Water treatment options for plumbed in espresso machine

[Rybolt]

...split from A Plea for Openness by moderator...

The second issue is water treatment. My wife is a water treatment chemist. I have been through the Cirqua demonstration of the same coffee brewed with three different levels of mineral content. So I am sensitive to water issues. Water makes an enormous difference in brew quality. I like the fact that I can easily control my water quality with a pourover. I do not think most consumers give proper consideration to the impact that plumbing in to the local water supply may have on their coffee and what they will need to do to correct it.

As Dan, Ken Fox and others on this board know, I came within a hair's breadth of pulling the trigger on a Cimbali Jr. purchase before stepping back and considering the issues above. That is why I am waiting for a GS3 (fool that I may be).

Yes, I have tried several HX machines, and I am sure I could master them. I just came out differently on the decision than most people.

Hi Marshall,
I have recently began research on my upgrade path (from a old Gaggia ) and recently have been concerned with this very thing: water quality. I am not excited about flushing with $1.25 spring water. Anyhow, is there another thread, or can we create one for this topic, I don't want to hijack this one.

p.s. this board software doesn't allow searching on 'water' maybe we can substitute with 'H2o'.

Thanks.

[Ken Fox]

I think Marshall might have changed his opinion about "waiting for a GS3" in the last year

Water treatment is a very complex issue that does not lend itself to simple answers unless you are starting with what amounts to distilled water (e.g. after RO treatment) that you are then going to add some minerals to.

It is easy to speak in platitudes about this subject, and equally incorrect. Any treatment needs to consider the water characteristics you are starting with from the tap. It is too simplistic to simply describe the hardness or softness of the untreated water. There are foul tasting examples of hard water (much of Southern California has this) and there are good tasting examples, such as what flows out of the tap where I live in the Idaho Rocky Mountains. There are other elements and compounds in a given water supply than simply grains of calcium hardness, which contribute (or detract from) water quality as relates to espresso production.

Similarly, the results of more simple treatments such as cation water softening vary depending upon the input water composition. The hard water that enters my house (around 11 grains) makes very tasty espressos with lots of crema when softened with a standard whole house cation (salt based) water softener. This standard type of cation water softener is apparently standard equipment in much of Italy, and I have not read a lot of complaints about the crema in randomly purchased espressos in Italy. I'm sure there are many places where the hard water does not produce good espressos after cation softening, and presumably this is due to factors other than simply the # of grains of hardness in the water coming in from the water utility.

To me, the Cirqua demonstration is halfway between a circus act and a valid demonstration. It is in reality a marketing technique that has some basis in fact, but only some, and does not in any way tell the whole story about what you should do with your water.

ken

[Rybolt]

Hi Ken,

Can you recommend any home test kits for testing water hardness. I know where I live the water is very hard, but I was told our city actually softens it.

Thanks.

[MDL]

I have been using the following test strips and like them. The price is good and they have a wide and clear range of colors.

http://www.diywatertesting.com/sofchekx3.html

Mark

[Marshall]

TDS meters have become so cheap (check the Hanna TDS-1, usually $30 or less), every espresso machine owner should have one. Both city and bottled waters vary over time and need to be checked. The information is important for setting descaling schedules, if nothing else.

FWIW, friends at Bunn had recommended their ED-11-TL filtering system (about $100) for home use, when I was planning to install a GS3. When I chose the Dalla Corte Mini, the issue became moot, since it can't be plumbed in. So I use a local bottled drinking water that is delivered in 5 gallon bottles for my dispenser.

[Ken Fox]

Hi Ken,

Can you recommend any home test kits for testing water hardness. I know where I live the water is very hard, but I was told our city actually softens it.

Thanks.

Hi,

I have bought my test strips from McMaster-Carr ( http://www.mcmaster.com )

The item number is: 11235T41

There is no way to link to a page that shows the item and I don't think they have a picture of the bottle on the website. I am not home now (I am in San Diego visiting family) for another couple of days and don't have access to the physical product to tell you how it is labeled. It might might be the same product referenced separately in this thread. The shipping charges might be steep if all you are buying is one bottle of test strips. Fortunately, Mcmaster.com has so many things for sale that you undoubtedly will find a whole lot else to buy with a little bit of browsing

Please note that a TDS meter is only useful on untreated water. After you have softened hard water, using a cation softener, you will get essentially the same reading as before the water was softened. TDS is measuring particles, and the fact that you have "exchanged" calcium ions for something else will not change the reading.

For this reason I think that in the hands of someone who is going to actually treat the tap water, and to use the test measurement to access the "success" of treatment (e.g. absence of compounds that will scale up the boiler), the test strips are more useful than a TDS meter. After successful cation exchange softening, your test strips will read "0" whereas the TDS meter will show essentially no change.

If on the other hand you were following a regimen of mixing distilled water with hard water, in order to get a "designer" type water (such as 3g of Calcium) then the TDS meter might be useful. You will, however, ultimately scale up the boiler with this approach, so you would have to be willing to do periodic preventative descaling if you choose to do this.

ken

[JohnB.]

Another option would be the liquid hardness kits you can get at most fish/pet stores used to test aquarium tanks. They cost about $10 & will do many tests. http://www.aquariumguys.com/carbonatetest.html

[Martin]

Years ago I bought a Hach titration kit----about $25.
"Hardness (Total) Test Kit, Model 5-EP, Drop Count Titration, 1-30 gpg, 100 tests"

Pretty simple to use and seemingly reliable. Maybe no more than aquarium store chemicals, but makes me feel oh so scientific.

[sweaner]

If on the other hand you were following a regimen of mixing distilled water with hard water, in order to get a "designer" type water (such as 3g of Calcium) then the TDS meter might be useful. You will, however, ultimately scale up the boiler with this approach, so you would have to be willing to do periodic preventative descaling if you choose to do this.

ken

Ken, this is currently what I do. I use my tap water, which is about 120 ppm on the TDS. I dilute it down to about 45 ppm with distilled. Is this more scaling for the boiler than softened water? I would like to essentially eliminate scaling, if that is even really possible.

[Ken Fox]

I'm no expert on this stuff, but I don't think that the TDS reading tells you whether or not your water will scale up a boiler. The measurement that is important is the amount of calcium dissolved in the water, which will not be directly proportional to the TDS since other dissolved ions will also be measured in the TDS ("total dissolved solids").

My recollection is that having more than a couple of grains of calcium in the water will scale up a boiler and the higher you go the faster it will scale up. You can deal with this by periodic preventative descaling with activated citric acid (also called "sour salt") contained in various commercial descaling products, or in the "raw" citric acid products themselves, which can be purchased in home brewing stores and some supermarkets, if memory serves. I have done this before, myself, in the past but not since I started "feeding" my espresso machines with cation-softened water.

Cation softening will remove the calcium from the water used and hence will prevent "scaling." There still remains the possibility of deposition of a soft powder, since the softened water is not devoid of minerals. If you use cation softened water it is a very good idea to empty your boiler weekly and refill it, to reduce the probability of significant accumulation of dissolved (non calcium containing) minerals in the water. You can still get a fine powder precipitating out on your autofill sensor, something that has happened to me, which is more likely than having a noticeable accumulation in the boiler since the autofill sensor will by definition be at the top of the boiler water line, where mineral deposition happens first. If this happens to you and causes autofill malfunction, you will need to remove the autofill sensor (basically a metal rod, sort of a like a nail) and wipe the deposits off with a scrub sponge. This is a five minute job in most circumstances.

Cation exchange softening will eliminate the possibility of hard scale forming in your boiler or heat exchanger, but will not prevent a soft powder from accumulating over time (although this has not caused noticeable problems for me over several years usage of cation softened water). You can reduce the likelihood of the soft powder accumulation by changing your boiler water regularly. In any event, the soft powder accumulation is very easy to remove and will not attach itself in rock hard fashion as will calcium scale from using unsoftened water containing calcium.

ken

[Marshall]

Ken, this is currently what I do. I use my tap water, which is about 120 ppm on the TDS. I dilute it down to about 45 ppm with distilled. Is this more scaling for the boiler than softened water? I would like to essentially eliminate scaling, if that is even really possible.

Not without compromising flavor. The best shops I've talked to about this use around 125-150 TDS and accept regular descaling as the price they pay for quality.

[Ken Fox]

Hi Marshall,

I think this is overly simplistic.

My TDS is almost exactly the same before and after cation softening, yet the mineral composition is obviously different. I don't think that every "dissolved solid" is the same as every other "dissolved solid."

The water I use now (cation softened) is boiler safe and has a higher TDS reading than the level that you quote. Since I'm not home, I can't test it and give you a number.

As to what the best shops use, they can't possibly be knowledgeable about the water found in other places and how it is effected by various water treatment methodologies. Instead, they have "experienced" the Cirqua marketing program (or something similar) and they believe they have found a solution, for them.

The "water treatment industry" has something to sell (their types of water treatment) and would like potential customers to think there is only one sort of "perfect water" for coffee beverages, when I think there may be at least "several."

ken

[Marshall]

Actually, quality-minded shop owners do talk with each other about water quality in different parts of the country. I used "TDS" numbers because they are a useful shorthand, particularly for non-cation systems, such as RO with re-mineralization (the typical Cirqua-type setup).

Here is such a discussion among professionals, including the owner of one low-volume shop you know well (who uses ion exchange) and a roaster engineer you also know (who recommends Cirqua): http://forum.coffeed.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=598.

I may be wrong, but I do not believe there is a treatment that eliminates the need for descaling without compromising flavor. If there were, everyone would be using it.

[Ken Fox]

Hi Marshall,

Let me further clarify what I am saying. Cirqua, and perhaps their competitors (if there are any) are selling a particular type of water treatment system that is used in some high end coffee houses. The system starts out by removing everything from the incoming tap water, presumably by reverse osmosis. Following this, they add back in minerals to reach a certain TDS number. What minerals they add back in is obviously a choice they have made, and I am presuming they are using a calcite cartridge or something similar, which means they are not producing "boiler-safe" water.

Within the confines of how their equipment operates, I have no doubt that there is an "optimum" level of TDS in the water as regards the ability of the water produced to make fine coffee beverages, including espresso. You and I have experienced their demonstation(s) at the SCAA and at your fine (former) SCAA "Homecoming" conference in Long Beach. If you use a Cirqua-like system, at the predefined "optimum level" of TDS, you will get good results at the cost of having to regularly descale your equipment. But, Cirqua has set up a demonstration that considers no other options than their own, with varying amounts of calcite added back in. When you limit the demonstration to variations of your own technique, you define the outcome as being one of the options that you sell. It is like a taste test between Coke, Diet Coke, and Coca Cola Light; this may tell you that you prefer Coke, but it tells you nothing about the comparison between Coke and Pepsi.

But this is not the only way of treating incoming tap water, and (to my knowledge) there is no scientifically conducted experimentation with the "end product water" that Cirqua wants to sell you, and a whole host of other options. These other options include straight or filtered tap water in places where this is feasible, or such other treatments as cation softening of hard water, or simply plugging an inline calcite cartridge in the water flow for places with normally very soft water as is found, for example, in parts of the coastal northwest US and Canada.

Incoming tap water is highly variable, from locale to locale, and the results of other types of treatments on it will be similarly variable. Since these other options do not start with "ionless" water, you can't "intuit" a comparison with what Cirqua is selling based upon a TDS level that they "achieve" by adding back calcite into RO or distilled type water.

In order to actually KNOW whether a Cirqua type system would be worth installing in a given location, you would have to compare its results onsite with the other options available to the user at that location. Cirqua has not done this in a systematic fashion because it is obviously impossible to do this everywhere, and from a business standpoint does nothing to help them sell their equipment. The people posting on that Coffeed thread you link to, regardless of whom they might be, haven't a clue about any of this sort of detail or the testing required to establish any verifiable benefit. We are all aware of many common coffee "myths" that have been repeated over long periods of time, and which have been accepted by us "mere mortals" as truth handed down from on high. I have tried to scientifically test a few of these "truths" myself over the last few years (rotary pumps yielding "superior" results to vibe pumps; freezing "ruins" coffee by "condensation" or whatever, for example) and had difficulty confirming them.

I believe that Cirqua's demonstration shows exactly what it obviously shows; that if you take all the minerals out of water and then add back in various quantities of calcite, you will get differing results based upon the amount of calcite you add back in. For someone in the business who is looking for a "quick and easy" fix, and who doesn't mind regularly descaling equipment, it offers a very viable "one size fits all" solution. It does not, however, tell you anything about what an individual might achieve in various locations with varying types of input water, treated in various other ways, as compared to what Cirqua could produce for you with their standard set up.

ken

[Marshall]

The purpose of my posts was not to argue for or against Cirqua as the best water treatment solution, although they do sell home systems. I actually suggested a Bunn cartridge system. My point was that you cannot have a descaling-free system without compromising flavor. If you have contrary evidence, I will stand corrected, but, as I said before, if it existed, everyone would be using it.

[Ken Fox]

Hi Marshall,

You are asking me to "disprove a negative," which from a purely scientific standpoint would be a waste of time. Does the fact that almost all the marquee cafes use Synessos or LMs prove that these brands produce better espressos than other brands of espresso machines? What is the evidence of that?

The high end cafe community is rather clannish and this is self-evident (although I am sure that there are individuals within it who hate each other). They tend to do a whole lot of things in their cafes in lock step, more because this is what everyone else does than for any other reason. One only has to skim a few threads at coffeed.com in order to know that this is the case. When you look at the real innovations that have come out in the last decade or so, most of those that I am aware of came out of the enthusiast community (e.g. from people like us) rather than from cafe owners. This is one reason why I glance over this board and very seldom go over to coffeed.com. On those rare occasions when I do go over there, it is usually in search of some nugget of knowledge and I very seldom end up finding it over there.

We all have certain things we do in our regular espresso routines that we accept as having validity, but on closer inspection one can have questions. For example, although the 5 gallon bottled spring water you (Marshall) use for espresso has certain chemical similarities to that produced by a Cirqua system, do you have any actual proof that it produces similar espressos as you would get from the aforementioned Cirqua-type system? I would suggest that you'd need to do a side by side comparison of what you get with what you are using vs. Cirqua vs. another cheaper option such as filtration followed by a cation softener cartridge in order to really know what was "best." Otherwise, the inference would be that one could dispense altogether with coffee cupping and tasting in favor of basing decisions on what a TDS (and maybe also PH) meter would show to be "optimal."

As to what sort of regimen will produce the "best" espressos, obviously this is open to question and is determined in part by personal taste. I may prefer espressos made with single origin coffees made with 14g in a double basket whereas you may prefer signature blends dosed as 21g in a triple basket. This doesn't (necessarily) make me right and you wrong

Finally, the variations in what we can do in making espressos are almost endless, and we all must decide for ourselves when we have reached the point of diminishing returns. I have asked quite a few well known people in this community what they do with their water, and for the most part they don't do a whole lot with it. I don't know any home enthusiasts personally who take a Cirqua-like approach, although I am sure that they exist and they will respond to this sentence after they have read it

As another example, I am (I think) a pretty decent home roaster nowadays but I am certain there are many high end commercial roasters who do a better job. I could, of course, pay an exorbitant sum to have their best coffees sent by air freight from wherever in the world they are located so that I will receive it one day after roasting. I don't do this because I have reached what I would define (for myself) as the point of diminishing returns.

I would submit that for many serious home enthusiasts, they have reached their own point of diminishing returns where switching from their own water solution to a Cirqua-like (or Bunn-like, whatever that is) system will add sufficiently little that they have determined, with good reason, not to change what they are already doing as regards to water. Dealing with scale in the boiler of an espresso machine is not a trivial maintenance exercise, and those who invite the need to do that must convince themselves that their time and effort in doing so will be rewarded in the cup. Otherwise, it is just another PITA time waster, and we all have enough of those in our lives that we probably do not need any more of them!

Fondly,

ken

[Psyd]

African or European?
In any case, thanks for the reminder to check my TDS content. I'm off to go recharge my softener...
C

[SteveN]

I'm now trying to decide between a Vivaldi Mini or standard Vivaldi and so this discussion on water softening is very timely for me.

I have yet to see these Bunn filtration/softening systems mentioned earlier. Why aren't they spoken of more on this or other coffee sites? They seem like a great solution for hard water.

I currently have a dual cartrage (Doultan) under sink system with a nice looking spigot on top of the sink. It uses John Guest fittings under the sink. Any reason why I could not put one of the Bunn cartrages in place using the existing under sink hoses and John guest fittings?

That would make it a bit easier to buy the Mini.

-Steve

[HB]

Any reason why I could not put one of the Bunn cartrages in place using the existing under sink hoses and John guest fittings?

That's what I did.

FYI, you can also buy Watts brand push-in fittings at Home Depot/Lowes, but they're not the commercial grade sold at Chris' Coffee. Watts' tubing and fittings for home are rated up to 120 PSI versus John Guest's commercial rating of 230 PSI. That said, most homes have the water pressure set to ~50 PSI.

[SteveN]

Are you happy with the Bunn performance?

They aren't that cheap but seem to last, and if they work.....

-Steve