Whatever coating was used in this decades old All-Clad kettle is flaking off.
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Thatās pretty interesting; there shouldnāt be any coating on the interior of an All-Clad pot except for the steel layer itself, and if that is peeling it is a rather huge manufacturing defect. Have you contacted All-Clad? If youāre having a problem with this than so must thousands of others. The water in your part of the world is decent quality, despite the tendency of some of your neighbors to turn their noses up at non-bottled water.
Ohā¦is what youāre seeing white or black flakes? That could be scale, we get it in old espresso machine boilers and is a pain to remove completely. Everpure packages a citric acid mix called Scalekleen which works well on this, much better than the plain citric acid you can buy at the local store (though I donāt know why).
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If someone wanted to save time and money, they would get a dedicated water boiler which is much more efficient.
Just as easy to see how much water is it via the water column gauge, or you can just measure how much you need and put that amount in the water boiler.
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Be careful of these.
My mother had one just like it. I cleaned out the inside with Scotch Brite, put some water in it and put it on the stove to boil. After a lot of time and a lot of heat, nothing was happening. It all seemed very hot. I carefully took out the lid, and slowly tried to poor some into a cup. As soon as it was agitated it exploded into boiling water.
I suppose the inside was too smooth to allow bubbles to form. So leave it a little dirty in there!
If youāre cleaning years of āheavy metalā and lime from a tea kettle.
Thatās a GOOD THING. It means youāre not drinking them.
A glass kettle doesnāt make lime and things go away. It just means you drink them.
A metal kettle is super easy to cleanā¦just put in a cup of white vinegar and swirl it around until all the lime scale bubbles off. And think about all that lime you would have ingested to help build kidney stonesā but instead got trapped in your metal kettle.
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I work with glass for a hobby and Iām thinking that the glass was weakened by using the Scotch Brite. Those sponges can lightly etch glass, which is why I wonāt use them with any glass ware.
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Of course in my case the stove is gas, so that it may well still be more efficient than an electric kettle. (generation and transmission losses are generally greater for electricity than for natural gas)
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Hard to say, the losses of heat energy on a gas burner are pretty extreme. 50% goes into the room? Maybe only 25%.
Given a choice between gas and electing for stove top, I think it depends on where you live and how the electricity is generated as to which is a better choice.
However, for boiling water Iād still go with an electric kettle.
I have a gas stove and I have seen the difference in how long it takes to boil water between the two, and the base of my kettle is larger than the pictured glass pot so hopefully I did not lose as much heat as that one will.
I wish there was some way to know for sure, maybe there is, but as you point out, there are a lot of variables.
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I donāt think so. I donāt have a dishwasher and have cleaned my glassware for years with Scotch Brite, and it has remained crystal clear, if you pardon the expression.
In this case the inside of the kettle wash coated with a thin layer of minerals and it boiled as you would expect. After I cleaned it, it was nice and shiny and as I mentioned above, bubbles would not form. After a week or so, the inside developed enough minerals so that it began boiling normally again.
And I just found this:
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i want whatever you are smoking this evening! Iām guessing it isnāt teaā¦ 
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I have a Japanese electric hot water pot with several specific temperature settings, for different types of tea. It has a large opening, so itās easy to clean. It is insulated, and gets water to a boil quickly. The big advantage is that it will hold the hot water for me, so, if I get involved in something happening around the house, I donāt have to come running when the kettle is hot. The Japanese kettle can also be put on a timer, so water is ready for tea whenever youād like.
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This depends on the quality of your water and how much scale there is. Youāre not going to descale 20 years of buildup with a cup of vinegar.
When I lived in a part of England with very hard water I had a small steel mesh ball that I kept in the kettle. This would both attract the scale and scrub out the kettleās interior when boiling. I suppose in a smooth glass kettle it could also serve as a nucleus for boiling and prevent superheating. (I have a glass coffee vacuum coffee pot that comes with a steel chain that serves this purpose.) I think I paid around 50p for mine at a Wilko. I havenāt seen them in US shops.
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When Iāve tried to use vinegar to remove scale, I just ended up with a kettle that smells of vinegar for a very long time, and no visible reduction in scale.
Oxalic acid removes scale very well, but Iāve never dared use it on something Iām going to drink from.
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Internet to the rescue!
[quote=āBeanolini, post:33, topic:81106ā]
When Iāve tried to use vinegar to remove scale, I just ended up with a kettle that smells of vinegar for a very long time, and no visible reduction in scale.[/quote]
Boiling the kettle for a couple of hours then letting it sit overnight can help. However, I think for any appreciable amount of scale acetic acid is just too weak. Concentrated citric is better, and Iām told that lactic acid works very well. Oxalic I wouldnāt try, nor hydrochloric nor sulfuric. I might be tempted with sulfamic acid as a last resort. I wonāt enter a building if I suspect there is hydrofluoric acid on the premises.
And electric kettles are not mentioned in the Constitution, so you go on putting dumb, inefficient kettles on the stove, spurning the wonders that science offers you.
Metal teapots? 
My grandmother would have had some strong words for you. The good old pottery Brown Betty is the only way to go (brown to hide the build-up inside that may unnerve beginners.)
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That is indeed a very Proper Teapot.
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Enjoy your future glass shards. You can break out your old steel tea kettle and laugh manically as you contemplate Murphyās law. Also, who cleans a tea kettle? Itās job is to contain boiling water, which last I check, is pretty clean stuff. Vinegar for the buildup. The smell is gone after a rinse and boil.
Brilliant! Never heard of that before, despite living there, but will definitely investigate for future use.
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Canāt beat the old Pyrex Flameware teakettles
Not in these parts.
Tell that to my Mr. Coffee carafe thatās got white strata of lime* coating the bottom four inches of the glass 
Yeah, vinegar just isnāt strong enough. I scrub with oxalic acid (Barkeeperās Friend) whenever the whole thing gets completely opaque with lime, and then run it through the dishwasher afterwards. Easy and effective.
* not actually lime, people just call mineral deposits from hard water that.
