Can I use citric acid to clean out the limescale from my coffee pot? It looks horrible and is starting to affect the taste of my coffee.

Have you checked the water filter?

if scale is the problem you can take out tank and clean it with muratic acid or if it isnt to bad you could mix up citric acid and run a few pots through.

You can use vinegar, but if you do make sure its the distilled or white. But the best stuff to use is citric acid as it will not leave any taste behind. Most hardware shops and pharmacy will stock this.

Most coffee pots are cleaned by running 1 part white vinegar and 1 part water. Just put in the reservoir and run a cycle. Once completed, run again with 1/2 pot of water only and it will clean it. If you use your pot daily, this should be done once every few months. If you have foul tasting coffee, you should use bottled water to rectify that. Plain tap water has minerals that dilute the taste of the coffee and over time build a residue in your pot.

This happened to mine. I think that it gets blocked with limescale. I solved this by running a solution of citric acid through the system (available in the baking aisle of the supermarket). To start with nothing came through, but I left it on and tried running water every 10 minutes and eventually it started to run again. NB it takes a long time to flush out all the citric acid, my first few coffees have a lemon flavour!

DO NOT USE THAT MUCH VINEGAR! Put a tiny bit of vinegar in the carafe and fill carafe the rest of the way with water. Run that vinegar/water through machine. Using another container, fill machine with plain water and run that through. Repeat until the vinegar taste is gone. If you do not run lots of plain water through the machine after, your coffee will taste like...um...disgusting! Also, use a spell-checker before improving this posting.
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To clean hard water deposits from a coffee maker use distilled white vinegar. You may need to use as much as a gallon if the scale buildup is really bad. Fill clean coffee pot one half full of vinegar and run through machine as if making coffee. Repeat this process several times using fresh vinegar until it comes out clear. Do this once a week and your maker will work much better. **************
Use citric acid or LEMON JUICE CONCENTRATE instead of vinegar. It cleans just as well but doesn't leave the funky odor that vinegar does. You can run enough water to get rid of the vinegar taste, but the odor will linger for days or weeks. Much better to use lemon juice concentrate (no pulp!!) or one of the commercial products like the one available from Starbucks.

Hello shid9
This is an easy fix. To decalcify your unit you need to make a water/vinegar solution. 2 parts water and 1 part vinegar. You might need to run two pots of the solution through if the first one is very cloudy. When done with that, rinse with 1 pot of fresh water. This should help remedy your calc problem. I hope this is helpful for you.
Happy brewing! NormanZ

There might be some residue in the machine, you can try using some ScaleKleen which is activated citric acid, use a very small amount diluted in water(about 1/4 teaspoon). Run brew cycle with solution, after cycle complete, rinse reservoir, and run about 4 cycles with fresh water. This will clean out your machine.

Yup thats the Ticket - EASY FIX -
you have to clean the insides too people... lol.. The best way to do it is to buy citric acid crystals available from your local pharmacy. who knew huh? a couple of tablespoons in distilled water. Brew half the pot and let it sit for 30 min the brew the rest of the pot. Notice the color of your water after your done brewing. probably green from copper.. I could go into much more detail but thats the short answer... brew another pot or two of just plane ole water and bang your good go.. You should do this every month with any coffee pot for better tasting coffee..