JHCCoffee This will give me a sense of what the chemistry of our local RO water is. I could then use that information and the TWW formulation information, and run it through Rob1’s spreadsheet (once it’s been updated).

It doesn’t need to be updated for you to do this. Only needs updating for dissolving carbonate or hydroxide in carbonated water….or I guess using carbonated water for anything to begin with but then why would you do that if it wasn’t necessary.

The recipe MWJB posted is from a very old thread over on homebarista.

I’ve found one of the threads with the recipe (there’s more than one). Here’s another quote:

"Classic Profile contains the follow

  • ~95 mg/l Magnesium (Magnesium Sulfate)
    ~45 mg/l Calcium (Calcium Citrate)
    ~10 mg/l Sodium (Sodium Chloride)
    ~0 Alkalinity (Although there is some acidic buffering from the citric acid)
    ~6.6 PH (You may find it difficult to measure the PH from the lack of bicarbonate)

Espresso Profile Contains

  • ~85 mg/l Magnesium (Magnesium Sulfate)
    ~45 mg/l Calcium (Calcium Citrate)
    ~20 mg/l Potassium (Potassium Bicarbonate)
    ~30 KH Alkalinity
    ~7.6 PH

This is Taylor from Third Wave Water"

And then on the next page:

"No worries on asking difficult questions, I want to be as transparent as possible. Hopefully this will help explain our thought process and philosophy. For reference the tools that we use for measurements are Oakton PC 450 for TDS, Hach Titration kits (Total Hardness, Magnesium Hardness, Alkalinity, Sulfate & Chlorine), Thermo Scientific Orion 2 Star for pH, A&D HR120 Scale for weight and even a Versa Lab grinder for grinding down minerals :D

PREFACE:
Much of the communication difficulty comes in the how most people discuss TDS & mg/L. Before people could add exactly what they wanted to the water they had to rely on less accurate measurements for understanding what is in the water (you could have more specificity but what was available to the average person were simple techniques). TDS meters for measuring calcium and sodium and titration for measuring Alkalinity, Chlorine, Hardness, Sulfates etc…., these were the tools of the trade and simple TDS meters did the vast majority of the measurements.

OUR THOUGHT PROCESS:
We use the less accurate but more widely used form of measuring TDS, the cheap and nearly ubiquitous TDS meter. This is b/c the vast majority of our customers will be able to communicate and understand the product and this is most likely the extent that they currently understand. For example: We aim for a total TDS of 150. If you put one packet in a gallon of distilled water and measure the TDS with a meter it will ready 150. If you were able to remove all of the magnesium sulfate from that packet and add it separately to a gallon of distilled it would read 95. If we talk about TDS in pure chemistry terms it will be too confusing to communicate properly.

OUR PHILOSOPHY:
We think the most important aspect of water chemistry and water profiles are duplicability. We strive to create a product that will easily give people a repeatable and duplicable water experience. By grinding the minerals the same way and mixing everything in a V-blender, we can have a high degree of certainty that each stick will be a statistical representation of the last.

IN CLOSING:
I know this community is much different than the average consumer. Your degree of understanding is much greater, therefore our degree of specificity and transparency should be greater. So for ease of communication I will just give you the measurements of each mineral in the packet. The desired weight of each packet it 1.5 grams, this can vary from packet to packet and we are always trying to reduce our variability bit that is the target. If the weight of one packet is different the overall ratios will still be the same.

Classic 1500mg
Magnesium Sulfate 1100mg
Calcium Citrate 300mg
Sodium Chloride 100mg

Espresso 1500mg
Magnesium Sulfate 1050mg
Calcium Citrate 300mg
Potassium Bicarbonate 150mg

LASTLY:
We have found that the TDS of Magnesium Sulfate can not always be accurately measured (with out also factoring in a TDS meter) as the bound moisture can change over time, throwing off the weight. We are also working on vacuum drying some of the Magnesium Sulfate to create Anhydrous Magnesium Sulfate, this helps for storage and transportation to hotter areas. The anhydrous creates a natural desiccant inside the package and retards the decomposition from creating moisture in the package. This moisture can cause clumping in the Classic and can cause a chemical reaction in Espresso between the citrate and bicarbonate, puffing up the packets (they look like Barbie body pillows). If the anhydrous ever gets implemented I will need to update this above information for you all.

I hope this helps better explain everything and as always if you have more questions please let me know. Feel free to DM me your phone number and I can talk to you over the phone if you want, these long posts can become tiresome.

-Taylor"

In response to somebody asking about the Magnesium in the first post, Taylor posts this in response:

**namelessone wrote:**Hi Taylor,

95mg/L of Magensium must be a typo? Do you mean 95mg/L of magensium sulfate? Otherwise it would result in some extremely hard water. On the other hand 45mg/L of Calcium Citrate would mean very little calcium, so I’m not sure what amount relates to which compound.

Those numbers are correct. The ~95mg/L of Magnesium comes from Magnesium Sulfate. The ~45mg/L of Calcium comes from Calcium Citrate.

Yes it is technically hard but the hardness is permanent hardness so as the temperature increases the minerals do not come out of solution and cause scale.

Taylor"

Which is not correct.

Citrate also provides alkalinity that won’t be measured correctly using a titration kit designed for measuring fresh water alkalinity (from bicarbonate).

Here’s a link to the thread: https://www.home-barista.com/water/third-wave-water-capsules-add-to-water-for-better-tasting-coffee-t49196-10.html

      Rob1

      Thank-you thank-you, Rob1!! You are a water scholar and yes also a gentleman. I will see if I can make sense of this all and come back to you with what I am sure will be a flawed analysis.

      Just curious how you come by this excellent expertise. Might you be a chemist? Or is this knowledge the result of passionate curiosity and study. I don’t mean to pry, BTW.

      • Rob1 replied to this.

          Rob1

          Hi Rob1

          Which reasonably priced Hatch test kit should I purchase (here in Canada) for periodic water hardness safety audit? I would test say once a month for say 3 months and then tail off to once every 6 months, if all looked good. I will be reliant on my RO water supplier, the City of Toronto (who’s water they use to make RO water) and whatever I add to the RO water (such as TWW). The City only publishes it’s chemistry once per year, the last publication being 2021.

          Would you suggest this one: Hatch Water Hardness Test Kit. ? Or?

          Thanks Rob1.

              JHCCoffee Just curious how you come by this excellent expertise. Might you be a chemist? Or is this knowledge the result of passionate curiosity and study. I don’t mean to pry, BTW.

              Nope, I’m no chemist. I know only what I’ve been able to gather and read over the past few years, in the process of remineralising my own water, on the subject of water chemistry and the causes of corrosion and scale. It wasn’t too long ago I was struggling to wrap my head around BH water recipes and Jim Schulman’s water FAQ. The first page of the spreadsheet is just a practical form of the FAQ, the same for most of the second page.

              JHCCoffee hich reasonably priced Hatch test kit should I purchase (here in Canada) for periodic water hardness safety audit?

              I think I’ve answered this in another thread. I do not know anything about the reliability of the various testing kits out there. I’m not sure what it is you’re intending to test either - tap water or RO water? If you want to know risk of scale you need a hardness and alkalinity test kit, if you want to know other things then obviously you’ll be looking for specific tests. I’ve no reason to think there would be a significant difference between kits from different manufacturers if any.

                  JHCCoffee Assuming the TWW formulation hasn’t changed much since 2017, I don’t think a ‘safety audit’ of the tank water is going to tell you much. What you want to monitor (or more easily just regularly flush-and-refill) is the water in the boilers.

                      The lab results are in 🧐

                      This is RO water (City of Toronto water that has been run through the RO system of a local RO drinking water supplier) with a resultant RO water TDS of 28 ppm, to which “Third Wave Water - Espresso” powder has subsequently been added at a ratio of 1 packet to 1 Imperial gallon (4.5 litres).

                      @Rob1 and all: What are your thoughts on the below results? Is this water:

                      • Safe for Lelit Elizabeth use, without the Lelit filter?
                      • Likely to produce good tasting espresso (if all other factors are equally well addressed)?
                      • Better or worse than other water recipes you have used?

                      The truth will be told through espresso shot tasting, that I will begin next week.

                      Here are the test results:

                        Looks like they’ve altered their recipe a bit (Potassium is significantly lower) and figures are a little different elsewhere.

                        Would not put use in an espresso machine personally. I don’t know how it wouldn’t form scale, would be interesting to see if sediment is left behind after some time in a pressure cooker or even just boiling in a pan. Alkalinity is measured down to pH 4.5, which is probably what you want really. Not much comfort knowing your water is going to be resistant to becoming more acidic below that.

                          JHCCoffee Safe for Lelit Elizabeth use, without the Lelit filter?

                          It depends on what you mean by ‘safe’. It will almost certainly scale, considering it has a fair amount of Mg and Ca, and relatively high alkalinity. The problem is that what isn’t known is the origin of the alkalinity, and the lab haven’t provided a concentration of (hydro)carbonate ion. If it comes all from organic acids (e.g. citrate), it may be ‘safer’ than if it comes from carbonates, however this is very unlikely to be the case - see the ‘nerdy’ section below. It also has a fairly high amount of sulphate, likely coming from the addition of magnesium sulphate (Epsom salt).

                          Can you use it in a machine without catastrophic effects? Yes. You will need to flush and refresh water in the boilers quite frequently, and you may need to descale every so often. How ‘frequently’ and ‘often’ depends on how you use the machine.

                          Would using the Lelit filter help? Yes for the scale; but you then may as well feed RO water into the machine, possibly adding some bicarbonate (sodium and/or potassium) to increase alkalinity, and skip the cost of the TWW sachets and of the Lelit filter, since you’d be taking out with the latter most of what you are adding with the former.

                          JHCCoffee Likely to produce good tasting espresso (if all other factors are equally well addressed)?

                          Very likely, though there is no accounting for personal taste. It’s very close to SCAA recommendations in terms of many parameters, which is probably what TWW aimed for.

                          JHCCoffee Better or worse than other water recipes you have used?

                          It seems to be a fairly average recipe containing Epsom salt (MgSO4), cooking salt (NaCl), and ‘something’ with calcium and potassium that has also added alkalinity - since the lab hasn’t told us what it is… we are left guessing a bit. It’s significantly more alkaline and rich in Ca and Mg than anything I would want to use for any length of time (as it would impose a frequent maintenance schedule that I can’t be bothered to do!)

                          —

                          The nerdy chemistry bit - with some of my guesses as to “what’s in the TWW bag”.

                          I’ve done some stoichiometric calculations, and, making some assumptions, everything seems to work out very well:

                          1. The RO water was substantially pure. I know they say it has 28 ppm of dissolved solids, but a) we don’t know what they are, and b) I suspect that’s the maximum amount of TDS that they would tolerate before changing the membranes.

                          2. The recipe consists of a mix of the following:
                            MgSO4 as the source of magnesium
                            Ca citrate as the source of calcium
                            NaCl as the source of chlorides
                            and other undetermined salts containing potassium.

                          Given the above assumptions, we note that stoichiometrically:
                          a. The magnesium and sulphate amounts are in good agreement with MgSO4 being the source of all the Mg and sulphate in the water.
                          b. Assuming all chloride is being introduced as NaCl, this leaves an ‘excess’ of 8.2 mg/l of sodium.
                          c. Assuming the excess sodium and all the potassium were introduced in the form of their respective bicarbonates (hydrocarbonates) results in a calculated addition of 30.0 mg/l of NaHCO3 and 43.8 mg/l of KHCO3
                          d. Assuming all the calcium is introduced as Ca citrate, this corresponds to 73.1 mg/l of citrate.

                          The resulting solution has a calculated KH of 72.3 and GH of 149.5, which matches rather well the lab measured amounts. This seems to be obtained with the following recipe (rounded to the nearest mg, and based on measured rather than calculated values where measurements are available):

                          • MgSO4 · 7H2O 270-280 mg/l
                          • Ca citrate 89 mg/l
                          • NaCl 9.4 mg/l
                          • NaHCO3 30 mg/l
                          • KHCO3 44 mg/l

                          If this is correct, ~⅔ of the alkalinity comes from (bi)carbonates, which makes it certain to form scale in both service and brew boilers.

                                  Rob1

                                  Thank-you for saving the day, Rob1! 🙏 If you were in Canada, I’d send you a bottle of vino or a six pack of your favourite brew. Too expensive to ship, though.

                                  And … Darn, I had really hoped that this would have worked! Guess I’ll have to find another recipe. I’ll have a read through the water section for one, unless you have any particular suggestions.
                                  .
                                  I do worry that the cause of this poor test result might have been the RO water (or the suppliers RO system) or even worse, that any RO water made from Toronto tap water is unsuitable. Either theoretically could be due to the chemistry of the residual TDS (28) that is still in the RO water. I could be unduly concerned about RO water quality (from either this supplier or in Toronto), so please do let me know if I am just barking up a tree. But if really need be, I could send off the RO water for testing.
                                  .
                                  Here is a link to the chemistry of Toronto’s tap water, if this helps. Toronto Tap Water . I presume that knowing this tap water chemistry, including it’s TDS and the TDS of the RO water (28%, tested by yours truly) might help allay my above concern.

                                  The other piece of useful information is the TWW powder chemistry that you graciously provided in this thread. It would be interesting to know the mathematical result of the chemistry of Toronto’s tap water, adjusted for RO filtration to 28% TDS, further adjusted for the addition of the TWW powder chemistry. A comparison of this mathematically calculated chemistry (ie what it should be) to the actual test result (that I just posted) might give us a clue as to whether the problem is the RO water or the TWW powder. Only if you are inclined to do the math (I just do not have the knowledge to do so) and the information would be useful. Again, I may be barking up a tree here.

                                      Doram I don’t think so, but it won’t scale the inside of your stomach either… 😁

                                        CoyoteOldMan

                                        Thank-you as well, CoyoteOldMan! I also owe you a favourite bottle or brew!

                                        Please see my reply post to Rob1 of a moment ago.

                                        And: What do I do next????

                                            JHCCoffee

                                            PS

                                            On a separate but related topic, should I just bite the bullet and buy an RO system? If so, would I end up with a much lower TDS than 28 ppm? What TDS should I except?

                                                JHCCoffee I think you are barking up the wrong tree.

                                                The 28 TDS (which - as I said above - I suspect are the upper limit of the RO provider’s process, not what you actually get) is largely irrelevant. The tap water analysis is completely irrelevant - you are not using it, and there is no way to predict what (if any) of those dissolved solids is going/not going to be filtered by the RO process.

                                                The problem is that - whether with TWW’s old formulation or my guess at the new one (which I think is a fairly reasonable guess) - that water will scale because of the addition of the TWW formulation, even if you were to add it to pure water.

                                                Whatever is left in the RO water (the ‘28 ppm’ or whatever they really are) will not make things better; it may make them a little worse if there is some residual alkalinity and/or Ca/Mg.

                                                    CoyoteOldMan

                                                    Got it! Thanks CoyoteOldMan!

                                                    So, I need to find a better water recipe. I can/will scan the water recipe section.

                                                    At the risk of asking for repeat ideas (sorry!), what, in your view, is the best formula (specific recipe)? FYI, I do like the mouthfeel of higher TDS water, as long as it extracts well and does not scale.

                                                        JHCCoffee It depends on what you want to do… “high TDS” is a bit vague - you could get very high TDS and no scaling by adding say 40,000 mg/l of NaCl. I doubt you’d like coffee brewed with sea water.

                                                        Assuming you like water containing ‘general hardness’ (i.e. Ca and Mg ions, which are said to improve the taste of coffee), then avoiding scaling and corrosion is not easy at values of GH and KH that are generally used for brewing coffee. You need to choose your poison.

                                                        If you are OK without Ca and/or Mg, then adding 68 - 136 mg/l of NaHCO3 or 80 - 160 mg/l of KHCO3 (‘R Pavlis’ recipe) will provide 40 - 80 mg/l of alkalinity with no scaling, using very cheap chemicals that you can easily find.

                                                        My suggestion would be to try with the Pavlis / bicarbonate recipe for a couple of weeks, and seeing if you like the result in the coffee. If so, you are set - $5 of bicarbonate will last you a lifetime.

                                                        If you feel experimental, you could try a recipe with 197 mg/l of MgSO4 · 7 H2O (Epsom salts) and 116 mg/l of Ca citrate - this will give you something similar to the total (Mg + Ca) amount and the same KH and GH values as the TWW recipe, but without carbonates involved, so far less risk of scaling. Does it taste good? Does it scale? I don’t know, as I’ve never used it. I will make a bit of concentrate next time I need to do so (couple of weeks) and experiment with its taste. If you can wait… in the meantime try the Pavlis recipe.

                                                          JHCCoffee should I just bite the bullet and buy an RO system? If so, would I end up with a much lower TDS than 28 ppm? What TDS should I except?

                                                          The second and third questions are much easier to answer than the first one. Yes, you would expect to end up with <10 ppm TDS with a decent and well-serviced domestic RO system, probably around 1-2 ppm of dissolved minerals.

                                                          The interesting question - and part of the answer to the first one - is whether the RO water you are buying actually contains 28 ppm TDS. I doubt it - I genuinely think this is the most you could ever get, and therefore what they tell you, to avoid getting into trouble for false advertising/misdescription/breach of contract/what-have-you-in-Canadian-law.

                                                          Even assuming that it is 28ppm (of undesirable stuff), the question is the cost of the RO system vs. alternatives (e.g. ZeroWater-type filters) considering your consumption. If you are only using RO/DI water for coffee, a Zero jug is likely to be cheaper and has no installation costs vs. a domestic RO system.

                                                            Thanks OldManCoyote!

                                                            I actually used a hand TDS meter, and the RO water I bought was 28 ppm. So too high!

                                                            Thanks for the tip on the ZeroWater filter. Do you end up with a TDS that is close to your suggested < 10 ppm, using that filter?

                                                            I currently have a BWT jug, but I suspect that it is not as effective as Zero Water. Any thoughts on BWT?

                                                            Re “higher TDS”, when I was making that Grind Science recipe I enjoyed the body of espresso with the water at 160 TDS to as high as 200 TDS. Not sure what I would do, prefer today now that I know somewhat more.

                                                              JHCCoffee You don’t need to send your RO water to the lab, IMO. Please get a drop kit, measure the GH and KH of your Pure RO water on a sample of 20 ml or 40 ml for each test, multiple 17.9 by number of drops and divide the output by 4 (if 20 ml) or 8 (if 40 ml). As Rob and CoyoteOldMan advised, keep it simple.