I have to admit, I got terribly confused when trying to descale my Nespresso Vertuo Plus coffee machine for the first time. 😂
Now that I’ve done it a few times, I decided to write these steps out for myself. Maybe they’ll help you out, too!
The end-to-end process (descale, rinse, end) takes about 20 minutes. I descale about once a quarter (I don’t wait for the button to light up green/red simultaneously).
Descale
- Eject capsule and close machine.
- Put large mixing bowl under spout.
- Turn off machine: push down lever for 3 seconds.
- Fill water tank with 17 oz water and add 1 pkg descaling liquid.
- Enter menu mode: press button and lever at the same time for 3 secs.
- A steady orange light indicates menu mode.
- Enter descaling mode: press lever once.
- Start descaling: push button.
- Orange light blinks during entire descaling process.
- Machine stops automatically when descaling is done.
Rinse
- Fill water tank to the top.
- Start rinse: push button.
- Machine stops automatically when rinsing is done.
End
- Exit menu mode: press button and lever at the same time for 3 secs.
- Refill water tank.
- Let machine cool down for 10 minutes.
Why I got confused the first few times I did descaling
Before getting a Nespresso, I came from the Keurig world. And their cleaning process included multiple refills of the water tank, and you had to manually count the number of refills and stop the cleaning process on your own.
Nespresso is different — you fill the water tank only once (for both descale and rinse) and the machine stops on its own when it senses the tank is empty. So there’s no risk of the machine trying to run without water. Nowhere in the instructions does it explicitly say this, and I kept refilling the water tank, so then the machine never thought it was done, and it then turned into an endless cycle of confusion lol. But I get it now. ☕️
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