Bottled water - what's my best choice? - Page 2

Water analysis, treatment, and mineral recipes for optimum taste and equipment health.
Bak Ta Lo
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#11: Post by Bak Ta Lo »

Some anecdotal water feedback, today I changed out my bottle water for my Flojet from my local bottle water supplier's mineral water to a bottle of my home water using an Everpure SPA 400 cartridge filter. The espresso last week from the 20ppm total hardness bottled mineral water was making very light shots, they were good but delicate and very subtle. Today on my 100ppm home filtered water the shots are much more flavorful, complex, and the body is thicker and richer, it is really remarkable how clear the difference is, more than I had imagined it would be. Luckily my home water supply produces little scale, I have never seen much in the water kettles or on shower glass, etc. Next bottle is going to be "home brewed" mineral content added to a 15 liter bottle of distilled water, just waiting my mineral additives to arrive in the mail. If I had a notable improvement in espresso quality going from 20ppm up to 100ppm total hardness, I am wondering how high to try the hardness on my custom water when I mix it? 150ppm is a good next level to taste test?
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homeburrero
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#12: Post by homeburrero »

HBchris wrote:I want to confirm this is correct:
I will be making my concentrate (by adding 19 grams to 1 gallon water as suggested).
Then adding 15 grams (1 tablespoon) of concentrate to 1 gallon of water, for a 10ppm alkalinity bump.
?
Yes. doing the calculation from these numbers it still checks out right. Showing the boring math:
For concentrate, 19 grams / 1 gallon = 19 grams / 3.8 liter = 5 grams / liter = 5000 mg/l KHCO3
15 g = 15 ml = 0.015 liter
0.015 liter * 5000 mg/liter = 75 mg added to the final mix gallon (3.8 liter)
75mg / 3.8 liter = 19.7 mg/l
divide by 100 mg/mmol (molar mass of KHCO3) to get 0.197 mmol/l
multiply by 50 to convert mmol/l of univalent ion to alkalinity as CaCO3, 50 * 0.197 = 9.85 mg/l as CaCO3 = appx 10

HBchris wrote:my first testing of the nestle was (without adding alkalinity):

TDS: 59

using API test kit:
GH: 3 drops (instructions says 0-3 drops = 50ppm)
KH: 1-2 drops (instructions says 0-3 drops = 50ppm) (says drops to turn from blue to yellow, but it starts off a faint green after 1 drop, so might be barely over 1 drop, but it does take 2 drops to fully turn yellow)

using hach hardness kit:
3 drops = 3 gpg
Your TDS and hardness numbers are consistent with that 2015 Nestle report's full analysis that you linked earlier. ( http://www.nestle-watersna.com/asset-li ... pl_eng.pdf ). Note; That Nestle report clearly has a typo in the abbreviated mineral analysis on page 4. For the TDS number there it says 31-41, and when you look at the full report it's clear that is the hardness values. The TDS (dry residue) should be 58-78. Your measurement of 59 with a TDS meter is spot on with their conductance measure of 110-120 umhos/cm which would read 55-60 ppm on your typical NaCl calibrated TDS meter.

The hardness and especially the alkalinity of that water is a bit low for getting a good measure with the API kit. What you can do in cases like this is use a 10 ml water sample instead of the usual 5ml sample. That gives you twice the sensitivity, so 3 drops works out to 27 ppm instead of 54 ppm. (just divide all the numbers in the instruction kit's conversion table by 2)
HBchris wrote:based on this I am not sure how much to bump alkalinity. As it could be the alkalinity could be anywhere from 17-34. Would you think to bump alkalinity by 25 ppm?
I think it's very likely down in the 10-20 mg/l range that the report indicates. So I'd bump it by 30. If you go too much, some would argue that the high alkalinity would dull the acidity, maybe make the shot more dull and chalky. Too little and you may not have the buffer you want to prevent corrosion.
HBchris wrote:would alkalinity at 50 ppm and hardness at 50, be any issue in terms of scale accumulation in the brew or steam boiler. Also if the alkalinity was slightly above 50 would this pose an issue for scale or otherwise. Or because the alkalinity i am adding is by way of potassium bicarbonate this wouldnt have any scale impact?
In general, if your water has hardness minerals it can become more scale prone even if you only add alkalinity in the form of sodium or potassium bicarbonate. And if you check the tables in the water FAQ, you will see that at 50 mg/l hardness and 50 mg/l alkalinity you're in the range of very slight scale in a steam boiler. In your case, if you bump the alkalinity to 50, it still probably won't scale at all. That's because the hardness of this water is due to addition of magnesium as well as calcium salts, and the reported calcium of 5.2 - 10 mg/l works out to a calcium hardness of only 12 - 25 mg/l as CaCO3 - should not scale.
HBchris wrote:Does having additional alkalinity improve extraction at all. For example if you compared two waters with 50ppm hardness and one had 15 alkalinity and one had 50?
In your case, where you are adding potassium in addition to alkalinity to a low TDS water I suppose some might argue an improvement in extraction and taste, up to the point where the added buffer might detract from the taste. But realistically, I doubt there would be much improvement. In theory, the hardness minerals (Ca and Mg) are predominant in extracting, and it should not matter that much whether they are carbonates ( 50:50 hardness:alkalinity) or chloride or sulfate salts (as would be the case in 50:15 hardness:alkalinity.)
Pat
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HBchris (original poster)
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#13: Post by HBchris (original poster) »

Hey Pat,

thanks for the thorough help to all my questions.

I just made a batch of the concentrate by adding the 19g potassium bicarb to 1 gallon nestle pure.


I then added 45 g of concentrate to 1 gallon of nestle pure and did some more testing.

As suggested i double the water quantity to 10ml in the API kit to enhance the sensitivity and try to get a more precise number.

TDS: 84

GH: 5 drops to change color
KH: 5 drops to change color

in the manual it says:
0-3 drops = 50ppm
3-6 drops = 100ppm

but since i doubled amount of water, this would put it in the 40 - 49 ppm range?


separately though i check with the hach hardness kit (and also doubled the amount of water it asked for). It came back as 6 drops (normally number drops = number of gpg, but since i double water would indicate 3 gpg (51 ppm) ).


If I understand correctly, when i test GH, this is combining both calcium and magnesium hardness. And magnesium hardness doesnt have an impact in terms of scale. So the calcium hardness with this water and alkalinity level shoudnt result in any scale?

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homeburrero
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#14: Post by homeburrero »

HBchris wrote:this would put it in the 40 - 49 ppm range?
Yes, I think you have it right about where you want it. With the double size test sample (10ml), 5 drops works out to about 45 ppm. So you are in the 40 - 50 ppm range that you were shooting for. Note that the drop conversion table is at the very end of those API kit instructions. Way down at the bottom, below all the various language instructions you'll see a chart that looks like this:

Each drop normally converts to 17.9 ppm. Since you doubled your sample, you would have only 8.9 ppm of GH or KH per drop of titrant.
HBchris wrote:If I understand correctly, when i test GH, this is combining both calcium and magnesium hardness. And magnesium hardness doesnt have an impact in terms of scale. So the calcium hardness with this water and alkalinity level shoudnt result in any scale?
The magnesium carbonate will precipitate at high temps, but is more soluble than calcium, and doesn't produce the same sort of hard limescale, so generally you do your scale predictions based just on the calcium hardness if you have that measurement. Since you know that Nestle formulates this water with a mix of calcium and magnesium, with a significant proportion of magnesium*, you don't expect any scale buildup at all at 40-50 ppm total hardness.

*if you crunch the numbers on that Nestle full analysis, you get magnesium hardness = 11-19 ppm as CaCO3, calcium hardness = 13-25 ppm as CaCO3
Pat
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Stromberg
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#15: Post by Stromberg »

homeburrero wrote:Normally you use distilled to make water, but in this case It's so concentrated that you could use your softish bottled water and it won't make a difference.
Sorry to bring up this thread. The quoted method above is the one I use: Very soft bottled water with a little bit of KHCO3, so in a sense the method recommend by rpavlis.

I just started wondering (I don't know anything about chemistry): Won't the adding of KHCO3 to water create carbonic accid, which will then corrode copper elements in the machines?
I don't want to question Dr. Pavlis, the thought just crossed my mind and it won't go away. :oops:

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homeburrero
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#16: Post by homeburrero »

Stromberg wrote:Won't the adding of KHCO3 to water create carbonic accid, ...
On the contrary, adding KHCO3 would tend to reduce the acidity of the water because the added bicarbonate ion will drive the equation below to the right, neutralizing H⁺ ions.
HCO₃⁻ + H⁺ -> H₂CO₃ -> H₂O + CO₂

Carbonate and bicarbonate are often referred to as 'buffer' because of this ability to neutralize acid.
Pat
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Stromberg
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#17: Post by Stromberg replying to homeburrero »

Thank you very much! Than, as I suspected, I misunderstood what I read about carbonic accid.

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redbone
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#18: Post by redbone »

While at I.D.C. this Saturday I noticed a sticker on a new LM GS3 with the Aqua Panna Logo placed directly at front of drain base. Aqua Panna Spring is located close to L.M. head office in Scarperia, Italy.

On the topic of water, has anyone noticed Bunn has "jumped" into conditioned water in a big way with some new offerings. http://www.bunn.com/refresh
Between order and chaos there is espresso.
Semper discens.


Rob
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