dutchy101 Thanks mate. Well this is annoying lol. In your opinion is the issue that the water is too hard or alkaline too low or both?
I am steaming milk these days and using the hotwater spout a lot more - making americanos and teas throughout the day so there is a good flow coming through the service boiler regularly. Will this help the situation or make it worse?
Alkalinity and alkaline aren’t the same thing, I don’t know how alkaline your water is, would assume pH is between 6 and 8….
The question would be too hard or soft for what purpose? Alkalinity too high or low for what purpose? If you’re talking about scaling potential or corrosion risk, you can’t separate them. It’s about balance, there’s no such thing as too hard too much alkalinity by themselves. If you’re talking about ideal water for coffee according to the SCA specs, then I’d say you want a little more alkalinity, but you may well prefer what you have - it’s largely subjective.
LM water specs are focused on boiler safety avoiding corrosion in copper and brass brew boilers. With a saturated group and a boiler running at 96c you can have 40KH and up to 156GH without scale; 50KH up to 85GH; 60KH up to 52GH……you get the idea. In your case you are well away from having any scale in a brew boiler even at 105c. With steel boilers you’d never recommend chlorides of up to 50mg/l. I imagine LM also recommends descaling and having the machine serviced?
You are close to SCA specs for water, you’re within spec to prevent scale and corrosion in brew boilers, and will need to descale the service boiler. That you’re using the service boiler for tea and americanos is good for preventing scale in your case - by constantly drawing water off you are preventing the minerals from building up in there but you will not completely prevent it. The good news is descaling a service boiler is very quick and easy.
