De-Calcing my kettle

Take a look in any kettle in Munich and notice the amount of calcification (calc) inside. It looks like the terminals on the battery in my old Datsun 120b. The water out of the tap here is ‘hard’, meaning it contains a higher than usual level of calcium carbonate. This sounds scary, and tourists are always asking if it’s safe to drink, perhaps assuming that all Müncheners are just somehow immune to the poison in the water supply… I tell them to boil their water anyway, just to be safe. It’s fun to watch.

Another fun science experiment is to get a bottle of cheap vinegar and pour it into your kettle, top it up to the brim with water. After a few hours you will be the proud owner of a shiny new pot that looks like it just came off the shelf.

This little vinegar discovery set me off on a cleaning spree in my apartment, finding any metal surface which looked a little dirty and polishing it up with some vinegar.

Loads of fun!