Thanks Homeburrero!

What I meant is: what can I add instead of tapwater to make Volvic a little harder (like 80 mg/l total hardness)?

I believe I dont get the maximum taste from the coffee with 100% Volvic. Adding tap water is my first experiment to give the Volvic a little more hardness

The 180 ppm TDS with 20% tapwater is calculated. On the TDS meter I get 140 ppm @20C.

The tapwater has:
Cl 42 mg/l
HCO3 181 mg/l
Ca 43 mg/l
Mg 8.4 mg/l
Na 48 mg/l
SO4 40 mg/l
NO3 2.68 mg/l

Thanks!

Great post Pat and thanks to Ryan for initiating this subject.

One fact about Volvic that some may not know is that it is ALL bottled from the same source.

erics wrote: One fact about Volvic that some may not know is that it is ALL bottled from the same source.

Thats the reason why I ask if someone could figure out an addition so Volvic can give a little more intense taste to the coffee. To create "Volvic Turbo"
Perhaps some 70/30 solution? Or 100:50? ....and without doing damage to the machine...

Maybe rather than using volvic you could make your own recipe starting with distlled.. There are a few options presented in this thread.

So you don't think it makes sense to start with Volvic, which is already very good water, and add a little something to make it perfect? Rather "start from scratch"?

Or isn't Volvic that good? Because of the relatively high alkalinity?

Well, I think the reason a lot of people lean on volvic is because it's a consistent, no thought option that balances good for espresso and easy and equipment. Have you by chance read Jims water FAQ?

IMHO if your going to alter it, then it somewhat defeats the main perk of volvic. Then why not just make your own from Scratch?

That said I personally found a good ratio of distlled to tap for my personal use. I had to get real hardness and alkalinity measurements with reagent kits first. But, now I just use basically half distilled and have filtered tap. I'm sure I could get something different, maybe better? with one of the recipes here. Just haven't got around to trying.

Ryan (and Eric) are correct. Volvic is nice because it comes from a single source and is consistent in mineral content, and can be used as-is without worrying about scale, and it should be fine for taste.

It isn't in the range of most of the ideal zones because it's a little low in the Ca and Mg cations that conventional coffee water wisdom believes is needed for tasty extractions, and is maybe just a tad high in alkalinity that could in theory dull the brightness (acidity) that you might want to bring out in some coffees.

Looking at the Volvic point on the hardness/alkalinity graph, you'll see that you could get into the 'ideal zone' with about a 15 mg/L increase in hardness. To get, say, to Scott Rao's recommended zone (70 - 80 mg/l hardness, and 50 mg/l alkalinity), you would need a 7 - 17 mg/L hardness increase and a 12 mg/L alkalinity decrease. You could get there by making a mix of distilled and Epsom salt that you use to dilute your Volvic.* (I'm not advocating this, because I doubt you would notice a worthwhile improvement in taste.)

I think using your tap water to bump the hardness is ill-advised, mostly because Volvic already has a bit of chloride (14 mg/L) and your tap would cause an increase in that, as well as the sulfate. Both of those might contribute to corrosion in your gorgeously restored Faema Lambro.



* If you were to make up a solution of 1 mmol/L magnesium sulfate by adding 0.26 g of Epsom salt to 1 L of water, then use 81% Volvic and 19% of this solution, you would have water with 70 ppm total hardness (33 mg/L Ca hardness and 37 mg/L Mg hardness) and 50 mg/L alkalinity. Of course, it's hard to weigh out 0.26g, so you'd probably use a concentrate - add 5.2 g of Epsom to 100 ml water, then add only 5 ml of that concentrate to your liter of distilled.

Note that your sulfate in that 1 mmol/L solution would be about 96 mg/l, and the Volvic has about 8 mg/L, so your 81/19 mix would come out to about 25 mg/L of sulfate (SO4--). Might be a downside there with respect to corrosion. Fortunately the water has good alkalinity to help offset that.

NelisB wrote:So you don't think it makes sense to start with Volvic, which is already very good water, and add a little something to make it perfect? Rather "start from scratch"?

Or isn't Volvic that good? Because of the relatively high alkalinity?

I'd guess that if you're going to go to the trouble of measuring out and adding minerals to water to customize the composition, then it might be easier and cheaper to just start with distilled or Reverse Osmosis water and add the minerals rather than buy bottled Volvic water and tweak that.

I think people buy Volvic for convenience and customizing water is the opposite of convenient.

Thanks guys!


Forgot about convenience. Sorry for that. Now you mention it, I understand. Convenience is not in my vocabulary. I'm a perfectionist. can't help it..

I bought Epsom salt some time ago. I will try Homeburrero's solution. 25mg of SO4 doesnt sound too bad...

A mix from tap water and distilled wont work with my tap water.

I will also try the 50/100 water. There is no Volvic distribution in the Netherlands, so I always order it from Belgium. It doesnt come cheap though.

Thanks again!

SCAE water paper link is dead.