# Gaggia Classic de-calcification - which acid to use?



## Alexandr (Nov 11, 2012)

Hi!

Which acid (tartaric, citric...) should I use for Gaggia Classic decalcification?

What is an agreed solution?

And if you can add the recommended concentration, that would be most fine.

Thanks


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## Kman10 (Sep 3, 2014)

Think you want citric acid but I can't give concentration as I don't make my own solution


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## MartinB (May 8, 2011)

Do a search - it's a common topic of debate


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## MartinB (May 8, 2011)

Personally, I use Puly Caff sachets. 10 for £6 on Amazon.


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## Alexandr (Nov 11, 2012)

MartinB said:


> Do a search - it's a common topic of debate


I did search for "gaggic classic decalcifying", but no results found. Probably the search system on the forum is too clever for me









Google produced no clear answer.


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## Rawk (Nov 17, 2014)

Having done a lot of searching myself (I am a Gaggia newbie), some people say use citric acid, but some people say oh my god don't use that you crazy loon, that is just madness









I bought the official Gaggia product - it contains citric acid. However it also contains something to protect the boiler, but it doesn't say what hah.

I will probably use citric acid going forward, but fairly diluted and not leaving it in the machine for more than 15/20 mins as the Gaggia instructions state.

I've used this much:

Everybody did a really good job of answering this, so there isn't much for me to add, except that the Citric Acid solution for descaling should be 2 Tbsp Citric Acid/Quart of warm water (not 1 Tbsp).

Based on a google


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

Classic's boiler is aluminium - use proprietary cleaner recommended by Gaggia - less aggressive.


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## Kman10 (Sep 3, 2014)

I use puly baby myself


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## Alexandr (Nov 11, 2012)

The Gaggia cleaner uses sodium citrate which probably to some extent limits the oxidization properties of the citric acid. But I doubt any actual harm would come from using diluted solution.

I'v found a mention about the older Gaggia descaler using tartaric acid (using Google, the integrated search here is of no use).

http://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?5489-Gaggia-Classic-cleaning-tartaric-acid-or-citric-acid

Aluminium should react at negligible rate at the common room temperature, but the reactivity is rather high when the temperature reaches 100 oC. So I should not forget to not to clean the hot machine, the colder the better


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