JimmyP I’ve already told you that higher alkalinity in brew water attenuates perceived acidity and contributes to body and less clear flavour definition. This is well understood in the beverage industry, not specific to coffee.

The effect on perceived acidity assumes that the acidity/acidic notes in the coffee in question is not due to under-extraction.

You can also brew with distilled water (for brewed & with your Flair - not with a machine with a boiler) then add total hardness & alkalinity to the brew with drops, like Lotus drops to see the effect.

      MWJB Sounds like a load of theoretical stuff that you’ve read 🤔👍

      Flair 58, Mahlkonig EK43, Kinu M47, 1zpresso ZP6.

      • MWJB replied to this.

          JimmyP Reading is great, you can learn stuff with it. Get a grown up to show you how some time.

              JimmyP La Pavoni has a boiler attached.

              That’s not what I asked. I am asking you why one is better (or worse) than the other. Can you explain?

                  MWJB I’m sorry if I’ve touched a nerve, it’s just I encounter a lot of secondhand opinions here that I don’t really trust 🙂

                  Flair 58, Mahlkonig EK43, Kinu M47, 1zpresso ZP6.

                    JimmyP did tell you buddy. Temperature management is the issue

                    Sorry. I wasn’t clear: could you please tell me, in simple words, why having a boiler attached is better, or worse, for temperature management?

                        MediumRoastSteam No need to apologise! 😅👍
                        Having a boiler attached makes temperatures less easy to manage. Multiple shots are a nightmare and I speak from experience!

                        Flair 58, Mahlkonig EK43, Kinu M47, 1zpresso ZP6.

                            JimmyP - thanks! one last question: I hear (and read) the Flair 58+, 58++, are hard to get to a higher temperature over 92C, 93C (unlike the Pavoni which seems to go crazy hot). Isn’t this true, specially as one need 94C or even 95C for lighter roasts?

                                MediumRoastSteam I’ve never felt limited by temperature when using my 58.
                                And I’m a big fan of light roasts 😎👌

                                Flair 58, Mahlkonig EK43, Kinu M47, 1zpresso ZP6.

                                  6 months later

                                  I am also looking to buy a Lelit Elizabeth.

                                  I currently own a Quickmill Verona 2B (on the excellent review by DaveC) and his similarly positive view on the Elizabeth.

                                  I live in London with very hard water. This is Thames Water’s declaration of my local water quality -

                                  https://water-quality-api.prod.p.webapp.thameswater.co.uk/water-quality-api/Zone/SLE25

                                  I do want to get away from their tap water - both from scale issues and taste.

                                  I do not want to use bottled water or counter top RO machines or under sink multi filtration filters.

                                  Rather I prefer to buy a water jug with filtration such as the Brita Marella with Maxtro Pro filters, which claim limescale reduction and impurity filtering to improve taste.

                                  I do experience sour (acidic) espresso frequently with medium or light roasts despite meticulous puck prep and using a Niche Zero grinder, but get good results with medium-dark and dark roasts. I suspect that may be because of the composition of London water? I wonder if Rob1 could comment on that?

                                  I would be grateful for advice on the best jug/filters to use for my London water for best taste results and limescale minimisation.

                                  • MWJB replied to this.

                                    • MMWJB

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                                    • Post #107
                                    • Edited

                                    jrling It would be good to know what level of softening the Maxtra pro can achieve, I doubt very much that it will get you into the boiler safe region (40-60mg/L Alkalinity), with your 215mg/L Alkalinity water (your total hardness is 282mg/L).

                                    Your acidic espresso is not down to water chemistry.

                                    Best advice is to get a KH/Alkalinity drop kit and test your filtered water.

                                    My hardness & alkalinity is similar to yours, I use a BWT Mg+ jug & filter for brewed I get the alkalinity down to 70mg/L which is still a bit high for an espresso boiler. The BWT Soft water cartridge gets me down to 36mg/L but seems to affect the taste adversely, I need to further test this.

                                    The most effective filter jug cartridge is the Culligan ZeroWater, but the jugs can stall with more than 600ml at a time and you need to cut the water with a mineral concentrate, or your raw tap water, to add alkalinity back in. You would mix 4 parts ZeroWater with 1 part tap water for 43mg/L Alkalinity & 57mg/L Total hardness.

                                      MWJB - that’s really helpful & thanks v much.

                                      I will give your tips a go and see how it goes.

                                      It’s shocking how high the alkalinity of 282 mg/L is from the tap and that certainly shows in the kettle/taps/sinks etc.

                                      19 days later

                                      I bought a BWT Mg+ filter jug and am very pleased with it.

                                      Various water testing devices are on the slow boat from China to check the effect on my hard water from using the BWT jug

                                      London water is horrendous. I used to use a Zero filter jug and remineralise tue water with sodium bicarbonate for my machine, but it got tiresome.

                                      Id strongly advise getting a Reverse Osmosis system - for drinking and cooking too.

                                        dutchy101 Id strongly advise getting a Reverse Osmosis system - for drinking and cooking too.

                                        The other huge reason I have used RO for almost 25 years is microplastics/nano plastics reduction. Not much we can do about what’s in the food we eat, but we do drink a lot of water, and that has been increasingly contaminated over the decades.

                                        Plus I don’t trust the water companies to tell us when something goes wrong, not immediately anyway.

                                        Contact me

                                          Yep. The TDS reading of my tap water has been north of 400 ppm before. This is it now:

                                          My RO unit takes it down to about 30