Water For Home Espresso

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La Marzocco Home
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Posts: 46
Joined: 10 years ago

#1: Post by La Marzocco Home »

It's time to start thinking about your water.

Espresso is complex. A lot goes into making it, and the pursuit of pulling a good shot starts fresh with each and every coffee. But at its most basic, espresso consists of just two ingredients-coffee & water.

Much of the focus is often on coffee. After all, it's full of solids, oils, and aromatics-everything necessary to produce the flavors and aromas we love so much. But what about water? Is it worth focusing on? It's obviously a necessary part of the equation, but just how much attention needs paid to it?

This week, we're exploring the world of water. How it affects your coffee, why it matters for your machine, and what you should do about it. This post is just the tip of the iceberg, as it were, but its an important start.

http://home.lamarzoccousa.com/water-for-home-espresso/

Scott Callender, La Marzocco Home

Nunas
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Joined: 9 years ago

#2: Post by Nunas »

Great topic, although many posts have already beaten upon it. Here's some thoughts to get the ball rolling...

1. In terms of extraction, I would have thought that distilled or RO water would be the best, as it lacks everything. Therefore, it ought to extract the heck out of the ground coffee. However, many articles say that some hardness is needed for maximum extraction. I'd like to hear from knowledgeable people about water from the point of view of extraction.

2. In terms of flavour, again, logic would seem to indicate that distilled or RO water, being unadulterated by any taste, would reveal the true coffee flavour. Yet, we are told that we again need some hardness to 'bring out' the taste. Recently, I read (sorry can't recall where) that new research indicates a cup of coffee tastes best to most people when it is made with water not just fairly hard, but specifically high in calcium and magnesium.

3. In terms of our machines, we are told that distilled and RO water are such a powerful solvents that they will leech the metal right out of our boilers. On the other hand, we are also told that we need to avoid hard water to avoid scaling, and that we must mitigate scaling by periodic de-scaling. Perhaps these are two opposites and we need to find a compromise. Or, perhaps, there is a 'sweet spot' where we will get minimal scaling with maximum extraction and good taste. I dunno!

4. For those of us with HX machines, there is a kind of work-around. For the HX, it isn't exactly 'what goes in is what comes out'. We could fill our reservoirs with distilled/RO water that is tempered with just a bit of hard water, to avoid leeching and scaling both. But, what is the right composition for this 'boiler water' Providing we don't use the hot water wand, this water ought to stay about right for quite a while, although a lot of steaming would gradually result in increased residual hardness. Now, with the boiler taken care of, since HX machines make coffee using water straight from the reservoir, not from the boiler, we might then fill the reservoir with water having the ideal characteristics for the coffee. Again, what is the right composition of this magic water?