Sorry. Need some spoon feeding on the topic of water
I’ve been doing this now since February and haven’t died yet, so hopefully all is OK. I have a Skuma RO unit coming in October, when I will be changing how I do things.
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Every time a water discussion comes up on here, I feel like I go straight back to square 1 in terms of my understanding of things - lol. Perhaps I might shift to a system of only making up just 1 × 5 litre batch of water at a time until the Skuma arrives as opposed to the 2 × 5I have been making over the last 6 months.
The water is certainly not discolouring, nor does it smell so hopefully it has all been OK so far.
@Cuprajake - how long do you tend to make up and use your concentrate for?
PROB LONGER THAN I SHOULD LOL
Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -
Haha
i make a 400ml concentrate, then i make up 8l of ro water at a time, this is stored under the sink in the dark, usually about 2 weeks is for use
Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -
dutchy101 FWIW, I make 400 ml of concentrate, kept in the fridge in a screw-top jar (ex ice-cream jar). It lasts me ~1 month.
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Thanks. In terms of an immediate change, I think I’m going to move down to making just one 5l batch using the Zero water at a time until the RO unit arrives. I might move to a concentrate at that stage.
I probably also need to find some better bottles for storing water than re-using old Ashbeck bottles.
dutchy101 I use these 2 litre bottles to store my batches of water:
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/273792334
I wouldn’t rave about its content, but the bottle works a treat.
Yes, I think glass is the way to go!
CoyoteOldMan still thinking how I should approach this best.
Mind sharing how much mg of potassium bicarbonate did you put in the 400ml concentrate? And how much (X)ml of concentrate do you put in (Y)ml of purified water? Appreciate that.
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Honestly - Keep it simple like this @Knluk :
- In 500g (or 500ml) of distilled or RO water, add 5g of sodium bicarbonate, or 5g of potassium bicarbonate. Put that in a bottle, store it. This is bottle “C” - C is for Concentrate.
- Put 1 litre of distilled or RO water into a bottle. This is bottle “B” - “B” is for Boiler safe water;
- Using a syringe draw 10ml from bottle “C”; (You can also try 8ml, see what works for you)
- Empty the contents of the syringe into bottle “B”.
- Empty the contents of bottle “B” into your coffee machine tank.
- Chop chop, bob’s your uncle, all set.
perfect. Thanks. Honestly, I have captured this screen to prepare my first self made water B.
Knluk - It’s like riding a bike: You’ll do it with your eyes close and you’ll never forget! 🤣
Knluk I think following the instructions that MediumRoastSteam provided above you can’t go wrong. For completeness, my concentrate uses 1.60 grams of KHCO3, and I use 20 ml/grams of concentrate per litre/kg of water (theoretically 20/980, but I’m often not that precise!).
dutchy101 We have two ‘posh’ bottles of Voss water used to store drinking water in the fridge, bought pretty much purely because of the bottle! 😁
CoyoteOldMan very nice :). I also like it because it is glass. Some said the plastic one can’t be reused safely for long
CoyoteOldMan provided above you can’t go wrong. For completeness, my concentrate uses 1.60 grams of KHCO3, and I use 20 ml/grams of concentrate per litre/kg of water
Knluk - In simple terms, if CoyoteOldMan uses 1.6g of Potassium Bicarbonate to make 400ml concentrate and then add 20ml of that concentrate to a litre of water, it is equivalent of adding 8ml of MediumRoastSteam’s concentrate to 1L of water.
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I use Magnesium bicarbonate and Sodium bicarbonate. You won’t find the former anywhere because you need to make it. I carbonate water and add Magnesium Hydroxide which reacts with the CO2 to form Magnesium Bicarbonate…..my water is about 30 GH and 45 KH.
I rate the coffee higher than with just Sodium/Potassium bicarb but I’d never advise anybody to do as I do. I remove the anti-vac valve of the service boiler every 5 weeks, syphon everything out and refill with distilled water (boilers are surgical steel). Yes, you could empty via the hot water tap but then the boiler and valve would be hot and it’s faster to just syphon it out than wait for the machine to heat up. And more cost-effective. It’s very easy for me to do it on my machine and I’m very comfortable doing that type of thing. It’s maybe a 15-minute process, if that, and the only maintenance I need to perform as my group isn’t lever actuated.
It’s worth the minor routine in my case but if somebody told me they prefered shots with just sodium or potassium bicarb compared to mine I wouldn’t be surprised. I hated shots made with the same hardness from Magnesium sulphate so ymmv.