I'm still toying with the idea of getting a machine to go alongside my La Pavoni Europiccola, something that requires a little less input from me to get a good cup of coffee. The thing that's been on my mind these last few days is water quality and what I should be using. After looking at some of the water requirements from Rancilio and Lelit it seems that my tap water is not too far from the mark. I downloaded my local water info and have ordered a TDS test from Ebay. Is anyone able to offer any advice from the data in the link? [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/DwoiT4y.png]

Average alkalinity is a little bit low but not terribly so. Other than that it's fine, still things in there you don't want like chlorine and aluminium (and traces of other things). A charcoal filter will at least help with the former. Not sure what you intend to do with the TDS meter, check it for consistency to see if it falls around min/max TDS as a way of approximating where all the other things might be? Probably won't be too successful at that.

> @"Rob1"#p11700 still things in there you don’t want like chlorine and aluminium (and traces of other things So I'm guessing that something like a Brita filter would be helpful?

Not sure. If Brita is just a carbon filer then yes, you don't want a softener really. Not that it would hurt but you'd increase sodium and lower hardness and you really don't need to.

On the Brita site it lists 3 elements of filtration: Superfine mesh retains coarse particles coming from pipes. Powerful Ion Exchange pearls block limescale build up, soften the water, help to protect appliances, reduce metals like lead and copper that might occur in old pipes. MicroCarbon pearls made from coconut shells lock away chlorine and other odour impairing substances in its millions of pores, deliver pure and fresh taste.

Do you have space to set something like an ro filter setup? As good as your water can be there will always be stuff in it you dont want, A basic RO system can be had for less than 100, and rodi will be the perfect base to add minerals too

> @"Cuprajake"#p11727 Do you have space to set something like an ro filter setup? There is probably space, but it's not my house!

Just watched a video by Mark at Whole Latte Love. He states that using a BWT filter jug means that you would never need to descale your espresso machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZKKW5Bs51w&list=WL&index=7

@"Flat_Eric"#p11792 - ask him to move to London and report back after a couple of weeks 😉 What I’m saying is that all is relative. Put some soft/moderate hard water through and most likely it will do a good job for 4 weeks. Put some hard/very hard water through and you’d be lucky if the filter lasts 1.5 weeks under normal usage. If you have one , you can easily monitor the water TDS on a daily basis and check when it starts to fail.

@"MediumRoastSteam"#p11796 Four weeks is exactly how long the filter lasts. I live in a soft water area and my water quality is very close (but not exactly) to what is specified by Rancilio and Lelit. Therefore I'm thinking that if I monitor the TDS I could use my tap water in whatever machine I decide to purchase. I'm thinking that the addition of a Brita or a BWT filter jug would be an additional safeguard.

Water For Espresso Machine

DavecUK

Kimmo Some issues?

You’re fishing now…. and there’s not as much water as you think.

Kimmo

This is interesting.

https://coffeechronicler.com/best-water-for-coffee/

Rob1

Kimmo Unfortunately, it’s mostly nonsense. A couple of good points but the focus on TDS and hardness affecting extraction has no data to back it up. Hardness makes the water taste better and affects flavour perception, but it doesn’t alter extraction - there is science to somewhat prove this but it is still something people quote, seemingly with no evidence other than inconsistent blind taste test results to back the idea up (inconsistent as in one test will show calcium is more important, another magnesium, and another that pure distilled is best).

On another note there’s no reason to decrease Calcium and replace with Magnesium, unless you want to perceive a little less body in the brew; the effect of magnesium is debatable but I’d say coffee seems a little sweeter with it. In terms of scaling potential, you’ll still get scale with Magnesium. It looks like you’ll be getting some scale in the service boiler of an espresso machine with your water…….but that’s easily manageable. If you want to alter anything I’d look at decreasing alkalinity (and pH) but this is personal preference and depends largely on the coffee too.

hthec

Rob1 Well I was reading it too and thought the partial mixing of RO with tap water method would have been a simple enough solution for me. I could do a zero water jug and then bring up the TDS by mixing a proportion of tap water. Alas, too good to be true..

Rob1

hthec Could use the same idea and target alkalinity instead?

@PartySausage How did you go about controlling this – changing water in the reservoir is one thing but getting it into the boiler is another. Did you perform any control by using water with hardness and no alkalinity and vice versa?

Would think hardness from Magnesium and sulfates are unlikely to have had an effect visually, though alkalinity may have had an impact on the appearance of crema and extraction due to the interaction with acids and CO2, so could see how that would affect the appearance of shots and volume of crema. While things may have looked different it doesn’t make sense that there would be more or less channelling because of the water – an extraction that looks thin and patchy isn’t necessarily a sign of channeling, crema that has more volume/is more foamy and stable will cover the bottom of the basket better than one that isn’t – realistically the water will be going through the puck as consistently as is allowed by your prep.

I’m surprised you couldn’t taste the differences. I’d have expected more acidity to be fairly obvious, maybe the perception of less body is suggestive of a greater perception of acidity?

PartySausage

Hi, I was wanting to pose a question about water make-up & the effect on the quality of the visible extraction seen from the bottomless PF
I’ve been playing around with various quantities of Magnesium Sulphate & Potassium Bicarbonate in 2:1 mixes, keeping the grind, dose, prep, temp & tamp variables as consistent as I could, which as I don’t have any means of actually measuring the quality of the extraction was really a first try at a semi-scientific attempt to see if there was a noticeable difference in the cup.

What I found that was unexpected although thinking it through may actually make some sense was that across a quite a few shots with various beans the lower the mineral quantities in the water the more erratic & inconsistent the shots were with loads of channelling, which improved as the mineral content was increased.
So a 40ppm Hardness/20ppm Alkalinity was all over the place, Even a 60ppm Hardness/30ppm Alkalinity was miles better & a 80ppm Hardness/40ppm Alkalinity was night & day.

Although my poor palette couldn’t say flavour wise there was much of a difference the body certainly suffered at the lower end, which I’m not sure if that was due to the mineral make-up or the subsequent channelling.
My rather unsubstantiated conclusion seemed to suggest that even though the ratios of the minerals remained consistent the higher the mineral content, meaning that the water itself was sort of more viscous & had a bit more guts about it then the effect even on the visible extraction is quite dramatic.

Would that seem quite plausible to the more knowledgeable here from their experiences?

PartySausage

@Rob1 Thanks for your insights. I was doing my tests by filling the reservoir & did each test in a block; running through two tanks worth of each mix that amounted to about 5l, which thought would give sufficient exchange within the brew boiler for a realistic set of results. This took about a week per test at 3 espresso’s a day with 3 different beans (Light Espresso, Medium Omni & Sugar Cane Decaf)
I started noticing a gradual change after the 2nd/3rd day with a marked difference by the end of each test. I didn’t however do a control, which is probably something else to try.

I have to admit that I’ve always associated the erratic/patchy/wispy flow from the PF to be associated with channelling, which has been a source of (possibly misguided) frustration & although there hasn’t been any noticeable holes in the puck, I was thinking there might be something going on under the surface.
It’s only relatively recently that I got a Zero Jug & started experimenting with different mineral make-ups. Prior to that I was using Brita filtered tap water. The tap water was already pretty soft but I wanted to remove the chlorine taste. The side effect was that when I measured the pH of the unfiltered/filtered water it had dropped from 7.3 to 5.6 & even though the boilers are SS there’s plenty of copper & brass bits so was concerned that it might not be doing my machine any favours.
Your explanation regarding the CO2 production & crema possibly giving the perception of better extraction at the higher ratios is something I’d never even considered & is certainly something worth exploring further.

When I was using the Brita water, there was a noticeable acidity bias, which although I generally like; sometimes it got a bit too funky. Like yourself I did think that there would be more noticeable differences between the mixes used in my tests & it may just be my palette. I was thinking that although the mineral content of my mixes was changing; the ratio of the minerals remained the same at 2:1 & that might be why I wasn’t finding much of a difference.. Something else to try might be altering the ratios & see what impact that has.

Sooo many more tests to do, though it does take a bit of time for each test so it’s going to be an interesting journey

darkstefano

@Rob1

Hello, I have prepared the two water concentrates with the BaristaHustle recipe. Please which mix recipe do you recommend to use for espresso machine? I I thinking to start with the Rao recipe…

Thanks a lot!

Rob1

darkstefano I don’t know the recipes so can’t recommend any. Would say go for between 40-50mg/l alkalinity for ease.

prezes

I got myself one of those TDS pen meters and measured water from Osmio which came at 65ppm.

Am I right in thinking this is slightly too high ?

DavecUK

prezes I got myself one of those TDS pen meters and measured water from Osmio which came at 65ppm.

Am I right in thinking this is slightly too high ?

It depends when you measured it…..the concentration of the water in the supply pitcher increases as it gets used up, due to water rejected by the membrane being returned to the supply pitcher. The membrane has a rejection %,, plus the mineralisation filter adds some back.

So TDS would be at the highest if the internal RO storage tank had been filled by an almost empty supply pitcher, even if you refilled the pitcher, then drew water, the water from the tank was many times more concentrated than tap water before it was filtered and the TDS will be at it’s highest.

Will it scale the machine at 65ppm…no.

prezes

DavecUK thanks Dave. This was the main thing whether it will scale or not !

I measured my tap water which came at 350 /Anglian water report states 236/

The rejected water from Osmio is over 800 !

prezes

DavecUK just drew some water from the brew and steam boilers out of curiosity and got:

94ppm brew boiler

195ppm steam boiler

how does that sound? Any recommendations?

MediumRoastSteam

prezes - where those readings with the water cooled down to approx 25C or straight out of the group/tap?

The hotter the water, the higher the reading.

dutchy101

prezes

I’ve just done a test on my water (allowing it to cool).

94ppm TDS from service boiler

44ppm TDS from group

This is using tap water (450ppm TDS) filtered through the Zero Water jug and then remineralised with sodium bicarbonate. I drained the service boiler last 3 weeks ago

prezes

MediumRoastSteam

Temperature was about 77 degrees for steam boiler and 63 brew boiler.

will do again, let it cool down and report back

prezes

MediumRoastSteam measured again:

Doram it claims in the manual that it will offset the temperature but doesn’t seem to be doing it !

Doram

prezes Temperature was about 77 degrees for steam boiler and 63 brew boiler.

Here is the explanation:

"TDS meters use conductivity to measure total charged ions in water. Conductivity of ions in water depends on the water temperature. Ions move faster when the water is warm. Hence, the apparent conductivity is increased when the water has a higher temperature.

Nearly all modern TDS meters simultaneously measure the conductivity and the temperature and calculates what the conductivity would be at the standard temperature of 25°C."

(The second paragraph above probably relates to more expensive meters that can factor in the temperature. With the simple cheap ones you just need to measure at the right temperature).

DavecUK

prezes it claims in the manual that it will offset the temperature but doesn’t seem to be doing it !

Those Chinese…they fibbed!

Rob1

You can’t determine scaling potential from TDS readings. You need to know alkalinity and hardness (and what the alkalinity is from - usually bicarbonates). With low readings, and especially when you know the water has been through RO, you can say it’s pretty certainly not going to scale.

With regards to the service boiler, I assume this is after some use. Given the mineral content has increased with you will need to know alkalinity and hardness.

Cuprajake

Rob1

I tried to email but never got through

What’s test kit is the go to now adays.

I’ve just replaced all my to filters and membrane so want to check my water

Cheers

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