Intake water temperature

by pl on Mon Dec 05, 2011 3:15 pm

I noticed the manual of my machine (Berezza BZ10) advices to only use ambient temperature water to fill the tank.

This goes against the whole "always use cold fresh water" chant I've always heard when talking about preparing anything coffee, but I guess it might have something to do with trying to protect the boiler from sudden temperature changes.

What's your take on this? To be honest, I can't even think of an easy way to get fresh room temperature water. If I'd try to get it from the tap, it would just mix hot and cold and the hot water is much less purified over here and to my knowledge causes buildup in machines. The other ways would be to let it sit for quite a while or preheat it, but both have problems.

Is there any real reason to follow the manual on this?

by **Marshall** on Mon Dec 05, 2011 4:18 pm

pl wrote:I noticed the manual of my machine (Berezza BZ10) advices to only use ambient temperature water to fill the tank.

I think they just mean "Don't use the hot water tap."

by pl on Tue Dec 06, 2011 9:12 am

I think you might be right. Or more importantly that people don't use boiling water thinking the machine works a bit differently...

by **mitch236** on Tue Dec 06, 2011 9:38 am

Disclaimer: Use ambient temp water for intake.

It would be great if you could use hot water for intake though. It would make temp stability much better. That's what makes advanced machines like the GS/3 so stable. They use a hybrid of dual boiler with preheating the brew water a la Hx style plumbing. Best of both worlds!

by HB on Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:15 pm

mitch236 wrote:That's what makes advanced machines like the GS/3 so stable.

When I think of temperature stable, I think of repeatability. That is, does it produce the same brew temperature profile each time. When double boiler owners/manufacturers think of temperature stable, they think that it's repeatable and the brew temperature profile is flat. It's a minor point, but I hasten to point out that we haven't reached consensus that flat = better (though few would argue against repeatable = better).

Back to the OP, I believe the BZ10 is similar to the BZ07, which I recently reviewed (i.e., heat exchanger with actively heated grouphead). It's a "dragon type" HX, i.e., it has a very short thermal memory and the flush is basically the same every time, though you can adjust the brew temperature slightly on the fly by under or over flushing the group. To make life less complicated, I recommend refilling the reservoir with room temperature water since the HX inlet water temperature does impact the resultant brew temperature. I keep a jug of water that was filled the night before for that purpose.

by pl on Wed Dec 07, 2011 3:33 am

Interesting. I'll try it out and see if there are any noticeable differences.

On the other hand the back of the machine get's hot enough that it might warm the water in the tank quite quickly.

by **Dodger1** on Wed Dec 07, 2011 7:25 am

In my opinion when they say "always use cold fresh water" I think the emphasis is on the fresh part.

When you first turn on your cold water facet in the morning the water isn't all that fresh, as it's been sitting in your pipes for who knows how long and that could impart an unwanted flavor; especially if your pipes are older. Same goes for the hot water facet, plus there's the fact that water has been sitting in your water heater tank for? So it might be a good idea to taste the water from your cold water facet first thing in the morning, then run it for a minute and taste those results.

Since I'm running my gs3 from the internal water tank, I follow HB's advice of keeping a jug of water that was filled the night before for that purpose. Especially since first thing in the morning I'm not in the mood to do anything but brew a cup and relax for a bit.


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