What Espresso Water Recipes Do You Prefer, When?

JHCCoffee

MWJB

You and the other members of this Forum are a very knowledgeable group indeed. Just sharing what I saw. Thanks again.

JHCCoffee

Rob1

Thanks Rob1.

Just curious. Why the magnesium hydroxide vs:

Epsom salt (MgSO4•7H2O) ie magnesium sulfate heptahydrate
Magnesium Chloride - MgCl2•6H2O (hexahydrate)

Any particular reason?

I have the 2 I listed above, but not magnesium hydroxide. Can I / should I use one of those in your recipe or would that be significantly inferior? Happy to order some magnesium hydroxide.

CoyoteOldMan

JHCCoffee Some people don’t like the taste of sulphate, and chlorides are potentially corrosive (esp. for copper).

Bear in mind that 1) hydroxides (and oxides) of Ca and Mg are strongly corrosive, and 2) you need to carbonate the water using a SodaStream or similar to dissolve them with the right chemistry to create alkalinity suitable for coffee making.

Most of the chemicals mentioned are cheap - buy some and experiment with cupping or Turkish coffee before you decide what you want to do with espresso.

Taste is personal; “inferior” or “superior” is a subjective judgement - the SCAA recommendations are as much about providing a consistent experience for the judges as they are about getting ‘good water for coffee’ and they almost completely disregard any ‘maintenance’ or ‘equipment life’ aspects. For professionals, tools are rarely lasting a lifetime, and maintenance is part of the job. For householders/consumers it’s a different story.

JHCCoffee

CoyoteOldMan

Interesting …. @Rob1 may weigh in when he has a moment.

For the moment, I’m using your suggestion of ZeroWater with 80 mg/litre of potassium bicarbonate and have ditched the Lelit filter. And I just started using the ZeroWater jug. I love that it’s giving me actual or close to 0 ppm TDS (measured 0 ppm on their TDS meter vs 1 ppm on another). And no more trips required to the water shop or storing glass gallon jugs. :)

Compared to the RO water that I was buying at 28 ppm. Darn water shop was pushing the limit on their filters and playing on peoples ignorance (including mine)!

CoyoteOldMan

JHCCoffee How does the coffee taste?

MWJB

CoyoteOldMan the SCAA recommendations are as much about providing a consistent experience for the judges as they are about getting ‘good water for coffee’ and they almost completely disregard any ‘maintenance’ or ‘equipment life’ aspects.

There is no requirement for competition judging with the SCAA water specs, they are broad, objective targets and aimed at equipment life. The water at international coffee competitions (e.g. Melbourne & Rimini) often falls outside the SCAA, SCAE, Water for Coffee ideal zones. US ground water (_30mg/L Ca, 10mg/L Mg as ion) averages up a tiny bit softer than UK water (_45mg/L Ca, 12mg/L Mg), but US water can be way more diverse at the tails of the bell curve.

CoyoteOldMan

MWJB aimed at equipment life.

With the specs of GH and KH they put out, I would frankly disagree they are, in a consumer environment.

MWJB

CoyoteOldMan At or close to 40mg/L alkalinity, 17 to 87mg/L total hardness, plus mentions of odour free, sodium content etc.

So basically water, just targeted around 40mg/L alkalinity.

I don’t understand the bit about consumer environment? They don’t sell water and publish the specs and many others as free to view.

JHCCoffee

CoyoteOldMan
Good point! That’s what its all about.

Unfortunately I: a) just started to try out a new basket (IMS 15g vs 18g previously), and b) ran out of my usual go to coffee, so will just today start dialing in a new bean. So I’ve been/will not yet be able to determine the taste impacts of my current vs prior water. Will just be using my new water (the 0 ppm TDS RO with 80 ppm potassium bicarbonate) and may experiment by adding magnesium of some kind.

But it is a good thing that I changed from my prior water. To refresh your memory my prior water was TWW powder in RO water (from that store that I am now boycotting) at a too high 28 ppm TDS. I just ran my prior water’s test results through a Langalier Index calculator, which showed negative 0.2 on their scale, which is clearly too corrosive. The Marzocco water app stated that this water was/is: “Balanced but pitting corrosion possible in presence of chlorides”.

Not sure whether the Lelit filter I ran this water through would have removed the chlorides or not. Fortunately I fully tested that water, discovered how bad it was and am now running much safer water through my machine.

CoyoteOldMan

MWJB No, sorry, I was unclear (and possibly misunderstanding things as well - certainly in terms of the ‘objectives’ of the standard: they put a strong emphasis on ‘taste’ and ‘coffee quality’, more so in the 2009 ‘Standard’ than in the much more extensive Handbook).

What I meant by ‘consumer’ is simply that people using an espresso machine as a professional tool (I hate using the word ‘barista’ - it doesn’t mean that!) generally have a greater understanding and willingness to perform necessary maintenance vs. the average consumer. Nothing to do with the commercial aspects of selling water (or coffee).

While SCA still refer to the SCAA 2009 standard in the 2018 “Water Quality Handbook” (latest I could find), they seem now to recommend a much larger range of GH:

Figure 7 summarizes existing recommendations (Leeb and Rogalla, 2006; Rao, 2008; Colonna-D. and Hendon 2015; SCAA, 2009) for optimal water composition for extraction from a sensory perspective. It is important to note that the recommended range for optimum hardness varies widely:

•Lowest suggested optimum is 51 ppm CaCO3 (2016 WorldBrewers Cup).

•Highest suggested optimum is 175 ppm CaCO3.(Colonna-Dashwood and Hendon’s Water for Coffee)

My personal opinion is that while the ‘old’ SCAA standard of GH 17 - 87 is relatively low-risk for scaling (though it will scale, in service boilers), a 51-175 range is decidedly on the high side, particularly for the average consumer (which is not the average forum user, never mind those participating in this discussion).

MWJB

CoyoteOldMan My personal opinion is that while the ‘old’ SCAA standard of GH 17 - 87 is relatively low-risk for scaling (though it will scale, in service boilers), a 51-175 range is decidedly on the high side, particularly for the average consumer (which is not the average forum user, never mind those participating in this discussion).

Sorry, when you said “SCAA” spec I only considered the 2009 recommendations, as following recommendations were instigated by different bodies and authors.
SCAA still available here:
http://www.scaa.org/?d=water-standards&page=resources

Wellinger, Smrke, Yeretzian working for the the SCAE narrowed down the GH to a max 75mg/L at 40mg/L alkalinity to 110mg/L at 60mg/L alkalinity in 2016. Colonna-Dashwood and Hendon’s higher GH limits were cited by the SCAE (before joining up with the SCAA and forming SCA), but not a final recommendation by SCAA, SCAE, nor SCA.

Rob1

JHCCoffee The filter almost certainly won’t catch chlorides. RO doesn’t completely remove chloride.

For your earlier question: I tried Magnesium sulphate and didn’t like it. Would not add chloride to water with my 316l steel boilers. Even below 10ppm chloride has been associated with stress corrosion cracking and pitting in 316l steel boilers when water is evaporated (as in a service boiler environment). The langelier index is only useful to 80c, much lower than a service boiler or even brew boiler. The formula on my spreadsheet is from Jim Schulman’s FAQ and is adjusted for a greater temp range….even so, get alkalinity to about 50mg/l and I don’t think there’s much to worry about by way of corrosion.

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

—

Or the longer version….

1.439679078g Mg(OH)2 in 500ml water with 2.172886238g CO2
5ml to 995ml = 6mg/l Mg (24.70773092mg/l as CaCO3) and 24.68627854mg/l alkalinity.

10.96254731g NaHCO3 in 500ml for the second concentrate.

5ml to 2995ml = 21.74953239mg/l Alkalinity and 10mg Sodium

—

The CO2 you need in practice is significantly more than calculated because you can’t get it all into the water and you can’t make it all react before it leaves. I use an Isi whipper with the CO2 cartridges.

You might want to make more or less concentrate and alter the amounts of brew water you’re making up….

JHCCoffee

Rob1

Thanks Rob1. All good suggestions. My chlorides and sulphates are now being returned to Amazon as we speak. Will find and order Magnesium Hydroxide instead.

Not sure how to deal with the CO2:

the ISI whippers are $100 to $200 Cdn, depending upon size. So abit expensive for me. I’d rather put that money towards an eventual Lelit Bianca, when I move my Elizabeth to the cottage. :)
If I did manage to find a used one, or an alternative, how do I measure and get exactly 6 grams of CO2 into the water? Are there 6 g cartridges? I take it that that I would dissolve all of the CO2 into the concentrate.
Is the CO2 simply being used to help dissolve the magnesium hydroxide, or is it part of the water chemistry?
If it is simply being used to dissolve the magnesium, could I use a SodaStream (as I have one)? However I cannot measure or control the amount of CO2 it dispenses. You simply press the lever until it buzzes. The water is then fully carbonated, with an undefined amount of CO2. Would that be a problem? It would be, if the chemistry needs a precise amount of CO2.

Sorry about my ignorance on this. Thanks for your help and patience.

Rob1

What you use is really up to you, why not try magnesium sulphate and see if you like it? Or just try sodium or potassium bicarb alone?

You can use the soda stream. To be honest I’m not sure if carbonating before or after the magnesium hydroxide is added is best. You don’t want any bubbles left in the water when you’re using the concentrate so shake it, stir it or whatever, just get the excess CO2 out once all of the magnesium hydroxide is dissolved. You might have to carbonate more than once.

There’s nothing magic about my recipe, you’ll still have to flush the service boiler and refill with “softer” water, which in my case is just distilled…

JHCCoffee

Rob1

Thanks Rob1 !

I might be wrong, but I understand that with the Lelit Elizabeth I cannot independently flush the steam or brew boilers. To flush, you run the hot water wand until it stops running. What you end up with (in your measuring cup or beaker) is the full contents of the brew boiler, followed by the contents of the steam boiler.

Both are served by the same water supply. So if I purge using ZeroWater or distilled water, I end up with that new water in both the brew and steam boilers, which would then not be the water that I want to permanently have in my boilers or brew with. So I would then have to purge a second time with my actual water recipe (inclusive of the potassium bicarb and the magnesium hydroxide).

All good. If I end up liking adding the magnesium and it is better/safer to initially purge with soft water, such as ZeroWater, and then repurge with my water recipe (bicarb and magnesium) then I will just do that.

So question: do I need to do the above described double (twice) purge, to avoid scale.

Rob1

No, I would only use bicarb in a small boiler. My recipe is fine below 135c but the Elizabeth’s service boiler can (and probably does out of neccesity? run hotter). You’d not be able to effectively flush and there’s no point flushing with distilled and then filling with remineralised.

JHCCoffee

Rob1

Thanks Rob!

I have the service boiler set to 135 C. I could dial it back to 130 C.

And yes, I have heard that the service boiler never quite flushes completely, though I suppose that the “origonal” water is eventually replaced or diluted through repeated flushing.

We want to avoid scaling and corrosion. However if adding magnesium improves flavour, I would consider doing that as long as I can avoid scaling and corrosion (pitting).

So, bottom line, would using your formula (ie adding the magnesium to the potassium bicarbonate) be safe, if we run the service boiler at say 130 or 135 C and flush regularly (say once every 2 weeks?) ??

Or too risky and just use the bicarb?

Rob1

No, two weeks wouldn’t be often enough. Bicarb only. Alternatively try alkalinity from non carbonate sources.

JHCCoffee

Rob1 Alternatively, try alkalinity from non-carbonate sources.

Any recommendations on this?

JHCCoffee

Rob1

Just curious. With your formula (the magnesium and bicarb in ZeroWater), what PH and TDS are you getting?

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