Thx guys,

Next days I will go for some laboratory tests, to compare my original tap water with the Claris filtred water. My water hardness is 8.7 german degrees and I set the bypass to 3 because I see that Claris don't decrease the TDS as much than I thought in the moment of buying. If the lab tell me that total hardness was reduced at 3 or 4 german degrees, I will say "well done Everpure"!

That is what I would expect. Claris softens, but it does little in the way of TDS reduction.

IMO, if Claris reduce the ph (and he do it, as I see in your table) but the TDS remain high, this is a major problem because if I set the bypass on the maximum (level 1 or 0) in order to lower the TDS, the ph will go under 6.5 ( I supose) and isn't ok for the espresso machine!

Today I recived the first set of the laboratory tests. Next days I will test de GH and KH.

I don't know if the european units measure is good for you but you can make a conversion:



You have in the table both english and roumanian name of parameters, the test method, the maximum values with the units, and the determinated value. My bypass value was 3 for a 7.5 german degrees of hardness of the original tap water.

Important to observe:
ph: VERY LOW!!!!!!!!!! FROM 7.22 original TO 5.6 with Claris
Conductivity: from 319 μS/cm original to 212 μS/cm with Claris
TDS: 108 ppm (I don't have the original value)
Alcalinity: 0.68 mmol/l
Set residue at 105 Celsius degrees: 139 mg/l
---------------
Others:
aluminum: from 19 μg/l to 2 μg/l
Chlorine: from 0.14 - to 0.005 mg/l
turbidity: from 0.739 - to 0.18 UNT

I'm curently at level 3 of bypass and I want to improve the ph that is very low and dangerous for the espresso machine. But I don't want to increase the TDS value too much. Which level of bypass should be ok for me?

Hello all,

I apologize for my long absence from this forum. There were a number of questions raised here on the Claris and the ESO. The ESO and the Claris are both ion exchange systems. These however differ from traditional brine softeners in that they are not regenerated with salt. Rather, over time the resin's capacity to reduce the carbonate hardness reduces the point that the filter cartridge must be replaced. The advantage of these point of use systems are that you don't have to add salt, and they do not add salt to the product. Another advantage is that the Claris can be applied to both drip and espresso coffee brewing. Brine based softeners add salt to the water, and this salt causes the grounds to swell, leading to over extraction. Since the Claris and ESO add no salt, this is not an issue.
The ESO and the Claris both have integrated carbon block filtration for chlorine removal. They differ in primarily two ways:
- The ESO has a fixed bypass that blends about 40% (I previously had stated 20% but I learned that this was changed) of filtered water with the "softened" water. With the Claris, the blend can be adjusted, allowing for more precise final water hardness.
- The ESO uses a strong acid resin (SAC) and the Claris uses a weak acid resin (WAC). The SAC means that the ESO targets all cations while the Claris with WAC specifically targets carbonate hardness. Both will reduce limescale, but the WAC gives the Claris higher capacity.
Both systems can be used for drinking water, since they both include carbon for chemicals and membanes for particles. There's no harm in drinking softened water, it's just not necessary. The EPA states that drinking water can be up to 500ppm TDS. By using the Claris for drinking water you'll simple cause the filter to be used up faster.
I will try and address some of the other questions later. - Roy

Hello Roy,
And a solution for my 5.5 ph??

Hello all... Really interesting thread here... I have a Claris / GB5 setup that I would like to carry out some water tests on in London and wondered if I could get some advice.

Do any UK based forum members have advice on accuratley measuring water quality for espresso using tests available in the UK?

Shadowfax, how were you calculating TDS on the data that you published online from your tests? I've requested a quote from http://www.hach-lange.co.uk for the kits mentioned in the thread... we'll see what the price comes back as.

Thank you very much

I'm still really interested in how Shadowfax was calculating TDS... Were you just using a Digital meter?

To follow up on this and hopefully to help anyone trying to track these down... I just got a quote back from http://www.hach-lange.co.uk for the testing kits Shadowfax used for his tests.

5-B Hardness - 145300 - £19.20
AL-AP ALKALINITY - 2444300 - £51.60

Adding VAT and delivery the total comes to £103.56.

Chris, I was just using a digital meter to measure TDS. I was using a cheap one for most of the tests; some of the more recent ones I've done with a nicer HM Digital COM-100 TDS meter.