your sprayer is all clogged up it's time for a vinegar soak or a Melaleuca's Tub'n'Tile squirt or two.  But if you have a strong stream, turn the kettle bottoms-up and squirt away at all angles to get as much of the inside as you can.  With our particular water minerals, at least, it really gets most of them out.

What works better than this is putting a small amount of salt into the kettle and swirling it around.  The scrubbing action gets the sediment off.

On the other hand, this kettle doesn't have months of buildup; just a few days.  You can do a few vinegar soaks or, better yet, vinegar boils, to get thick chunks of scale out.  Then just give it a squirt every few times you use it.

Another thing that works is boiling the kettle down and letting it sit on a hot burner, empty.  Of course, this is a major fire risk and you might end up with the kettle melted to your stove and your house burned down.  I've done this purposely, keeping the burner from getting red-hot.  It worked ... but then, the bottom of the kettle still kinda burned through and it wouldn't truly hold water anymore.  Well, it did hold water long enough to boil it, but pretty soon the burner got all covered with scale.  Still, that one I can't call a success.

Or you can just leave the scale in the kettle.  What can it hurt?