Customer Reviews

Durgol Swiss Espresso Special Decalcifier, 2-Pack 4.2 fluid ounce Bottles

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There's not much to say - if you own an espresso machine, you need this. Every time the machine boils water, any minerals fall out of solution - the harder your water the more minerals - resulting in sluggish performance as the heating element now has to heat through "stone". Used regularly, your machine will run as good as new, without the horrible smell and aftertastes of other decalcifiers, such as vinegar.

I used this descaler on my Tassimo machine. I worked fine and I am sure did the trick.
I wanted to write this review to warn everyone out there that this product will stain your granite counter tops. I had no idea. I set the bottle on my black granite and later found a stain in the shape of the ring left behind from the solution. Needless to say that I am totally bummed and saddened that my granite is ruined. If anyone knows how to fix this problem, please let me know!
Thanks.

Decalcifies my DeLonghi Magnifica without much effort from me. A critical part of maintenance for high-end espresso machines.

This product worked great with my espresso machine - a Breville Roma. I followed the decalcifier and the espresso machine manuals and my machine started frothing again!

This is the descaler recommended by my espresso maker. It works well, kind of expensive (well anything would be expensive compared to vinegar and water). I use the discarded solution to soak inside my electric teakettle before discarding - so I do get twice the use out of each bottle. Recommend buying in multiple quantities to save on shipping.

This solution saved my espresso machine (the espresso stream had literally slowed to a trickle)! Just one bottle was enough to restore it to like-new condition. Now I'm finally able to make the same frothy espresso I made when I took my machine out of the box.

I give this product 3 stars because I had to throw out my espresso machine after using. Why not 1 star, you ask? Because it's my fault for being an idiot.

Here's the deal. I owned a 5 year old steam driven espresso machine and had never descaled. I bought this product thinking it was time to start. Bad idea. I used the product according to instructions, and the water was clear but there were chunks of brown stuff in it. So I did another treatment and it was still chunky. Since my first box of product was gone, I bought another. I thought this time I'd let the liquid sit for a couple hours to loosen everything up. That was my fatal mistake. The water began running a murky gray and even after flushing with clean water a number of times I could still see the specks shimmering in the water that came through. I assume it ate away the finish inside the machine and I wasn't going to take my chances on what ingesting that could mean for my body.

So like I said, I had a bad experience but it was my fault. Although the instructions could have cautioned against leaving the product in the machine to sit. Maybe that's common sense in the barista world, but since I owned a STEAM machine and had NEVER decalcified, I was clearly starting below the average espresso IQ.

Look for me to review a new espresso machine in the near future!

My Jura Capresso E8 machine wasn't working anymore, I was getting Error 8 and it always asked me to clean it before I got the errors. I read the reviews here and decided to give it a try. I ran the Durgol through the decalcifying program, adding it to the water tank. At the end of the program, Error 8 had disappeared and the machine felt like brand new. No longer did it sound like it was "struggling" to get started after power-on. Highly recommended.

My new Jura-Capresso Coffee TEAM's "decalcify!" warning displayed and the manual said to use 6oz of Durgol Descaler. Very hard to find, but Amazon had two types listed and I couldn't tell the difference, so I tried the Swiss Espresso. I used only one of the two 4oz bottles and it ran through like a charm with no aftertaste in the coffee the next morning. I used what drained out, since it was clean and poured it into my cheap, little, never descaled, old 1995 Saeco steam "espresso?" machine and my 1 year old electric water kettle. It immediately went to work with all the boiling/hissing sounds and sludge rose to the top of the Saeco's boiler. Some runoff leaked out of the grouphead, so I poured that around the faucet base. I wiped it up a few minutes later and the hard water deposits were gone! After an hour in the machine boiler, it was still hissing, so I left it in overnight. The following morning I drained and ran it a couple of times with fresh water. The boiler was clean! 14 years of caked on buildup was gone. I can't wait to pull a shot this weekend.

We have very hard water so a decalcifier for our DeLonghi espresso machine is a must. I've never used anything other than the Durgol 0291 Swiss Espresso Special Decalcifier because there hasn't been a need to. I have been very pleased with the results.