Vinegar and vinegar essence are mainly known for preparing food. However, you can use vinegar essence in the household for much more than just cooking. In this practical tip, you will find out what functions vinegar has and how you can use it, especially for cleaning.
Vinegar essence – what you should bear in mind
Vinegar essence differs from vinegar in that the acid content is much more concentrated. If you want to clean something with vinegar essence, you must therefore dilute it with water so as not to damage equipment or surfaces. While vinegar contains about 5% acid, vinegar essence contains about 20-25%. You will find the exact specification on your bottle of vinegar essence.
- To dilute vinegar essence into vinegar, add three (20% solution) to four (25% solution) parts of water to one part of vinegar essence.
- You should not use vinegar or vinegar essence to clean surfaces that contain lime. For marble, sandstone and other natural stone surfaces, for example, use gentle cleaning agents so as not to damage the material.
How to clean with the home remedy
Vinegar essence is a particularly good way to descale appliances and surfaces. With this simple solution, you don’t have to buy chemical cleaning agents and descalers separately.
- To descale your kettle, pour in about 50 millilitres of vinegar essence. Then add about 450 millilitres of water to dilute the solution. Depending on the capacity of the kettle, you can put in more. Then boil the vinegar solution once and let it soak for a few minutes. Rinse out the kettle with clean tap water.
- This trick works just as well on your coffee maker. To clean and descale it, mix the vinegar solution as for the kettle or adjust the quantities to the capacity of the machine. Then run half of the solution through. Simply stop the brewing process in between. Then let the vinegar solution soak for a while before continuing the brewing process. You can then empty the pot. To counteract the smell of vinegar, run clear water through the machine once afterwards.
- You can also use the vinegar solution to clean the shower head and the tap. Simply wipe it with the vinegar solution and then rinse with water. If there is a lot of limescale, you can also soak the shower head in the vinegar solution and let it soak in.
- Mix vinegar essence and water in a ratio of about 1:9 or 1:10 and pour the solution into a spray bottle. You can use it to clean glass and surfaces without chemical cleaners.
- Burnt-in, greasy stains can also be removed very well with acid. So you can also clean your oven or clean the grill grate with the vinegar solution.
- If you have a battery leak, you can remove the residue with the vinegar solution.
