I would like to test my coffee water for PH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, total hardness, chlorine, chloride, magnesium, iron, etc. I have seen low cost test strip kits, but wonder about their accuracy. On the other hand, I do not wish to spend a fortune on this. Any suggestions on reasonably accurate test kits?

@"JHCCoffee"#p27363 @"JHCCoffee"#p27363 @"Rob1"#171 Any thoughts on this, Rob1?

No, I know nothing about testing for those things specifically. The API freshwater GH/KH test kit is what I use for alkalinity in hardness but that doesn't give you a breakdown of what the alkalinity and hardness is made up of. You're probably looking at sending a sample to a lab, but what use that would be with something that is only subject to safety limits and can change significantly from season to season is questionable….assuming your water is tap water. Test strips wouldn't be accurate enough for me testing GH/KH, better off with titration kits and I imagine the same is true for the different things you want to test for.

@"Rob1"#p27432 @"MediumRoastSteam"#51 @"DavecUK"#1 Hi Rob1, MediumRoastSteam, DavecUK Firstly, I just want to thank you (and all) for all of your excellent and patient advice and help. I wish there were some way I could give back (I already donated), but you guys know so much more about espresso than I. This is indeed such a friendly and helpful Forum, unlike some message boards that are frequented by trolls and other self-impressed but ungenerous characters. So, thanks for helping with my often detailed learning questions. And here we go on water: I about to send off my water for complete testing. I plan two tests: 1) The TWW water (a gallon of RO water from a supplier, mixed with a TWW packet) after mixing but before being filtered by the Lelit filter. 2) TWW water, after filtration through a Lelit filter. For Test 2, I plan to fully purge the steam and brew boilers by running hot water until it stops (with pre-infusion off). And then use the hot water wand to get the required 1 litre water sample for the test. I presume that my sample will end up as 1 litre of fully Lelit filtered water only. There cannot be any water from “contaminate” sources in this Test #2 sample, such as any water that may enter via the unfiltered OPV hose. So, am I OK with using the hot water wand to source this test water? If not, I will find a way to pump my TWW water through the Lelit filter for Test 2. FYI, I have been using the Lelit filter on the TWW water because I do not currently have information on it's calcium and overall hardness, and because @"DavecUK"#1 sternly warned me of the many Lelit system consequences of not doing so. :) However I suspect that the Lelit filter is removing minerals that beneficially contribute to taste. The water tests will provide clear water chemistry information on TWW water, before vs after Lelit filtration. I can then use this information to find the best balance between Lelit machine protection and water taste. PS I do fully purge all boilers once per month and also run 50 ml through the hot water tap and 25 mo through the grouphead, before my morning espresso shot.

> @"JHCCoffee"#p27689 For Test 2, I plan to fully purge the steam and brew boilers by running hot water until it stops (with pre-infusion off). And then use the hot water wand to get the required 1 litre water sample for the test. I presume that my sample will end up as 1 litre of fully Lelit filtered water only. There cannot be any water from “contaminate” sources in this Test #2 sample, such as any water that may enter via the unfiltered OPV hose. To drain the steam boiler, you can use the water tap yes, but you must make sure that: * ev=1 in advanced settings; * The steam boiler is is on, and temperature is as high as you can, say, 140C; It will never drain fully. So, no matter what, there will be water left over there. As for the brew boiler, to purge you should draw approx. 500ml of water. I don’t understand your last sentence quoted above. The OPV (expansion valve) returns water from the brew circuit back to the tank. If you don’t want to do that, simply put that hose into a container outside the tank. There’s no water going into the hose. Only coming out of the hose. > @"JHCCoffee"#p27689 and also run 50 ml through the hot water tap and 25 mo through the grouphead, before my morning espresso shot. I understand drawing water through the hot water wand - although 50ml is not good enough if the point is to keep the water refreshed in the boiler. It’s good practice though. As for drawing water through the group head, there’s no need and no benefit.

> @"JHCCoffee"#p27689 1) The TWW water (a gallon of RO water from a supplier, mixed with a TWW packet) after mixing but before being filtered by the Lelit filter. 2) TWW water, after filtration through a Lelit filter. I don't understand the point of carrying out this test. The Lelit filter is meant to reduce hardness and prevent scale if the water put into the tank is 'too hard'. It does that by capturing cations (Ca^++^ and Mg^++^) from the water, but Lelit (AFAIK) does not say what percentage, for how long the filter is effective, and whether it also captures other ions. If it performs a total cation removal (likely!), you end up having water just like you had after an RO process and adding some alkalinity through whatever TWW uses to produce it (citrates?). If the Lelit filter somehow (magic?) removes only parts of the cations, then the same result can be had simply by adding half (or a third/quarter/whateverth) of a TWW sachet (or one sachet to two gallons) to your RO water and supplementing it with other alkalinity-generating salts if necessary; why use another filter? The effect on taste you can verify quickly (to some extent - human memory for taste isn't brilliant, usually); the effect on scaling and/or corrosion would require long-term testing with a consistent water formulation over weeks if not months. The TWW formulation is supposed to be non-scaling, too, so the concern should be less than with other remineralisation formulas. If you really want to have lab tests done on TWW and on whether it scales or improves flavour or not, you are much better off asking for a quali/quantitative analysis of the TWW formula, rather than monkeying about with an intermediate filter.

I'm also confused about your plans to test the water…. > @"JHCCoffee"#p27689 FYI, I have been using the Lelit filter on the TWW water because I do not currently have information on it’s calcium and overall hardness, The calcium alone doesn't matter. The TWW give you Calcium and Magnesium, the hardness of these two expressed as CaCO3 is what you need to know. A freshwater API drop test kit will tell you the hardness of the water in mg/l as CaCO3. You also need to know alkalinity from carbonates, which unfortunately the drop test kit will not tell you as TWW use both citrate and bicarbonate to get alkalinity and citrates have a different titration endpoint, so you can't use the drop test kit effectively…..though TWW offer different sachets so maybe they don't for the one you're using - ingredients will be listed. Pulling water through the steam boiler is not a good idea. Put a blank disc in, run a shot as if you're backflusing, and collect a sample from the return hose on the OPV. Though this is the part that confuses me as I don't understand why you're going to the trouble of getting RO water and TWW sachets AND then filtering it. I'll be surprised if the Lelit filter is doing anything more than replacing Ca and Mg with Na. I think Coyote has a good idea above requesting an analysis of the sachet contents rather than the result after adding it to RO water, unless maybe the RO water is totally pure and you can get a cheaper analysis of a water sample.

Thanks all. Appreciate your comments and suggestions. I was just curious as to what TWW does to the water chemistry, in this case RO water. I could have the TWW powder tested, but: a) it would be alot more expensive to do, and b) it would not show the water chemistry end result, namely the chemistry of TWW when it is mixed with the RO water produced here in Toronto (I currently buy the RO water, as I have not yet set up an RO system in my home; it’s something I would need my wife to agree to, especially as it would take up cupboard space). I have been using the Lelit filter out of pure nervous caution (given DaveC’s admonition about potential Lelit system impacts, apparently not just scaling but also on sensors and valves, etc.). But I agree that if the TWW treated RO water has (after testing) a reasonably safe chemistry, it might be preferable to use that TWW water without a Lelit filter than with one. IF I prefer the taste (assuming I can detect a taste difference) from say BWT filtered water or other water options. Fyi, I had earlier made my own water using a recipe provided by one of the espressos pundits (Grind Science), which included calcium carbonate and sea salt, which I thoroughly dissolved in carbonated RO water (using a soda stream carbonation device) and then let sit for a day, to let any undissolved powder settle. I then mixed this with RO water to achieve a TDS target, and filtered that through a BWT filter to remove any undisolved powders and to add magnesium (which apparently the BWT filter does). I targeted a TDS (after filtration) of about 165. Grind Science said the recipe results in 100 to 200 ppm total hardness, including 60 to 120 calcium hardness (ppm?) and 40 to 80 ppm magnesium. It apparently had a PH of 6.5 to 7.5. So they said. It did then taste pretty good (according to my notes); I had liked the mouthfeel and preferred it to BWT filtered tap water. Then my Breville DuoPro died of supposedly unrelated causes, and I bought the Lelit. I do wonder about the merits of this particular water recipe vs its unfiltered risks (ie without Lelit filter). However using TWW packets is much much easier.

> @"JHCCoffee"#p27771 But I agree that if the TWW treated RO water has (after testing) a reasonably safe chemistry, it might be preferable to use that TWW water without a Lelit filter than with one. IF I prefer the taste (assuming I can detect a taste difference) from say BWT filtered water or other water options. If you are buying RO water already - assuming this is for safe human consumption rather than other purposes - why not just add some sodium bicarbonate to the water as per instructions in this forum and completely ditch the Lelit filter? I’m assuming you are using your current tap water with the Lelit filter. As said before, I don’t get the idea to use the Lelit Filter with water you are effectively making yourself. Short of replacing magnesium and calcium ions with sodium, what’s the point? Seems a very expensive and wasteful way to go about things. But if that’s what you want to do… > @"JHCCoffee"#p27771 I have been using the Lelit filter out of pure nervous caution (given DaveC’s admonition about potential Lelit system impacts, apparently not just scaling but also on sensors and valves, etc.). Lelit filters are not magical nor Lelit has some special machine system. The filter is a filter, and the Lelit machine is an espresso machine. Use hard water with an espresso machine and it will eventually be damaged. The more complex a machine is (e.g: a dual boiler) the higher is the likelihood of getting damaged as it has more pipes, paths, restrictions and valves. When one gets clogged up, the machine is effectively broken. For instance, if you compare it to something like a Gaggis Classic which is a lot simpler, it’s a relatively easy thing to simply descale the machine every so often.

If you wanted to test your water, some marine aquarium companies offer ICP testing for ro water like Triton, you buy a kit and send it away

@"JHCCoffee"#p27771 If you know what is in the TWW and you can get an accurate measure of the contents in mg/l or eveb just % of total mass then you can easily calculate the composition of the water and understand exactly what you're adding. Surely the RO water comes with some kind of spec sheet, if not the company producing it should be able to tell you what is left over. The grind science recipe makes no sense at all to me. If you want Mg in the water you can use Magnesium hydroxide instead of calcium carbonate. If you want some Ca you've got a choice of a number if different salts, most common being Calcium chloride. You could also just dissolve both Calcium carbonate and Magnesium hydroxide together. You can get sodium from sodium chloride or sodium bicarb easily. Filtering water remineralised to contain Calcium bicarbonate to exchange some Ca with Mg is a bit wasteful/inefficient and guarantees inconsistency. TDS really doesn't matter and exchanging Ca for Mg doesn't stop scale, you just get magnesite instead if limestone.

Accurate Water Testing Kits

CoyoteOldMan

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.

JHCCoffee

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.

CoyoteOldMan

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.

CoyoteOldMan

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.

JHCCoffee

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.

LMSC

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.

CoyoteOldMan

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

Be careful… readings depend on temperature, the type of ions dissolved, all sorts of stuff… While 28 ppm is relatively high for something coming out of a domestic RO system, it is not a highly mineralised water in general. No matter what the 28 ppm are, it’s quite unlikely to scale in a normal use for coffee making (although if you use it to steam, you will still need to flush the boiler every so often as steam boiler water dissolved minerals will get more and more concentrated).

JHCCoffee Do you end up with a TDS that is close to your suggested < 10 ppm, using that filter?

My range goes from 0 to 6 on the ZeroWater TDS meter (nothing special, but at least I checked its calibration, and I know it’s reasonably accurate for 25 - 200 ppm NaCl at 20-25 °C) - then I change filter!

JHCCoffee Any thoughts on BWT?

I haven’t used them - so this is what I understood from their website: they don’t provide any real technical indication of what they actually do. I assume you are using one of the ‘softening’ filters, rather than the ‘mineralising’ or ‘alkalizing’ ones.

“Limescale reduction” means SFA - what % of limescale-generating salts is the filter eliminating or substituting? With what? Probably they contain a ion-exchange resin that replaces Ca and Mg ions with Na ions; what percentage of ions are exchanged in not known, but not 100% (otherwise why would they have two ‘strengths’?). The ZeroWater filter strips all ions, and doesn’t replace them with anything else. The BWT may produce better tasting drinking water, since they are aimed at that; the Zero is aimed at producing water with minimal mineral content for use in steam irons, coffee machines and other applications where de-ionised water is used.

JHCCoffee I enjoyed the body of espresso with the water at 160 TDS to as high as 200 TDS

The problem is that “TDS” means nothing (or very little in the context). 160 ppm of kitchen salt does not have the same effect on taste of 160 ppm of potassium bicarbonate or magnesium sulphate - or potassium bicarbonate AND magnesium sulphate. Alkalinity is at least as important a modifier of coffee taste as the amount of Ca or Mg. FWIW, the “R Pavlis” water can be in that range (for a KH of 70-80), and the “sulphate + citrate” recipe I posted above is over 200…

MWJB

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

Different tools for different jobs, if you have moderately hard water the BWT Mg2+ filter might make it suitable without further treatment (check with a drop kit). Zerowater will need remineralising.

Rob1

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This is the TWW espresso recipe quoted above if you put it into an imperial gallon of water. TWW want you to put it in a US gallon which is about 20% less water.

There’s no accounting for the sodium from the TWW sachets as their listed ingredients are Magnesium Sulphate, Calcium Citrate, and Potassium Bicarbonate. It looks like the amounts have been tweaked slightly, maybe they realised they get alkalinity from citrate and sulphate (not calculated) and reduced the bicarbonate by almost 50%.

It might be worth just using Calcium citrate and Magnesium Sulphate to remineralise some water and then titrate the sample down to a pH of 4.5. Citrate provides alkalinity below this but as it’s acidic I think that’s missing the point when it comes to making coffee and taking care of machines.

So where the Na and Cl come from in your analysis? Likely the RO water itself. Possibly put through a salt softener before RO giving it high Na and Cl slipping through is normal.

JHCCoffee

Thanks all for your constant advise and support. It’s sincerely appreciated! It’s great that we can just help each other out. No questions are too small, no egos to big to answer them. Everyone is polite, considerate and helpful. I cannot say this about some other home barista related sites I have been on. Thanks again.

As a result of my recent TWW water chemistry test and your excellent advise, I’m ceasing use of the TWW powder. And I am ditching my RO water supplier. I’ve ordered a ZeroWater pitcher, a decent quantity PH meter and a Total Hardness water test kit (titration). I’m now reading up on all things water (via BaristaHustle) and will soon be in a position to make decisions on the water recipes I wish to try.

All good.

Rob1

JHCCoffee You’ll need an alkalinity test kit too. pH isn’t alkalinity. You can usually buy hardness and alkalinity test kits together.

JHCCoffee

Thanks Rob1.

What type of Alkalinity test kit do you use? I’ve seen test strips and dials, a meter by Hanna and I am betting I’ll find a titration kit. The Hanna seems good, but you still have to buy the reagent, so the total cost of that route is getting pricey.

CoyoteOldMan

JHCCoffee This is a good, relatively inexpensive kit available on Amazon US:

Cross-posted with Rob.

Rob1

I use this

Verion

Has anyone had good luck with the NT Labs KH/GH test kit version which is around £6.99 from Pro Shrimp?

LMSC

Verion NT Labs KH/GH test kit version

Please tell us how you got on !😃

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