Marshall wrote:Except that in the real world every water treatment method involves compromises that may include cost, space, water waste, environmental damage, input and output. Anyone drawing water from a municipal water system (or from most bottlers for that matter) is dealing with constant changes. So, you decide what level of compromises you can live with and then forget about them.

Well said. I posted this topic to help people understand the factors at play and potentially explain some rare, problematic anomalies that have been observed. It does not mean that Claris is a bad system, it just means that there are some specific things you need to measure when deciding whether to use it.

Saying that ion exchange is categorically a "very bad idea" makes no sense whatsoever.

Here are some sample test results (Los Angeles tap water treated by Claris)

Thanks for the chart. How did you increase your TDS over the hardness? Is it mostly sodium from the cation softener or do you add anything else?

It's neither. Claris' ion exchange bleeds in H+, which forms water and CO2 with bicarbonates. There is no salt involved.

I recently bought a everpure eso-6, the eso-7 is what the local espresso guy uses. Our local well water (Florida aquifer) runs @ 154 ppm total alkalinity / 7.78 pH. After a 10gal flush my tap city water was 24.5ppm total alkalinity / 5.8 pH.

I'll try bringing in some unfiltered tap water today and rechecking my results in the lab. I see the part about acid reduction, 5.8 pH is not that low I would think?

Recheck on home tap water was 7.52 pH unfiltered; 5.84 pH after ESO-6.

That's too low by several espresso machine manufacturers' warranty standards. I wouldn't use water with that pH and alkalinity in my machine. I'm surprised your tap water pH is so low (below 7) at 150ppm alkalinity. I would want to investigate that with a more detailed lab analysis of the water.

I'll recheck the tap pH today at work, I was going on memory for our well water at work. We're using an Orion 960 autochem. for total alkalinity and lab grade pH meters. (There's three 8" wells and a water treatment plant at my job.) so it does make sense my city water pH might read differently than straight well water.

pH rechecks done.

I currently use a salt charged cation in tank water softener as an insurance so to speak.

I use pur filtered water and zero water filtered water in a blend to around 60 ppm tds. My tds is equivalent to my hardness pretty much. Should I continue to use the water softener? Will it affect my pH or taste of my coffee that it should be considered to be removed?

Contacted pentair/everpure and they're not happy with my current pH readings (5.80) after filtration. The rep is supposed to get back with me but did suggest Claris. I'm wondering if the Claris system is going to get my pH up to the 6.5 lower range they recommend?

It probably will if you use it right: It has a blend valve to bleed in water that has been filtered but not softened, allowing you to blend in water with a higher alkalinity (and GH-good minerals for coffee extraction) till you get to the right alkalinity to protect your machine from scale without risking corrosion.

You just need to make sure you use it per the manufacturer's instructions, check it periodically, and verify that your chlorides and sulfates are low. Your water has a very high alkalinity and low pH, according to the earlier posting, so I would also want to make sure and understand why that is. Claris does cause a pH reduction as a side effect of how it softens, so this could be important.