Hello Guys, Planning to get Lelit Elizabeth and digging through all issues and recommendations. So the question is: if am gonna use bottled water with good quality ( hardness 65/ pH 7/ chloride 45ppm/ calcium 17ppm/ magnesium 6ppm/ tds 115). So do i need a water filter in the machine that am gonna buy? Or it's better not to use it? Does the filter eleminate necessary salts for a good coffee? Water filter that i mean is the lelit tank filter. Thanks Ibrahim

Welcome to the forum…. @"Rob1"#171 is our water expert…but from my perspective. The Lelit filter will reduce scaling . By how much (from new to old) and for how long probable depends on your current water

@"DavecUK"#p10481 Thanks man, appreciate the quick response. The plan is to use bottled water as long it's the best option I have. The point is will the filter reduce the quality of coffee if used (removal of balanced amount of salts from the bottled water)?

@"Ibrahim"#p10482 Some people think it does, others think it doesn't? You can find a good bottled water that won't scale due to composition, and perhaps not use the in tank filter at all.

@"DavecUK"#p10488 Thanks a lot for help dave

Hardness looks a little high, do you know the bicarbonate or alkalinity concentration? Chlorides are above LM recommended spec for boiler safety, which is quite a generous limit imo.

[URL=https://i.imgur.com/PMycURF.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/PMycURF.jpg[/IMG][/URL] @"Rob1"#p10652

@"Rob1"#p10652 here's a photo of that specific water brand. And thanks Rob 😊

You'll need to raise alkalinity to about 40mg/l, maybe more. Worth saying you might get away with less as plenty of people use ashbeck and enoy it. At 40mg/l it'll be slightly scale forming at service boiler temps (e.g 125c) due to the hardness present if the alkalinity comes from bicarbonate sources e.g. sodium bicarb, which is most commonly used to remineralise water by people using RO and DI water. It's far from ideal water for coffee as it is. You don't really need hardness, alkalinity will act as a buffer and reduce perceived acidity. If it is too low you can get sour coffee and the water can be quite aggressive for boilers. You have almost no alkalinity as it is. So in answer to your question the filter won't eliminate necessary salts for good coffee, it'll replace hardness ions of Ca and Mg with Na and leave the negligible bicarbonate unaltered. At brew boiler temps it'll be fine even up to 115c with alkalinity added up to 40mg/l even if you have a 20c offset to get 95c at the group….which you probably won't? The problem would be in the service boiler which you'll need to descale. Dave will know more about the Elizabeth specifically and how prone it is to problems from scaling and whether or not you even can just descale the service boiler as I'm not sure with the way the Elizabeth works. I wouldn't use this water in a 316 or 316l steel boiler though due to high chlorides, which a filter will not remove. Though you could use a filter to remove hardness and add alkalinity yourself before or after filtration. Using a filter is really at odds with using bottled water though.

@"Rob1"#p11090 That's why Dave called you the water expert! Only who works in water can know that much. Thanks a lot man. In this case I'll be looking for another alternative for this brand. Limited choices here! And tap water is a desalinated sea water, am getting residues even with filteration. I'll update you and thanks 👍

Hi, forgive me if this has been answered before, but i am a new member and still finding my way around! I have just purchased a Lelit Elizabeth, and I believe it is possible to 'regenerate' the in line water filter using salt much like a household water softener, is this feasible? My other question is I have a 'drinking water' tap with an 'Anti scale' filter which keeps the kettle pretty scale free. I checked the hardness of the water from this with a test strip, and it came back as hard! I contacted the manufacturer, who said that was normal as the calcium was not removed from the water, but rendered inactive by the filter. Not sure if this would be OK for my machine or not?

Water filter importance when using bottled water

JimmyP

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!

MediumRoastSteam

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?

JimmyP

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

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