ACS Vesuvius Evo Leva

LMSC

Cuprajake osmio replaces the kettle too, so up selling point to the mrs haha

Absolutely. I believe most of the members would vouchsafe this Jake!

My wife and daughter rolled their eyes and raised the eye brows. A month later, they are full converts; my wife’s persistent stomach troubles vanished, we lost some weight, the 2L kettle disappeared the day it got delivered, the zero water is used for all purposes including cooking.

The last 1L water isn’t wasted; we use it for washing, cleaning and watering plants.

LMSC

danielpugh alkalinity would be fixed by remineralisation filter(?)

Not necessarily. Depending on where you are. It can also vary by season. I have seen alkalinity vary between about 40 mg/l in Aug - Sep last year and currently at about 18 mg/l, which is on the lower side.

DenisS

Water for coffee needs to have mineral in it for full taste.

If you will use low ppm water that is just to protect a machine, not to get the max out of your beans. There are minerals that dont scale, or scale less.

My water for ACS was 30-35ppm baking soda (Na) and 70-100 ppm epsom salt (Mg). Total 80-120 ppm. No Calcium.

My tap water has 110 ppm total with 60-70% Ca, that scales and ruins machines fast.

My espresso water is made out of 0 ppm water obstained with a zero water jug.

Cuprajake

I think that Dr Pavlis has made the argument that since coffee is loaded with magnesium, and the magnesium in the input brew water is a tiny fraction of what the coffee itself puts into the brew, we may be wasting time fussing over how much Ca and Mg is in our brew water.

Taken from hb forum

LMSC

Cuprajake Dr Pavlis

Jake, is there an article of Dr Pavlis we can read please ?

DenisS

Cuprajake

I think I will trust my side by side taste comparison and go with that, over what one guy did test over who knows what roast level and what he understands by coffee.

Cuprajake

Theres loads. Its just better to google his name and alot on homebarista will come up.

Cuprajake

DenisS

Thats entirely up to you, i suppose for you now it makes no difference as your brewing pour over, and not having a machine.

Us who have machines have to some te compromise a tad, but dr pavlis finding were across different beans from reading. Each to their own

Cuprajake

https://www.home-barista.com/water/1977-la-pavoni-europiccola-with-green-deposits-scale-t38090.html

Thats part of it

LMSC

Thank you Jake.

DenisS

Cuprajake

Water matters no matter what you use it for when preparing coffee, it doesn’t matter if it’s a espresso machine or a brew. I compared several times with many friends so I’m not byased, 0 ppm water to 50 ppm water to 100ppm water to tap water to custom made water.

Custom made water for coffee always wins. Take for example TWW (third wave water) has ~188ppm (23ppm Calcium, 17 ppm Na, 140 ppm Mg) and it’s used by the top elites in the world, for competing, for coffee shops for brewing.

But be free to do anything you want, again you can use a 50ppm water total and the machine will run for 10 years with no scale, but that doesnt mean the taste is the best with that setup, and espresso is all about taste not protecting a stupid machine.

Cuprajake

https://www.home-barista.com/water/question-about-water-hardness-and-scale-buildup-t42007-30.html and the other

LMSC

Cuprajake Good information for week end reading. Thx.

One question re-your potassium bicarb (PB) dosage.

Given your 10g on 1L of RO and 10ml concentrate on 1L means 100mg/l of PB. This translates to approx 69mg/l alkalinity. Is that right ? If yes, is it not on the higher side? Thx

Cuprajake

Off top of my head im not sure without going back through some old notes,

Its sometimes hard because americans talk in gallons which are different uk to us

From memory they were using 38ml to a us gallon

Rob1

Hardness in brewing water makes absolutely no difference to extraction but does affect the taste of the water substantially….and given the drink is mostly water it has an impact on the finished beverage. From memory this misunderstanding that you need hardness for a good extraction came from the Water for Coffee book by Chris Hendon & Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, they have since backtracked. MWJB mentioned this and linked to their discussion over on the old forum.

I’ve tried a few different formulations over the years. I hated epsom salts and calcium chloride and now remineralise with magnesium bicarbonate and sodium bicarbonate. I avoid scale in the service boiler by manually draining it and filling it with distilled water every 5 weeks or so depending on use. If I had a copper/brass boiler rather than 316l steel I’d probably just do a very light descale at a similar frequency to prevent any large flakes blocking things up. The Magnesium adds a bit of extra sweetness and body compared to the same alkalinity with just sodium or potassium bicarb, but there is no difference at all between calcium and magnesium when it comes to scaling (by weight as CaCO3). I found the water with sodium bicarb and magnesium sulfate deeply unpleasant compared to both, probably because of high sodium and high sulfate.

An interesting test might be to compare two brews made with water of the same alkalinity but with hardness added to the finished brew for one and hardness in from the start with the other and see if there’s any difference with a refractometer and taste.

Cuprajake

I dunno, for me descaling a machine is a big problem something im not im very comfortable doing, so for me taking a marginal hit on the taste of the coffee vs the ball ache that is ripping a machine to bits to descale, is something im prepared to do.

If i were a super human taster and was obssessive over extracting every minute detail from a bean then fair do. But for me its an non issue.

Cuprajake

But lets not forget most of this is only an issue if your using a service boiler,

DenisS

My steam boiler was on in total 30 minutes in 6 months. The machine is ready for pick up. Awaiting for the guy to come take it. Niche went away today too.

LMSC

Interesting read and learning experience guys. Thanks!

While we all strive to make an excellent coffee and go a distance to continuously improve the outcome, protecting the machine so that it lasts as long as possible is equally critical. May be, except a few, most of us can’t afford to spend thousands on a new machine every 2 years because we didn’t care enough.

I also think we do not have to compromise between making a great cup and protecting the machine.

DenisS

You guys are cracking me, what is so hard to descale a boiler? I wish to know.

Or what is so deadly for a machine to descale it?

Cuprajake

DenisS obs you’re the best,

Some dont have the know how or want to rip a machine to bits.

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