How to Clean Your Electric Kettle With Lemon Juice
This will work to clean your teapot, too!
So here's what happened to me, today (starting last night...) - I really wanted to clean my favorite electric kettle, and I use bleach for a lot of things, is like a little miracle cleaner - will whiten men's socks so they look new (I've washed a lot of men's socks in my life, so this is a big issue for me - lol!), cleans a sink in seconds - just pour the bleach directly in the sink, instantly shiny and new.... will clean tiles like nothing else you've ever seen or used... anyway, so I wanted to clean my kettle, thought the bleach would be a good solution, right? I had rationalized that I knew people who added a little bleach to their dishwasher, soooo, I thought, well, it's mostly water in the kettle, will add some bleach, boil it, then add some dish soap...
So I did that, was VERY bleachy in the house - yuck, so I put the kettle, still full of water, bleach and soap, out on the balcony, and left it there overnight.
This morning, I thought, yahoo, my kettle's gonna be soo clean, and it really wasn't - had to still scrub it to make it clean, then I had to boil water in it over and over again, trying to get rid of the bleach smell - and didn't want to ingest ANY traces of bleach...
Then, at my wit's end, and very upset that I had ruined my kettle - what a hassle it is to boil water outside of an electric kettle - lol - had no idea I was so dependent on my electric kettle... guess I make a lot of tea, throughout the day, and I love to make my fave Mr. Noodles for lunch, pretty much every day, but with Chicken OXO, parsley and chopped green onion - deelish... but I digress...
So then I thought, okay, this is pretty much a done deal on this kettle, now, so I thought, well, what if I pour in some lemon juice - just regular old lemon juice, it'll probably be in your fridge. I still had a full pot of water in the kettle, just poured in about a cup of lemon juice - I just poured it in, no measuring for me - I was just trying to get rid of the bleach smell, at this point...
THEN, I go back into the kitchen to have a look at my much loved kettle, thought, aahhh, it's a goner... opened the lid, much to my amazement, it's totally clean, like new! Yahoo!!
If you have a grotty, hard water residue, problemo with your own kettle, you will be very impressed with how clean my kettle is! hahaha! Sometimes it's the really little things that make us really happy!
Sooo, here's the trick - Use Lemon Juice right from the beginning - no worries about toxicity - yahoo! Lemon Juice is an effective and non-toxic way to clean your electric kettle.
Soon your kettle will look like new, and what's the worst that can happen - your tea might have a little lemon flavour - soo much better than a bleach flavour (not a popular tea flavour! lol!).
Just fill your kettle with water, pour in some lemon juice, boil, and leave it to sit for a while - overnight, or maybe you're reading a good book, or you've got some good shows to watch - or you get stuck on FaceBook for a couple of hours - lol! You'll go and check your beloved kettle, it'll be like new, too - done! Lovely and clean! See you soon! Ailsa : )
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Okay, so I just cleaned my kettle, again, today - I couldn't see how much waer was in it - you know the little window at the side of your kettle, so you can see the water lines? Yeah, well, I couldn't see ANY water lines, sooo, finally I had the kettle cool for a minute (since I am forever making another fresh pot of tea - lol!)...
So I looked inside the kettle and... yikes! Talk about calling the kettle black! lol!
Holy Ca'Moly, Batman! That's crrrazy! That's just from water? What kind of minerals are in there, me wonders, right? lol!
See the Lemon Juice? I just remembered that new-to-me trick, that I had learned the hard way (the way I've learned far too many of my 'lessons' hahaha!), last year, when I thought, cleverly, I wold just clean my kettle with bleach, since, you can clean your dishes with a little bleach, so let's see if it'll clean the kettle...
And the bleach DID clean the kettle, but it rendered it useless, because the smell was so strong, that I went out and bought another kettle... but, really, I should see if I still have that old guy in the cupboard, try the Lemon Juice Clean on him, too, right? Waste Not Want Not, if you can fix it! lol!
Anyway, so I poured in the water just past the top line, then poured in some Lemon Juice, plugged in the Electric Kettle and boiled it.... this is the first time through...see all the dirt is gone?
Like Magic, baby! I could take this trick to Vegas! haha!
(Ailsa And Her Amazing Magic Kettle! lol!)
I let the kettle cool (okay, you got me, I heated up my Hot Sock, went and had a little nap - lol!)...
Then I plugged it in to boil the Lemon Water, again... and then I had another couple o' brilliant ideas...
I thought, ooh, this is a great opportunity to clean my Teapot, too - technically, it's a Coffee Pot, since my favorite Pansy Teapot has a little crack in it, and now I can't use it, in case it bursts apart (on account a' da crack - crack kills, stay away from crack - li'l Public Service, right there for you... ; )
So rather than just waste the Lemon Water, which is now Boiled Lemon Water, I poured some of it in the Teapot, and cleverly poured some on a Tea cloth, tea towel (kitchen towel? You know what I mean - the one that hangs on, or by, your stove - lol!)
Anyway, that was super lucky I had poured some of the boiling Lemon Water on the tea clothe (spelling? e or no e - man, what's with all the drug references, today? hahaha!) since I totally forgot to clean the lid for the teapot...
So I used the cloth I had soaked in the boiling lemon juice, and wiped the teapot lid, around the outside of the teapot - and now everything is sparkling clean!
Pour some of the Boiling Lemon Juice and Water (mostly water!), into your Teapot, and some on a cloth, so you can use that to clean other things, like the top of the teapot! Clean your lid - lol!
Look at that! Can you believe that? and that's just from pouring some lemon juice (maybe a half a cup? I just poured in a little bit, or, what seemed to me to be a relatively small amount... not a lot of lemon juice, is my point, soo... this won't cost you very much, and the worst that could happen is your next pot of tea might be a little lemony, but we all love that, especially Wendy Williams (!)
(Shout Out to Wendy Williams - she's my Girl! In my head, we're best friends, and her hilarious and lovely friend, Suzanne, is sooo much like my hilarious and lovely friend, Melinda... we're like a matching pair! How You' Doin'? lol!)
Wow, can you believe it? Is stunning, right? Look how clean the little window is, now! Yahoo! Now you can see right in the window - just like your neighbor's house! haha!
Then I thought, oh, hey, would this lemon juice on the cloth clean my Silver Teapot, which I juuust remembered I had, when I thought my parents might need a teapot (turned out, they had one - lol!), but I had put it at the top of the kitchen cabinets - you know how you line things up at the top of the cabinets - unless you have up-lighting, at the top of your cabinets, which I HIGHLY recommend - is gooorgeous! Turn the rest of the lights out, just leave the uplighting on? All very romantic - lol!
And there we go - the boiling lemon juice, poured onto the cloth, and it was cool enough to easily handle, gave this Silver Teapot a really nice little polish! That was soo easy! And fun, if you like to clean things - haha! I'm not a Clean Freak, but I do love to figure things out, fix da problemos! lol!
And those are my favorite little Wire Crystal Trees that I love to make, and the Coffee Bean Candle, which I love - and the scent of the coffee beans, literally, lasts for years - sometimes you can just top it up with some fresh new coffee beans - or, some coffee beans from the freezer - yum! haha!
Okay, better eat something!
Hope you're having THE Best Day, ever! Your Little Cleaning Friend, Ailsa! : ) xoxo!!
