Hi All I searched this Forum for “water recipe” and did not have significant success. Searching for “water” has many (many) hits, but they cover a wide variety of topics. So at the risk of being repetitive, may I ask: What specific water recipe or recipes do you use for your espresso coffee? If more than one, which recipe in which situation? For each recipe may I ask: What specific compounds do you use (how many mg of x in 1 litre of RO water)? When do you use this recipe? (for which beans or roasts)? What is its impact on taste? Please be specific. What is its impact on extraction yield? What is its impact on scaling? On corrosion? PS Any particular suggestions for water recipes that work well for decaf?

What's 10% RO? Most people will use one recipe. It's not easy to change water in espresso machines with brew boilers, people who use an HX or something that doesn't have boilers like the flare may do it easily.

@"Rob1"#p28523 Thanks Rob1. Good point. By 10% RO I meant RO water at 10% TDS. In other words, water that is almost as pure as distilled water. Anyway I edited that out, to just refer to RO water. And so …. what’s your latest water recipe preference?

Changes in water chemistry have no effect on extraction yield, only flavour and scaling/corrosion potential. If the coffee has muted acidity drop the alkalinity, if it is overly bright, try more alkalinity (assuming nominal extraction & no other obvious faults.) Honesty, I would finalise your water then spend much more time & effort on the beans, grind & ratio, (Unless of course you are starting a business remineralising water for espresso?)

@"MWJB"#p28546 Thanks for the good comments and suggestions, MWJB. If you do not mind sharing, what water base and additives recipe do you use ? What do you like about it? As an FYI, I read (in Barista Hustle) that (all other factors being equal), increases in magnesium cause increased extraction. I’ll post the BH quote in a moment.

@"JHCCoffee"#p28559 Correction: Increases in water hardness produce increases in extraction. A couple of recipes that I saw on BH targeted somewhat greater hardness, for use in espresso.

_“Pretty Hard Water: 35.1 g buffer 126.1 g magnesium concentrate 838.9 g distilled/ultrapure water This recipe begins the ascent in water ‘hardness’, probably better suited to espresso. It is also a good choice of water for filter coffee recipes that require a very short contact time. This is starting to grab a lot out from the coffee, so brew recipes would need need to either slow down or speed up the brew time, via grind adjustments, and shorten or increase your beverage weight. Dependent on the roast, somewhere along those two spectra you’ll find something tasty.”_ And this: _Hard AF Water 45.2 g buffer 176.8 g magnesium concentrate 778.0 g distilled/ultrapure water This recipe pushes the mineral level to a point where_ you’re basically cranking the amp up to 11. Your brew parameters from the earlier water recipes would need to change a lot here.

@"JHCCoffee"#p28562 We thought 2 days ago, if the memory serves right, you will not be using pure RO and instead get ZeroWater and re-mineralise? Has there been a change in thinking? https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/d/1105-accurate-water-testing-kits/52 Please get a view of the GH and KH of your pure RO first. You can then top up with bicarbonate and go from there. I would try reading some of the water threads posted on this forum.

@"JHCCoffee"#p28559 Don't bother posting the BH info on hardness & EY, it is wrong. I like coffee, I like the coffee to drive the flavour of the drink. I focus on this, whilst using water within the recommendations for good boiler water. At the moment I use a BWT jug because in one pass I get suitable water, with no remineralisation. Previously, I remineralised by mixing 0TDS water with tap water.

@"JHCCoffee"#p28539 As MWJB has said already, hardness has no effect on extraction. There's no evidence that water with a bit of calcium or magnesium extract more from coffee than distilled water. Blind taste tests are wildly inconsistent too, with the results of some showing coffee made with distilled water tasting best, calcium muddling flavours but tasting creamy, others showing calcium being the best and fruity, others showing magnesium being sweetest and most fruity and others still saying magnesium makes coffee too bright…you get the idea. In terms of EY there's no notable difference and tests using gas chromatography show no significant difference. The biggest factor affecting flavour is alkalinity. Hardness will affect how the water tastes. People report calcium gives water a creamier mouth feel, in my experience magnesium imparts a little sweetness. This is compared to distilled with bicarbonate only added. My espresso with magnesium and bicarb is a little sweeter than just bicarb but having not done side by side tests I cannot say for sure. I just use tap water to brew immersion or syphon as it is fairly ideal, so no comparisons outside of espresso either. I don't have my recipe to hand but I use Magnesium hydroxide in carbonated water to get a concentrate of Magnesium bicarbonate, and another concentrate that will give me Sodium Bicarb to get 10mg/l Sodium. The final brew water has about 45mg/l alkalinity from bicarb and 25mg/l Magnesium as CaCO3. Using water with about 50mg/l alkalinity is a good bet and will help prevent corrosion. Adding hardness means you will get scale in a service boiler eventually without some kind of flushing routines. You might want to get an alkalinity and hardness that doesn't scale in the brew boiler (hard to descale) but be happy with descaling the service boiler, or you might want to avoid any maintenance in which case just use bicarb.

@"LMSC"#p28565 Thanks LMSC. I just bought a ZeroWater filter, just delivered today, and will soon start using it. I just read that it reduces TDS by 99.6%, so the TDS of the end result will depend upon the TDS of your tap water. So probably more like 1% TDS. Will then remineralize it, using an appropriate water recipe.

What Espresso Water Recipes Do You Prefer, When?

MediumRoastSteam

JHCCoffee Fyi, I now run my service boiler at 250c

Do you mean 250F? That is 121C. There’s no detriment, apart from a lower pre-infusion pressure if you use steam pre-infusion. If you are happy with it, then all is good.

JHCCoffee

MediumRoastSteam

Sorry, yes 125C vs 135C previously.

Verion

My neighbour was talking about using these items to remineralise the water from his ZeroWater jug according to the Barista Hustle DIY water recipes.

Dr.Oetker Bicarbonate of Soda - https://www.oetker.co.uk/products/p/bicarbonate-of-soda
Elysium Spa Epsom salts - https://www.pakcosmetics.com/brand/elysium-spa/elysium-spa–/elysium-spa-original-epsom-salts.html

Do these items look right? I like my neighbour and I don’t want him to do an injury to himself just to minimise the scale in his machine.

JHCCoffee

Verion

So he/she will be remineralizing with:

Epsom salt - magnesium sulfate heptahydrate (MgSO4•7H2O)

Baking Soda - Sodium Bicarbonate (NaHCO3)

I suggest scanning this thread for posts by Rob1.

The epsom salts are apparently safe for human consumption, assuming that the product is pure with no additives and no other impurities. There are suppliers that sell food grade (UPA, if my memory serves me correctly) magnesium sulfate.

Fyi, Rob1 uses magnesium hydroxide, as he does not like the taste (or I suppose smell) of sulphate.

He also uses the sodium bicarbonate in his recipe, which apparently is quite safe for human consumption.

Please also see our conversation on the need for frequent and separate flushing of the brew and service boilers.

CoyoteOldMan

Verion The Dr. Oetker stuff is fine.

The Epsom Salt may be - it doesn’t say anywhere that it is food grade; cosmetic/pharmaceutical grade chemicals “for external use” sometimes contain residuals that are not good when ingested. Considering the amounts at play (mg in litres of water), it’s most likely OK. On the oher hand, I know this stuff is 4x the price, but for the sake of £6 every 20 years, I’d rather be safe than sorry:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290931025561

Verion

CoyoteOldMan

I’d have been worried if the Dr. Oetker stuff wasn’t suitable!

But it’s the non descriptive grade chemicals of the Epsom salts that I’m glad you’ve found an alternative. I’ll also tell him about the magnesium hydroxide if he doesn’t get on with the magnesium sulfate heptahydrate taste.

Rob1

JHCCoffee

If you only lose 20ml of water as steam every day for a week you’ll be fine flushing once per week. That’s for a service boiler at 121c with my recipe. Quite wasteful though. As I’ve already said, flushing RO won’t do anything if you just immediately replace it with the water in the tank. If you don’t then you’re pulling shots with RO. You need to know how much water you’re going to be using to make the steam, could well be more than 20ml.

CoyoteOldMan

Verion FWIW, if you are concerned about your neighbour hurting himself as he is not a chemist, I’d keep him away from hydroxides - it’s fairly corrosive stuff (Mg far less than Ca or Na or K, but still… enough to burn yourself chemically!)

JHCCoffee

CoyoteOldMan BTW, I wouldn’t put the Mg solution through another sodastream process; the idea is to have ‘just enough’ hydrocarbon ions to create Mg(HCO3)2 from the amount of hydroxide you added; if you add excess CO2 you end up with water that may be too acidic for optimal ‘coffee use’.

CoyoteOldMan @Rob1

Thanks CoyoteOldMan! Please see my below reply and questions. Sorry for the long post that follows! It took a number of words to explain what I am doing and address the issues.

Hmmm … My SodaStream comes with 1 liter bottles. But as per the recipe, I placed 500 ml zero water in the 1 liter bottle, and screwed the bottle into the SodaSteam unit. You then lift a top lever until the bottle fills with CO2 and the unit makes a buzzing sound, which is excess C02 escaping from the bottle. But it took ALOT of CO2 to fill the empty ½ liter of space in the bottle; the unit really is not meant to do that; you are supposed to fill the entire bottle to a top line. Anyway, interestingly the water did not fizz as much (as it usually does), probably because the CO2 enters the bottle from the top of the unit and did not immediately percolate through the water. Rather the gas filled the entire top half of the unit before it made contact with the water. I then placed the 1.44g of magnesium in the supposedly carbonated water. As it did not seem to be fizzing much, I ran the C02 into the bottle a 2nd time.

Sure went through alot of CO2! So I am thinking I will fill the bottle with 1 liter of distilled or Zero water and 2.88g magnesium hydroxide, to make 1 liter of that concentrate.

Should I ditch my current ½ liter batch of magnesium hydroxide? I am however guessing that not alot of CO2 was actually introduced into the water, as the water was not fizzing as much as it usually does. Still, I suppose I should ditch this batch, right?

BTW, I left this bottle (the ½ liter of concentrate in the 1 liter sodastream bottle) to sit overnight, so that any undisolved magnesium hydroxide would settle to the bottom of the bottle. I just inspected the bottle and see a very very small quantity of grains at the bottom if the bottle. Probably less than 0.1g. The water is barely fizzing (it is usually fizzing more), but I took of the bottle cap to let any residual CO2 escape.

Questions: what should I do if I see some magnesium hydroxide at the bottom of a bottle? For the current ½ liter concentrate (in the 1 liter bottle), I don’t think that I should or will run CO2 through it again. For a new 1 liter batch, do I: run the CO2 through it again (which as you say would result in excess acidity)? I think I should not.

Or alternatively I could filter the concentrate through a paper filter or a cloth filter or a metal filter, all of which I have used for making pour over. Is this a good idea?

Question: How long should I leave the bottle to degass and to allow any undissolved magnesium hydroxide to settle to the bottom?

Now I can/will test in any event test the acidity of the water, using my API test kit at 4X resolution, as you or Rob1 suggested, for greater accuracy.

Sorry for the long post! It took a number of words to explain what I am doing and address the issues.

Rob1

Magnesium Hydroxide is an irritant. Best use gloves. Rinse of skin quickly if it comes into contact but it’s not like caustic soda. The riskiest thing is probably inhalation or getting it in your eyes. It’s a very light powder that will just fly everywhere if you’re not careful.

JHCCoffee

Rob1 My short recipe is:

1.44g Magnesium Hydroxide in 500ml distilled water with 6g-12g CO2
10.96g Sodium Bicarb in 500ml distilled water.

2980ml Distilled water + 15ml Magnesium Bicarb concentrate and 5ml Sodium Bicarb concentrate gets you to

Hardness: 24.7mg/l
Alkalinity: 46.44mg/l

Hi Rob1. I been using the sodium bicarbonate recipe for a while, but thought I’d give your above recipe a try. I’m probably being abit thick, but I’m not quite clear on the recipe.

I just now made up a magnesium hydroxide concentrate with 1.44g Magnesium Hydroxide in 500ml zero water. I used my sodastream to add C02 to the water, and then added the magnesium hydroxide. And just for the heck of it, I put the concentrate through my sodastream a 2nd time. Its now sitting over night. Lets call this concentrate #1.

I presume that my next step is to make up a bottle of 10.96 sodium bicarbonate in 500 ml zero water. Lets call this concentrate #2.

So far so good.

Here’s where I get confused: Your post said:
“2980ml Distilled water + 15ml Magnesium Bicarb concentrate and 5ml Sodium Bicarb concentrate gets you to”

Does your recipe require two concentrates: #1 - the magnesium hydroxide concentrate, and #2 the sodium bicarbonate concentrate? Do I then mix 15 ml of concentrate #1 and 5 ml of concentrate #2, in 2980 ml of zero water, in order to get: Hardness: 24.7mg/l and Alkalinity: 46.44mg/l? Is this water then complete/ready?

BUT

It is your words: “15ml Magnesium Bicarb concentrate” that confuse my thick mind. Is this meant to be the combination of concentrates 1 and 2? Lets call this combined concentrate “the 1&2 combo”. And am I then to put this concoction in 2,970 ml of water, to which I would add a further 5 ml of “sodium bicarbonate concentrate”, which I presume is more of concentrate #2 (again).

Sorry to be muddled about this.

Thanks for your help, Rob1.

CoyoteOldMan

JHCCoffee By adding Magnesium (Mg) hydroxide to carbonated water you are effectively creating Mg bicarbonate (in solution - it doesn’t exist as a solid). That’s your #1 concentrate. You need 15 ml (grams) of that every 3 litres (kg) of overall solution.

Sodium (Na) bicarbonate exists as a solid, so you directly dissolve it in water. That’s your #2. You need 5 ml (grams) of that every 3 litres.

You then add 2980 ml (grams) of pure water: 2980 + 15 + 5 = 3000 which is your 3 litres. No pre-mixing, no additional ingredients.

BTW, I wouldn’t put the Mg solution through another sodastream process; the idea is to have ‘just enough’ hydrocarbon ions to create Mg(HCO₃)₂ from the amount of hydroxide you added; if you add excess CO₂ you end up with water that may be too acidic for optimal ‘coffee use’.

CoyoteOldMan

JHCCoffee Sorry - I may have caused more confusion with my remark re: not re-carbonating. If you are left with solids after mixing, then there wasn’t enough CO₂ dissolved in the water to combine with all the magnesium, so re-carbonating is actually the right thing to do; the risk is that you are left with a lot of excess CO₂ and that should be left to de-gas.

The idea is that the Mg(OH)₂ should dissolve completely in the carbonated water. The sodastream is supposed to inject “much more” CO₂ than water can dissolve at atmospheric pressure, which is why you get the fizz. Ideally you should have just enough CO₂ to dissolve the hydroxide completely and that’s it - which means no fizz, but also - more important for us - no solid residue.

Doubling the proportions may help, as then the gas pressure will be higher and more CO₂ will be dissolved in the water.

In other words: if after carbonation (and agitation) there is still Mg(OH)₂ in the water, then you can safely carbonate again. However, if the CO₂ pressure from the cartridge is too low to get enough gas dissolved in the water, it may take a lot of cartridges!

Do not filter if you have residues - the magnesium salt is supposed to dissolve; if it didn’t, it’s because there wasn’t enough CO₂ in the water. If you filter the residue, you won’t have enough Mg in the water!

How long to leave things for - I can’t tell you, as I don’t use this recipe, so I have no practical experience in it. I would imagine less than an hour.

JHCCoffee

CoyoteOldMan Rob1 @MediumRoastSteam @DavecUK

I know we’ve been through this before, so my apologies for being forgetful.

I’m going to give the magnesium hydroxide and sodium bicarbonate recipe a try. If I don’t detect a significant improvement in taste, I’ll go back to the sodium bicarbonate recipe.

But while I try this magnesium hydroxide recipe, or if I like it so much that I want to use it permanently, I want to completely mitigate any potential scaling or pitting risks. Fyi, I run the Lelit Elizabeth boiler at 135C. I pour 14 cappuccino shots a week (really do need to get out of that rut and try something different).

Every day I run about 70ml of water through the hot water wand, which I understand draws water from the service boiler. I recall reading that Dave said it is a good thing to do.

Once every 2 weeks, I turn the pre-infusion off and run the hot water until it stops. I understand from DaveC’s maintenance bible that this fully flushes the service boiler. I also run about 200 ml of water through the group head (though I sometimes forget to do that). No worries there, as I also fully clean the machine using a cleaning tablet and blind basket, and then rinse again using the blind basket, so I am betting that I am running the 200 ml through the machine just doing that. But I will try to make that 200 ml group head flush a habit.

A couple of questions:

I assume the concern is the risk of buildup of magnesium carbonate in the service boiler water. Will the flushing procedure (running the hot water wand until it stops) and also running 200 ml through the grouphead eliminate the increased scaling and pitting risk, compared to RO water with sodium bicarbonate?
Mr.Shulman, in his long espresso bible cited earlier in this thread, advocates flushing with RO water, to further dilute any mineralization that may have to the service boiler water. The same can be done for the brew boiler. However, as I will be brewing with the magnesium carbonate/sodium bicarbonate water, the RO water that I would be using for flushing will be replaced by the magnesium carbonate/sodium bicarbonate water, so as Rob1 observed, why bother. I guess that the only reason to bother with an RO water flush (using the hot water wand and then the grouphead) is that this RO water will “carry away” any mineralization that may build up in the service and brew boiler water. Not sure whether this idea (of an RO water flush) makes any sense. Does it?
I would then complete this flushing procedure every 2 weeks, but would do it every week if that is better. So once every week vs two? Thoughts?
The Lelit manual recommends a “descaling of the hydraulic circuit of the machine every year, by a specialized technician”. What would they do that is different than what I would do?
Anything and everything that I have read on this forum says to avoid descaling, right?

So, I will have to like this water recipe ALOT to go through all of the above once a week. And I will only do that if the result would be (through one a week flushing, vs once every 2 weeks currently) no significant increase in scaling and pitting risk, compared to my current RO water with sodium bicarbonate recipe.

Now … back to enjoying good coffee.

Rob1

Putting the concentrate in the fridge will help it along. Sounds like you should have just made a 1 litre batch of the concentrate with the sodastream. Maybe consider buying smaller bottles for future use if compatible…as above add CO2 until there’s no residue and the water is clear. It’ll be difficult to avoid having excess CO2 but it will leave the water, and as it’s a concentrate I’m not worried about the acidity carrying over significantly into the remineralised water. When the CO2 is gone alkalinity will be equal to the hardness.

MediumRoastSteam

JHCCoffee Once every 2 weeks, I turn the pre-infusion off and run the hot water until it stops. I understand from DaveC’s maintenance bible that this fully flushes the service boiler

What do you mean by turning the pre-infusion off?

CoyoteOldMan

JHCCoffee Will the flushing procedure (running the hot water wand until it stops) and also running 200 ml through the grouphead eliminate the increased scaling and pitting risk, compared to RO water with sodium bicarbonate?

No, it won’t eliminate it, though it will decrease it (and therefore decrease the ‘needed’ frequency of descaling).

JHCCoffee RO water will “carry away” any mineralization that may build up in the service and brew boiler water. Not sure whether this idea (of an RO water flush) makes any sense. Does it?

Magnesium carbonate is not really soluble in water, so any deposit of MgCO₃ that has already formed will stay. What the rinsing may do is to carry away any loose particles that are on the surface of any scale deposit. If you are only using bicarbonates in the water, I don’t see any reason to flush with RO water, though if you were to fill the service/steam boiler with pure RO water regularly and then use it for steaming, it would further delay the need for any descaling.

JHCCoffee So once every week vs two? Thoughts?

If you use Rob’s spreadsheet, it will give you a pretty good idea of the frequency of flushing/descaling (on the ‘Calculations’ tab).

JHCCoffee What would they do that is different than what I would do?

They would use an acid solution (probably citric acid) to dissolve any scale that has formed. What you are doing/planning is not so much de-scaling as trying to decrease the speed of scaling (possibly down to zero). Prevention rather than cure, so to speak.

JHCCoffee Anything and everything that I have read on this forum says to avoid descaling, right?

I don’t know what you have read on this forum - I haven’t read all of it myself 😉; I would say that descaling is not ideal as it seldom works perfectly and it doesn’t help with corrosion. Personally, I think descaling is also a faff, and I’m quite happy using a potassium bicarb-only formula, having tried with MgSO₄ and found that the taste difference (even if perceptible) is not enough in my opinion to warrant the faff.

JHCCoffee

MediumRoastSteam What do you mean by turning the pre-infusion off?

DaveC’s bible says, for safety, to do the flush using Button 1, with no pre-infusion. So I set my pre-infusion for that button at 0 seconds, if that is the right thing to do? In the advanced settings I have bloom pre-infusion on, at I think 5 seconds, but if I set Button 1 to 0 seconds on the main menu (not the advanced) I should have no pre-infusion, if I am right about that?

MediumRoastSteam

JHCCoffee - you are getting confused between draining the service boiler via hot water tap and backflushing. I’d advise you to re-read and re-watch the bible, chapter and verse. 😉

MediumRoastSteam

JHCCoffee In the advanced settings I have bloom pre-infusion on

If by that you mean EV=0, I’m not sure if the valve therefore will be open and allow water from the steam boiler to enter and mix in the brew boiler, where the water is always drawn from. It might do, but I never experimented to check that. If the EV doesn’t open, then you’ll be always drawing water from the brew boiler.

JHCCoffee

MediumRoastSteam you are getting confused between draining the service boiler via hot water tap and backflushing.

You are quite right! Back flushing doesn’t drain the service boiler. But I presume that it does remove some water from the brew boiler. I only meant to say that while DaveC recommends running 200 ml through the group head as a further preventive maintenance measure, I haven’t been doing that every week, as I should. But I do backlush atleast once a week, which is a good start.

No harm in rereading that maintenance bible though, when I have a spare moment.

« Previous Page