Retested my water today after adding the additional sodium bicarbonate. It was 10 drops until the 20ml of water turned yellow = 179 /4 = 44.75 mg/l. Think my water is good to go just in time for Minima delivery tomorrow.
Bottled Water and Descalling Espresso Machine
Can I ask a water related question (without starting a new thread).
What is the best way to improve water quality from the tap without using bottled water? (No budge on that wife is adamant) Or is there even any point?
My water quality is surprisingly good (or so I’m told by someone on another forum) 38.7 - max 140 with an average reading of 75.6 CaCO3 m/l taken from 10 samples. (40-80mg/L alkalinity they said)
Frothbewithyou Your water seems pretty good, if you wanted to monitor it & keep it in a certain range you could either filter it with/cut it with BWT Mg+ filtered water if necessary.
Best to ascertain what it actually is with a drop kit.
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Frothbewithyou It’s worth mentioning there’s a lot of other stuff in tapwater that ideally needs removing. Chlorine, Flouride, particulates, sometimes the river water smell. Quality varies throughout the year.
I’ll invest in a drop kit and go from there 💪👌
LMSC You’ve just asked a very timely question and similar to what I was looking for. I’ve had a chat with the friendly people at Osmio who recommended the zero after stating my needs as was also looking at under sink filtration. Would I need to do anything to the water coming out of the zero or can I just pour straight into my Minima?
We use a Brita filter jug for our drinking water and go through maybe ⅚ larger drinking bottles of water a day so want it to be for drinking water/juice as well as the Minima, despite the wife thinking I only care about my coffee machine now and not our health lol. I’m hoping the mineralisation cartridge would be sufficient as really want a hands-off water solution. I’d like to not be on bottled water for long term with plastic wasteage and all that jazz.
LMSC Do you keep the mineralisation catridge on the Osmio Zero? Like in your case, it feeds the coffee machine, serves the kitchen and drinking. The catridge improves the taste of the RO as a drinking water.
I do, it doesn’t add back much…but it’s enough.
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I am currently using a zero water filter jug, which I suspect will give the same water as reverse osmosis. I am adding some sodium bicarbonate to raise the alkalinity. I am adding 320mg to 5 litres of zero water which brings the alkalinity into the right zone (I think it is suggested you need to add something like 67mg of sodium bicarbonate per litre of zero water if you wanted to make up less.
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Interesting recipe!
I use tap water (250 TDS before filtering), the Zero filter and an 8L Kilner jar with a metal tap. I add 0.7g of Sodium Bicarbonate per 8 litres (0.0875g/L) and 1.6g of magnesium per 8L (0.2g/L), this gives me a TDS of around 110 (my aim is to stay between 100 & 140). Water tastes great for drinking and coffee, I arrived to the amount of Sodium Bicarbonate and Magnesium by adjusting until it tasted right to me (& my better half). We’re two in the house and the jug will last about 3-4 days, Zero filter lasts about 20-25 days.
How do you decide when you need to descale?
Anyone know anything about these? Cheaper solution than the osmio zero!
JahLaza - that’s a distiller. A very different thing from the Osmio Zero.
It boils the water, the vapour is caught in a condenser. All the minerals are left behind, only water ends up on the other side.
The process is highly inefficient. It takes 5 hours to distil 3.5L of water.
You have to remineralise the water yourself as, it is, tastes of nothing (as distilled water should).
I only use a distiller because no one else in my household will drink from an Osmio Zero (they rather drink from the tap… go figure).