Hi first time poster here.

I'm thinking about buying my first espresso machine and I need some help. A little about my coffee background. I mostly drink drip coffee using Hario V60 coffee dripper. On espresso, I occasionally make it during weekend using a little device called Mypressi (or Twister?). It is like a steel ball with a handle and you insert an air cartridge inside the handle. Believe it or not, I've been using it for >5 yrs before it finally gave out last year. Then, I found out no one is selling it no more, ha. So any double boiler machine will be a big upgrade for me. I roast my own beans using Behmor for years. I have a Baratz Vario-W grinder.

I'm looking to buy a double boiler machine. One big question I have is whether it should be a plumbed in machine or not. Here is my water test results:

Chlorine: 2-3 ppm chloramine
KH (alkalinity): ~150ppm
GH (hardness): practically zero (using three different test kits)
PH: 8.7
TDS: ~200ppm (less confident)

Chlorine(carbon filter), KH, GH and TDS seem fine. The problem is high PH. Most coffee water standard say PH should be in the 6.5-7.5 range. I have not been able to find exactly what high PH would do to espresso drinks. Of course, what do I know knowing I've been making espresso using Mypressi. Does this high PH issue pretty much kill the plumb-in option?

With a machine, the most espresso drinks I will make is 2 during weekdays and 2-4 during weekend. Is plumb-in necessary? Even with a reservoir machine, the PH question is still relevant as I may need to drop the PH by mixing our city water w/ bottle water(if high PH is really killing espresso drink). So far from reading posts in the forum, I like Lucca M58 and Pro 700 for plumb in machines and Pro 300 and S1 mini Vivaldi for reservoir machines.

Thank in advance for your help.

If plumbing in is not an inordinate hurdle, all things related to counters, water line routes, etc., you will be happy you went plumbed in (unless the machine will be relocated to different locations ... )! I've been running plumb in for my espresso machines (Londinium LI and now the Slayer) for a few years and don't miss the filling of the reservoir for a second . I am using a 120v pump, accumulator, 10-gallon RV water tank with @rpavlis distilled + potassium bicarbonate mixture recipe the past 2-years and am super pleased with it compared to my former filter arrangement using tap water feed or buying "spring" water in 5-gallon jugs.

The distilled + KHCO3 has eliminated variances and frequent testing of same for then bottled and filtered/conditioned tap water. Its been great and I have zero interest or motivation for changing.

I think you could easily blend your tap water with reverse osmosis water to achieve a balanced water that will make good coffee and not scale your machine.

You can install an RO system and a blending valve and filter arrangement ahead of the machine, depending on how complicated you want to get.

Not sure what filtration system you should use or whether you'd be better off skipping plumbing in and going with a tank.

But with alkalinity and pH that high (and hardness that low) you are in the range where you will underextract and the alkalinity will substantially mute the acidity of the coffee. Overall you are in the extreme lower right quadrant of the figure on slide 13 of the presentation below - weak, chalky, and flat. Definitely not good water for espresso.

http://scae.com/images/pdfs/AST-LIVE-20 ... Coffee.pdf

spressomon wrote:If plumbing in is not an inordinate hurdle, all things related to counters, water line routes, etc., you will be happy you went plumbed in (unless the machine will be relocated to different locations ... )! I've been running plumb in for my espresso machines (Londinium LI and now the Slayer) for a few years and don't miss the filling of the reservoir for a second . I am using a 120v pump, accumulator, 10-gallon RV water tank with @rpavlis distilled + potassium bicarbonate mixture recipe the past 2-years and am super pleased with it compared to my former filter arrangement using tap water feed or buying "spring" water in 5-gallon jugs.

The distilled + KHCO3 has eliminated variances and frequent testing of same for then bottled and filtered/conditioned tap water. Its been great and I have zero interest or motivation for changing.

I have used a similar approach for the last 2 years and agree completely. This is a minimum hassle, high rewards approach to water for coffee.

One simple approach if you go the tank route is to simply run your tap water through a Pur pitcher filter. These types of filters will get rid of the chlorine and drop the pH in the process. Based on testing I've done, the before/after for my tap water averages .8-1.0 drop in pH. I use a Taylor test kit as I'm a CPO and the accuracy is rather high.

My municipality supplied water is the highest quality/best balanced of any place I've lived. I use the Pur to filter out what bit of residual chlorine is present as the water is superb otherwise.

Thank spressomon, nukotopia, keno, and oldnuc for chiming in. Great responses!

spressomon, the distill water + kHCO3 sounds nice. I'm trying to picture what the whole setup looks like. Is there a link to it that you could post here? What it looks like and where to purchase the components...etc. Thanks,

Keno, great info about the chemistry of coffee water. So my tap water will yield flat, chalky, and weak coffee due to high alkalinity and zero hardness. The high PH is probably linked to high alkalinity and dropping the alkalinity is likely to lower the PH as well. Looks like the Gerber Pure water is pretty close to ideal (KH=26, GH=50, PH ~7.5), perhaps a little low in KH.

Spiderman24-7, really? I will check that out. If true, I still have the issue of zero hardness, though. And KH? It is still interesting to know.

robertw wrote:Thank spressomon, nukotopia, keno, and oldnuc for chiming in. Great responses!

spressomon, the distill water + kHCO3 sounds nice. I'm trying to picture what the whole setup looks like. Is there a link to it that you could post here? What it looks like and where to purchase the components...etc. Thanks,

Pic link of my former set-up which gives you the component view: Flojet & filtration plumbing confusion?

I swapped the 2-5 gallon bottles for 1-10 gallon low rectangular RV water tank, a ShurFlo SS 2 gallon accumulator. The water bottle/tank size is not critical in anyway ... however what type of space you have versus how often you want to swap/add water. I'm using an Aquatec 69503300 pump; get them on eBay for ~$120 or so.

There are quite a few posts by Robert Pavlis aka rpavlis about his distilled water recipe. Here's one: Elektra Microcasa a Leva leak

spressomon,

Thanks for the links.

A question for the distilled +KHCO3 mix: Don't you need some water hardness(Ca or Mg ions)? The distilled water should have near zero hardness and KHCO3 contributes to alkalinity but no hardness.

Chemistry is not my forté; I defer to Robert or a couple other much more qualified HB members with chemistry backgrounds; hopefully they will chime in. If you search, on the HB forums, "potassium", "carbonate" or other related terms along with "rpavlis" you will be reading for a while .

From what Robert has stated: "coffee beans contain far more calcium and magnesium than any hard water ... "

Here is more related reading material I pinged quickly:

Post 37 here: Consistent bitterness

The chemistry of scale in espresso machine boilers [FAQ]

Elektra Microcasa a Leva temperature experiment