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.

      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.

      Contact me

        I’ll invest in a drop kit and go from there 💪👌

        8 days later
        7 days later

        @DavecUK

        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.

          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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                Alexvs

                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.

                    dutchy101 That’s a bit too much work for me and the wife already thinks I’ve lost it and obsessed with coffee. She’ll give in to the zero I think as read lots of users who just use the mineralisation filter and are happy with the water.

                      dutchy101 The Zerowater jug takes pretty much everything out of the water, more than RO (unless the RO is followed by DI resin filter). But it is much, much slower.

                        dutchy101

                        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.

                            Enea_

                            Do you put that in an espresso machine or just use it for immersion/pour over etc???

                            Alkalinity is 52mg/l and Hardness is approx 82mg/l assuming you’ve used Magnesium sulfate heptahydrate.

                                Rob1

                                I use it for my espresso machine. Haven’t had to de-scale in about 2 years. Use Epsom salts for magnesium. Do you think I need to adjust the recipe?

                                  How do you decide when you need to descale?

                                  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).

                                  • LMSC replied to this.

                                      yeah very true, they’re both very different systems alright.5 hours a bit of a wait but I think if one was just using it for the espresso machine it would be an ok solution, add some bicarbonate back in

                                      • LMSC replied to this.

                                        MediumRoastSteam no one else in my household will drink from an Osmio Zero (they rather drink from the tap… go figure).

                                        Wow!

                                        Did they drink the water from Osmio Zero before ? A couple of weeks, I would have thought any one to convert.

                                        My daughter rolled her eyes when she heard I had spent £350+. She became a big fan on day 1. My wife was terribly disappointed and wasn’t happy I had spent a lot of money for a water filter. After a week, she said the best investment we ever made! 😂

                                            JahLaza If you don’t want to spend money on Osmio Zero, consider Zero. You can add bicarb as some have done here.