I've not got my machine yet (Minima), but will be getting it as early in 2022 as I can. My plan is to use Lockhills for the time being. I can't get into RO at the moment for a while host of reasons, but might do down the line (years, not months). Is Lockhills still considered okay for espresso machines (I know it isn't perfect)? It is a lot easier for me to get than Ashbeck. I also can't seem to find anything on how to descale a machine. I know the best advice is to avoid needing to, but I'm going to have to for a while. Is there a recommended approach/ process to follow? Cheers

It's probably the best bottled water. You'll need to descale the service boiler though, a fairly simple task however you do it (removing fixture or just filling with the pump).

Thank you for the quick reply @"Rob1"#171 , that's great. I like the idea of filling the service boiler directly and so not having the descalling stuff running around the whole machine. I'll give it some more thought whilst I am getting prepared.

> @"PortafilterProcrastinator"#p2194 I like the idea of filling the service boiler directly and so not having the descalling stuff running around the whole machine. I’ll give it some more thought whilst I am getting prepared. As long as you **don't engage the brew switch** until descaling is completely finished and the steam boiler refreshed with water a few times to remove all descaler, n**o descaler should enter the brew boiler…** It's easier than removing fittings…just takes a bit longer.

Thanks @"DavecUK"#p2204 Just so I am clear - do you mean you'd switch the brew and steam boilers on (leaving the brew switch well alone) put the descaler in the water tank, run the HW tap to then pull the descaler into the steam boiler, let it do it's thing, then flush with lots of clean water (through the HW tap) before brewing again.

@"PortafilterProcrastinator"#p2209 Yes, exactly

Got to admit I have only ever used Ashbeck, but still descale on a regular basis just as a matter of course. However, I would be interested to hear from other members here what they consider the best water (bottled) to be as far as keeping the scale issue to a minimum…Oh, and of course for taste.

@"PortafilterProcrastinator"#p2194 Should say really Lockhills will scale in the brew boiler too very slightly. Ideally, you could mix it with something to decrease alkalinity and hardness a bit more e.g. dow to 40mg/l alkalinity using something like a zero water jug, then it wouldn't scale the brew boiler. It's still the best IMO as I wouldn't use ashbeck. You'll avoid scale in the brew boiler as is with that one but it has low alkalinity (not great for taste). Adding potassium bicarb to ashbeck is an option too.

Thanks @"Rob1"#p2289 When you say > @"Rob1"#p2289 You’ll avoid scale in the brew boiler as is with that one but it has low alkalinity (not great for taste). Adding potassium bicarb to ashbeck is an option too. "As is with that one" - what do you mean? It sounds like you might be saying if I use Ashbeck and add potassium bicarb I'd avoid brew boiler scale and deal with the taste issue. But I am not sure that's what you mean.

@"PortafilterProcrastinator"#p2294 I mean 'as is' as in without adding anything to it but alkalinity is really low so you can get around it by adding potassium bicarb to avoid increasing sodium.

@"Rob1"#171, what dose of Potassium Bicarbonate would you add to a 5 litre bottle of Ashbeck ?

Bottled Water and Descalling Espresso Machine

Goodfella

Could you post a link to the drop kit suggested?

Ross

dutchy101

Sure - was this one:

From this thread, which I would recommend reading is quite a useful read too:

https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/d/118-water-calculator-scaling-potential-and-remineralisation

Rob1

@LMSC

The hardness in tap water comes from carbonate salts as the majority source. There may be some additional sources in there too but dropping alkalinity down by cutting with zero water is almost certainly going to reduce hardness down to the point scaling won’t occur. Hardness would have to be roughly double alkalinity for scaling at brew boiler temps (at 40mg/l alkalinity). There’s probably an exception out there I just don’t think I’ve seen it.

LMSC

Rob1 Hardness would have to be roughly double alkalinity for scaling at brew boiler temps (at 40mg/l alkalinity).

Thanks Rob. Is this generally the case for water in general or if this is zero water specific — because my question was zero water related.

How does this (hardness roughly doubling alkalinity) play for the service boiler please ?

MWJB Testing would mean destruction testing.

Thanks Mark! Sorry, didn’t quite understand this statement. Could you clarify please? 😊

When I said testing - I assumed drawing water from the boiler, letting it return to the room temperature and using drip kit to measure hardness.

Sorry, perhaps, I should have clarified! Thx

MWJB

LMSC Testing would mean destruction testing. I wouldn’t do that on my own equipment, so I use the consensus recommendations of people much cleverer than me, that have stood the test of scrutiny & review for 20yrs. :-) I have read every coffee related water paper I could find.

I prefer to keep my testing to things that don’t have catastrophic failure modes :-)

MWJB

LMSC Sorry, didn’t mean to be mysterious, to my mind testing which water is good, which corrodes to problematic level, and which scales to a problematic level means 3 machines equally fed with different water, one of which survives. My Dad has done the scale test on a Gaggia Classic & 260ppm hardness/190ppm alkalinity water, stripped it twice in 6yrs, now it’s a project machine in my spare room. :-)

I have tested water, boiled it, then retested and I don’t recall seeing a difference…even if there is, I’m not sure this is meaningful if we already know the relationship between hardness, alkalinity, pH, temp & LSI predictions (all based on incoming, ambient water).

Rob1

LMSC Thanks Rob. Is this generally the case for water in general or if this is zero water specific — because my question was zero water related.

How does this (hardness roughly doubling alkalinity) play for the service boiler please ?

I’m not sure what you mean by that really. Zero water is basically pretty close to pure, similar to RO. If you’re asking how long the jugs remain effective for I don’t know, but if you’re diluting to 40mg/l alkalinity all the time you’ll get consistent results you’ll just need to use more water from the jug as the filter wears out (the filter might not gradually stop working).

At service boiler temps it drops, say around 125c above approx 50mg/l hardness: 40mg/l alkalinity will scale.

If you pull water from a service boiler to test it, if scale is forming your test will always show the water as non-scaling afterwards. You can use a test to see if the water has more minerals compared to what you’ve been putting in, but you can’t determine when it started scaling and how much scale has formed without knowing how much water you’ve lost when steaming.

LMSC

MWJB Nicely explained ! Thank you.

Wow! your dad is a legend! I am not surprised water, brewing and stat have become your natural qualities.

I would never feed the machine with water having such levels of hardness and alkalinity. The only testing I have been doing since getting my Evo is a drop kit test for hardness and alkalinity of the re-mineralised RO water, which I regularly draw from the service boiler to find evidences of scale forming.

LMSC

Rob1

if you pull water from a service boiler to test it, if scale is forming your test will always show the water as non-scaling afterwards.

Not sure, this is clear.

Let’s say, I steam, switch the boiler off, the machine off and draw some water to test. The usual 20 ml each and standardise for 5 ml.

At room temperature, the kit shows 40.28 mg/l alkalinity and 11.2 mg/l of hardness.

This is where your excel is valuable. I put this in your excel, I know already the maximum hardness allowed in cell B24 is already higher than the value shown by the drop kit. I don’t have to adjust alkalinity and hardness in cells B16 and B17 to see how many mg/l of scale has already formed.

Rob1 how much scale has formed without knowing how much water you’ve lost when steaming.

Based on the above observation of the data, for the given steaming. I don’t need to know how much is lost in steaming, do I ?

I understand some water lost in steaming as it leaves the minerals as deposit. In my Evo, for example, I steam 350g of milk once a day. After steaming for about 35s, the pump has never kicked in, during the last 6 months, unless I open the hot water tap.

I remember Dave recently posting in another thread, the water lost in steaming is not significant, perhaps, 30 ml is lost in per steaming.

So, for scale to become an issue, we need to steam a few times a day, leave the water to sit in the boiler, not draw something out regularly and do not flush out the water and replace once in 5-6 weeks.

The bottom line therefore is not feeding the machine with the water, which will scale. Always draw a cup or more water out weekly and do a full flush once in 6-8 weeks — in machines like Evo, it will be a half flush. Of course, descale periodically, may be once in a year, depending on the frequency of use.

Cuprajake That’s costs a fortune! 😀

I am asking all this because, many might not feel comfortable to ask. Hopefully, posts / threads like these will be seen as an enrichment of knowledge, help folks understand the importance of feeding good water, take simple steps to minimise scaling; assuming these discussions are not seen as argumentative 😊

Cuprajake

When i had a marine tank i used to use hanna checkers for ph, alk, etc

Id bet they do a fresh water version to not cheap tho haha

Rob1

LMSC I understand some water lost in steaming as it leaves the minerals as deposit. In my Evo, for example, I steam 350g of milk once a day. After steaming for about 35s, the pump has never kicked in, during the last 6 months, unless I open the hot water tap.

I would find that really strange (unless you open the hot water tap every day or two). Maybe the evo just has a long refill and a deeper probe tip. On the Minima when I steam for about 15 seconds I’ll get a refill either the next morning when the machine turns on via timer or when I use steam again and the boilers cool down. Almost always get a refill when the boilers cool down/when the machine comes on first thing if turned off when still warm after steaming a larger quantity e.g 40 seconds of steaming.

The amount lost is small but it adds up quickly, especially when you are putting water in with hardness and alkalinity. With the Minima I fill the service boiler with approx 1700ml distilled water. Over the course of 4-5 weeks steaming approx 1 big jug a day (40 seconds of steaming approx) the boiler will need to be drained because from that point you’ll start to see scale building up.

The point I was making about testing water from the steam boiler is alkalinity and hardness reduce as scale is formed until scale stops forming, so no matter what happens when you test the water you’ll conclude it won’t form scale. Of course, you’ll see it’s right on the edge/just a little over limit. In your case, you can track how close it is to forming scale as alkalinity and hardness both rise over time, but you can’t perform a random test and know when it started to scale if it gets beyond that point.

LMSC So, for scale to become an issue, we need to steam a few times a day, leave the water to sit in the boiler, not draw something out regularly and do not flush out the water and replace once in 5-6 weeks.

Even doing this scale probably won’t be an issue for quite some time. I used Volvic in the old Expobar for months without descaling and didn’t have any issues.

Waitforme

@LMSC , “ At room temperature, the kit shows 40.28 mg/l alkalinity and 11.2 mg/l of hardness. “

What kit are you using ?

I do find this water stuff very interesting, and confusing !

LMSC

Waitforme This API kit

Eyedee

I find it majorly confusing and I though I was ok using 50/50 Volvic /Ashbeck, now I don’t know anymore.

Ian

MWJB

Eyedee You’re OK, don’t let it keep you up at night.

Waitforme

I also used a 50/50 mix but since last week I’m using Ashbeck with 0.2 gm per 5l of sodium bicarbonate to raise the alkalinity to approx 40mg/l

Rob1

Waitforme I also used a 50/50 mix but since last week I’m using Ashbeck with 0.2 gm per 5l of sodium bicarbonate to raise the alkalinity to approx 40mg/l

That’ll be 50mg/l in total.

LMSC

Rob1 Interesting and yet how quickly complexity this area can get.

Rob1 I would find that really strange (unless you open the hot water tap every day or two). Maybe the evo just has a long refill and a deeper probe tip

I manage this a little differently to yours.

I steam once a day. After steaming, I quickly steam out for a few seconds to get the milk out, switch off the boiler and machine and draw a cup. This is used for washing, etc. I do not see any value in testing this every day. I know I have drawn more than the water lost in per steaming. I switch on, the boiler fills which is roughly equivalent to what I drew out. It may have added an extra 20-30 ML

The Evo probe is 65% into the boiler.

Rob1 Over the course of 4-5 weeks steaming approx 1 big jug a day (40 seconds of steaming approx) the boiler will need to be drained because from that point you’ll start to see scale building up.

So, do you draw 1 jug (how much please?) every 4-5 weeks or a full reflush after a light descale every 5 weeks?

Rob1 The point I was making about testing water from the steam boiler is alkalinity and hardness reduce as scale is formed until scale stops forming, so no matter what happens when you test the water you’ll conclude it won’t form scale. Of course, you’ll see it’s right on the edge/just a little over limit. In your case, you can track how close it is to forming scale as alkalinity and hardness both rise over time, but you can’t perform a random test and know when it started to scale if it gets beyond that point.

Either this is over my head I will never understand or I am not sure I fully agree with you (i.e. “it won’t form scale”).

Because, there is water sitting inside the boiler. After steaming, the minerals are left behind. You draw a cup of water — before fill — and that water must show enchanted level of hardness or alkalinity. If your excel is to be believed, that result must show whether scaling is formed or the risk is higher now than before.

I have tested the drawn water daily for some time, then weekly and now monthly. The data points were consistent in terms of where the scaling and alkalinity were over these time intervals.

Of course, it was a remineralised RO water with bicarb added. It is therefore not surprising the data doesn’t show scaling risks.

IMO, that must be sufficient. It doesn’t have to be exact as we can never say when it started forming a scale - we need a real-time monitoring for that. We don’t need this as I believe a static measurement is more than enough, the user keeps track of the data collected over time - keeping the trend of the data intact.

Rob1 Even doing this scale probably won’t be an issue for quite some time. I used Volvic in the old Expobar for months without descaling and didn’t have any issues.

True! agree.

dutchy101

Reading this makes me want to cry. Checking water levels before I put it into the machine was enough but checking what comes out as well??? Lol

Grif

dutchy101 Reading this makes me want to cry

yup me too

Rob1 fill it with distilled water every 5 weeks

I was under the impression that would be corrosive….I can’t remember where I got that idea, presumably its not right?

Rob1

You don’t need to check what comes out at all, just drain the service boiler quite frequently and perform a light descale every six months.

Rob1

LMSC Either this is over my head I will never understand or I am not sure I fully agree with you (i.e. “it won’t form scale”).

Because, there is water sitting inside the boiler. After steaming, the minerals are left behind. You draw a cup of water — before fill — and that water must show enchanted level of hardness or alkalinity.

My entire point is if the water has got to the point scale forms you won’t see minerals concentrating. Scale is hardness and alkalinity coming out of the water in equal measure. You can test water that doesn’t initially scale and then track it daily to the point it is about to start scaling at your max temp, but you can’t just draw water off randomly and check to see if scale is going to form on the next use. You would have no way of knowing if you’d caught it at the moment it is just about to start or if it has been scaling for a month. It does sound like you understand that.

LMSC So, do you draw 1 jug (how much please?) every 4-5 weeks or a full reflush after a light descale every 5 weeks?

No, I was saying after 4-5 weeks of steaming 1 big jug (of milk) a day (so approx 40 seconds of steaming daily) scale would start to form in a boiler that was initially filled with 1.7l distilled water and only topped up with water ~30mg/l Hardness and 40mg/l Alkalinity. I don’t descale, I just drain the boiler and fill up with distilled water again. If I didn’t fill it with distilled water to start with you’d probably see scale developing in less than a week.

I don’t think it’s really useful to obsess over the service boiler for the majority of people out there. I wouldn’t if it weren’t convenient for me to just fill it with distilled water every 5 weeks rather than descale. My distiller produces just about 3.4 litres per run and I only use 3 to mineralise so that 400ml builds up and gets used for concentrates and the service boiler.

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