Doram If I understand what you say correctly, if I start with Ashbeck and get the alkalinity to 40-50 - that will be a big step in this direction, right?
So two options to get the alkalinity up is adding 0.2g of bicarb soda to 5 L of Ashbeck, or cutting 600ml of Ashbeck with 100ml of my tap water. I have a drop kit, so should be easy enough to do such an experiment.
40-60mg/l alkalinity.
Yes add 0.20g to 5l of Ashbeck, or mix Ashbeck with tap water at 600:100ml, or 700:100ml (you could even go 10:1, but the more Ashbeck the lower the pH).
The fastest route to enjoying your coffee more is to use acceptable tasting water for shots, that won’t screw up your machine in quick time…then forget about water & buy coffee that you have a higher preference for (origin, roast level) and focus on the actual making of the coffee.
Good coffee (subjectively) & acceptable, or better, water (objectively) = good coffee.
Average coffee & great water = average coffee. You cannot fix coffee with water, you can adjust a little.
Good coffee with water that makes it taste flat & chewy from too much alkalinity (assuming no other brew malfunctions), or too bright from low alkalinity, can be easily & cheaply fixed. A bad bag/batch of coffee…not so much.
Enjoyment is subjective, water targets for scaling/corrosion are objective. They can, but do not necessarily, dovetail. A bright coffee with high alkalinity & hard water, with regular descaling for machine health might be very enjoyable.
