Bagger Off, limescale

CardinalBiggles

We live in a terrible area for hard water, so I’ve been using bottled water to try to keep my ECM as free as possible of limescale deposits. So while our kettle and taps need regular chiselling with a road drill the cherished espresso maker isn’t bad at all after 4 years hard use.

But I’ve become aware of the in-reservoir Resin bags -BWT, Rocket, Oscar 150, (as well as ECM branded at double the price). They seem a very easy way to seriously reduce limescale. Just activate the bag under the tap, drop it in the empty reservoir, fill it up and change it in 6 months time.

But it sounds too good to be true! Do they really deliver on their promise?

MediumRoastSteam

If your water is as hard as nails, it’s unlikely the filter will last very long.

The best thing you can do is to bite the bullet and try it yourself, either in the coffee machine or in a test bed environment: i.e.: put the bag into a 2.5L tank, and every time you make coffee, remove 120ml or so from that tank. Refill the tank in the same way as you’d refill your coffee machine’s tank.

Measure the TDS with a TDS meter and note the values. Keep measuring the TDS once a day. Note when the TDS starts going up and then you will know your filter has gone.

I doubt they are effective enough for hard water.