# Cleaning And Descaling - Which To Buy?



## EViS (Aug 25, 2010)

I have a Jura A9 automatic. Yes I know, but it's the perfect balance between ease and coffee which tastes great to me.

I've owned it for a month now and it's time to give it a clean and descale. Jura obviously recommend their own (costly) cleaning tablet, descaling tablets and milk cleaner solution.

Do I have to use their products? Or is there a cheaper recommended brand which will be just as effective and unlikely to be found voiding any warranties?


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## AMCD300 (Feb 11, 2016)

Great question - I was thinking the same with regards the Sage Dual Boiler. I have the back flush tablets but I cannot find anything in the documentation stating whether we would invalidate the warranty if we use a non-OEM cleaning product?


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## jlarkin (Apr 26, 2015)

AMCD300 said:


> Great question - I was thinking the same with regards the Sage Dual Boiler. I have the back flush tablets but I cannot find anything in the documentation stating whether we would invalidate the warranty if we use a non-OEM cleaning product?


Just from memory but pretty sure the instructions say to follow the instructions on the descaler packet and same with backflush so think that's sort of tacit confirmation is OK. I don't see how they'd know or be worried about it though.


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## EViS (Aug 25, 2010)

I guess the question is also asking whether there is any risk in NOT using Jura cleaning products? I believe that most universal descaling tablets/liquids are based on citric acid. Is this not damaging to coffee machines?


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## "coffee 4/1" (Sep 1, 2014)

citric acid for very heavy scale build up in boiler, the safest and works very well is 4.5 to 5% white vinegar with 5 rinses or your coffee will taste like a salad.


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## marcuswar (Aug 19, 2013)

I've always used a weak citric acid solution (2 tablespoons dissolved in 2 pints of tepid of water) . As far as I know Citric acid is only damaging to boilers made from aluminium e.g. Gaggia Classic but as long as it's a weak solution and you don't leave it sitting in the boiler too long (15mins max) then I've found it to be fine.

Personally I'd NEVER put vinegar in my machine... it might work as a descaler but that taste lingers for ages.


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## espressotechno (Apr 11, 2011)

All Jura B2C machines have stainless steel flash thermoblocks. So any descaling stuff is OK.

Citric acid will be fine - but keep the solution weak & descale often. Also, keep to the recommended volume of descaler solution going into the* empty* water tank

Small Pulycaff tablets are suitable for the "tablet clean" & won't damage anything. Again, run the tablet clean often....

Pulymilk is also suitable for the milk frother system (remember to dilute it with *cold* water)


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

Cafitza tends to be a decent price for citric descaler, especially the larger tubs.


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## marcuswar (Aug 19, 2013)

I got mine from Amazon. You can also get it from any home brew shop. It's dirt cheap, especially for the quantities we use it in. My 1kg bag will probably last me a lifetime.


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## benlumley (Jan 30, 2014)

marcuswar said:


> I got mine from Amazon. You can also get it from any home brew shop. It's dirt cheap, especially for the quantities we use it in. My 1kg bag will probably last me a lifetime.


I thought that.

Then I discovered how good it is for spraying over the shower doors.

A good scoop full in a toilet overnight also sorted out the very stained toilet we inherited with the house. So my first kilo lasted 18 months.


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## Dallah (Jan 31, 2015)

I use Puly products on SDB and service tech didn't blink an eye. So good for Sage products. Not a clue for Jura


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

benlumley said:


> A good scoop full in a toilet overnight also sorted out the very stained toilet we inherited with the house.


Is that Poo-lycaff? ??


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## NickR (Jul 1, 2011)

Unless you have really hard water or are using the machine in a commercial environment I very much doubt that after a month it needs descaling. I would try to avoid descaling as much as possible. The wear and tear on the machine is huge.

How about using Tesco Ashbeck water? It's very cheap and has a very low tds (total dissolved solids) then never descale.


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## hilltopbrews (May 17, 2013)

My other half has a Jura e6. I use puly caff to clean and descale. Although, we use filtered water so I don't descale it as much. With the milk tube, I use the puly milk frother cleaner.


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## EViS (Aug 25, 2010)

Great, thanks for all the replies. The machine is asking to be descaled, so I figured it would need it... It knows the PH of the water being put in, so one would assume that also knowing how many litres has gone through the system, it knows whether it needs to be descaled or not?

I bought 1 litre of Urnex Rinza (£10) for the milk cleaning, pack of 100 Urnex Cafiza tablets (£13) for the cleaning, and a tub of 36 Jura descaling tablets (£30). All from Amazon. I'll see how long that lot lasts me for. I think I'll also install the water filter into the machine which should almost eliminate the need for any descaling.


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