Dick,

I think you've pretty much identified why it's a waste to get a manufacturer/dealer who's concerned about liability to suggest home users perform the descaling maintenance. Perhaps I can help you here, though I am not sure if I can publicly distribute the document, so... check your e-mail. More generally, I would ask you what's wrong with the Water FAQ guidelines?

Water FAQ wrote:Generally, a flush through descaler uses about .5 to .75 fluid ounces (1 to 1.5 tablespoons, or 8 to 12 grams) of citric or tartaric (grape) acid powder dissolved in 1 liter of water. This is a 2.25% to 3.5% solution, equivalent to 33% to 50% dilute lemon juice. Cleancaf and other coffee manufacturers' descalers use this formula. Theoretically, these amounts will dissolve about 12 to 18 grams of scale per liter, but that would require leaving the solution in for several days; in practice, it is used for an hour or two to dissolve up to 5 grams of scale.

The formula is mild enough to be harmless to espresso machine components, but it will come out of brass or copper machines with a slight greenish tinge. This comes from milligram levels of dissolved copper and is no cause for alarm.

The FAQ suggests ~1 tbsp/L concentration of citric acid powder, and suggests leaving it in the boiler for about an hour. More than that is plenty safe; Citric acid is not a superheavyweight acid as they go.

Basically, with the GS3, shut the machine off, drain both boilers, close them back,put the pump intake into a properly formulated (and FULLY DISSOLVED) solution of citric acid, and turn the machine back on. Make sure that if you're using a small reservoir like the internal one that you have spare formula on hand, as it will take more than a full reservoir to fill both boilers. Remember to bleed the brew boiler as per the manual instructions. After the boilers fill, disconnect the level probe on the steam boiler and listen for the autofill to activate. Let it run for a few seconds (5? just a guess) to get the boiler level higher than normal, and plug it back in. Now, you can let the machine heat up, and then draw some water through the group, water tap, and steam wand every few minutes. The idea there is to make sure the acid gets to all the places where you may get mild scale formation, including the water tap, steam pipe, and the 3-way valve. After probably 30 minutes, it's a good idea to turn the machine off and let it cool down for awhile. Letting it go for another hour or more rather than 30 minutes is not going to cause any damage to the machine, and if that's what it needs to cool off enough for you to feel comfortable accessing the drains, you should do that (alternately, if you don't want to let the machine heat up, you don't have to--but the heat makes the citric acid act faster and also lets you push it through the steam wand, which you wouldn't be able to do with a cold machine).

After the machine has sat long enough to be safe to get at, empty any remaining acid solution from the reservoir, rinse out the reservoir, and fill it with fresh water. You may want to turn the machine back on for a moment and draw some water through the group, as this will flush the brew water lines of citric acid water and may reduce your flushing need. Turn it back off, drain the boilers, close them back up, and turn the machine back on to refill (again, bleed the brew boiler). You may want to let the machine heat up again and flush fresh water out of the taps/steam wand and brew group. Again, you can get at least the water tap and the brew group if you don't let it heat up.

Repeat the steps in the last paragraph (flush the boiler with fresh water again) and taste the water from the brew group. If you find it tastes slightly sour still, you need to flush again. If you want to be real nerdy, you can probably get a pH test and compare inlet and outlet pH of your water to determine how many fresh water flushes you need to do after descaling. It depends on how thoroughly you're able to drain each boiler, so no one can give you a hard number here, not even the manufacturer (even Synesso's descaling instructions don't specify an exact number, IIRC). Anyway, when the taste is gone and/or the outlet pH is the same as the inlet pH, you're done.

If you understand the details of what needs to happen, the job is half-done. The process is extremely intuitive and has a plenty big fudge factor on it. Even if you fail to completely get rid of all the citric acid (technically, you will if you only flush till you can't taste it anymore), the remaining solution will be far too weak to do anything bad.

I hope that's something like what you're looking for, though of course wholly unofficial.

*DISCLAIMER*: Doing stupid things with appliances that use water and electricity can result in death or serious injury. Always unplug an espresso machine before poking around with its internals, and DO NOT TOUCH hot espresso machine components. The above instructions are provided freely and AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Peppersass wrote:These two quotes exemplify my frustration with this topic. Yes, the FAQ suggests that higher hardness (for taste) and lower alkalinity (around neutral pH) should be the target. But cation systems remove the hardness and don't lower the alkalinity. So, if you start with hard water that's high in alkalinity, and run it through a cation system, you're doing exactly the opposite of what the FAQ suggests.

The other thing that puzzles me about cation systems is why they are acceptable to coffee experts if they remove virtually all the hardness. Does the sodium substituted for calcium provide the same magic that hardness provides for making coffee? I don't recall seeing that stated explicitly anywhere.

The Water FAQ contains a taste test (section 3.2) of RO vs. RO+Tap vs. ion exchange vs. 'ideal' water used for coffee brewing.

Water FAQ wrote:The RO water didn't really produce an espresso, but rather an unbalanced, overly bright shot of strong coffee with crema on top. It's identity was painfully obvious. The proper mineral level espresso was distinguished by a slight edge in the things I like in an espresso, rich oily mouthfeel and sweetness, but I was using my own blend which is formulated to really max these out at the expense of complex origin flavors (50% total of Robusta, Brazil, Java, and Uganda). Otherwise, the two boiler safe variations fared very well and were nigh indistinguishable.

The total scores Jim gave for each water were (respectively) 35, 49, 51, and 54. As people have been saying, while 'ideal' water is just that, there are other cost-effective solutions (like cation-exchange) that get you high-TDS, but perhaps high alkalinity and low mineral hardness (or whatever), but perform negligibly worse than 'ideal' water, if at all, and can be considered perfectly viable options for water treatment to protect an espresso machine without sacrificing coffee taste. RO Water and RO water with insufficient tap water mixed in won't fit this bill.

I wasn't directing that specifically at you, Dick.

It was directed, specifically, at people who use supersoft water/RO/Distilled water, for the sole purpose of avoiding a once a year, twice at the most, task, which isn't all that hard once you see how the particular machine operates.

JmanEspresso wrote:It was directed, specifically, at people who use supersoft water/RO/Distilled water, for the sole purpose of avoiding a once a year, twice at the most, task, which isn't all that hard once you see how the particular machine operates.

There must be a few people who do this (after all, there are such things as "Peeping Toms" in this world, even if none of us have ever met one ).

I don't recall reading posts from people who are at all serious about coffee who do this or who advocate doing this (using demineralized water).

Part of the problem is the language that is being used in this thread. Cation softening can produce water that has zero grains of hardness. I know this to be the case, because it is what happens with my whole house softener. My TDS meter reads ~125 both before and after cation softening, as it should. Reported values from the local water district are a (pretreatment) ph of 7.0 and alkalinity of 86. Post treatment my water hardness test strips read 0 gpg of calcium carbonate hardness.

What I get from this after treatment is what I would define as SOFT WATER that does not scale up my boiler but that produces a very fine espresso. After switching to using softened water like this, I have not needed to descale either of my Cimbalis, and the only evidence of any scaling has been on the autofill probe of my rotary machine. This happened a couple of times and required several minutes to remove the probe and wipe a fine white powder off the probe with a slightly abrasive scrub sponge. With regular emptying and refilling of my machines' boilers, there's not been any evidence of scale elsewhere.

So my point is that it is possible, depending on the quality of your input water, its taste, it's hardness and other chemical/physical characteristics, to end up, after cation softening, with SOFT WATER that produces and fine beverage and with regular emptying of the boiler will not cause what we generally mean by "boiler scaling." I'm not saying that everyone can have this result with a simple method such as cation softening, but I am saying that there are many people who can, and they are in fact using "SOFT WATER" in their machines, if one defines "SOFT WATER" as water that lacks calcium carbonate hardness.

Perhaps we need to use a term like "deionized water" or "demineralized water" to describe the sort of water that people are so rightfully being critical of. To the extent that anyone here is actually using water like this, the practice should be discouraged.

Finally, there's a little too much paranoia out there on this whole subject. Although many of us are familiar with the situation that exists with aluminum boilers (as in the Gaggia machines), where boilers can literally dissolve rather rapidly with certain types of water, most damage inflicted on an espresso machine, by water, is a relatively slow motion process. If you destroy or damage your machine by using the wrong water, it is unlikely to happen over a short period, but is going to take YEARS to happen. Even with a very expensive espresso machine, it's a bit much to be imagining much of anything happening over the period of a few months or even a year, in domestic service.

ken

Ken Fox wrote: I don't recall reading posts from people who are at all serious about coffee who do this or who advocate doing this (using demineralized water).

I'm beginning to worry more about brain softening than water softening here.

misterdoggy wrote:... So its pretty important to get the water mix right, as part of the entire taste along with tamping, beans, temperature, pressure, grind etc and I sure wouldn't want to skimp on the taste because I was avoiding descaling ... In any case as Stefano wrote, that even people using Brita @ 30ppm, he had seen plenty of buildup anyhow ...

Peppersass wrote: If you want to know how frustrating it is at my end of this conversation, here's a case in point: ... I told him that I was targeting hardness and alkalinity in the 30-50 ppm range and asked for his recommendations on descaling procedures. He said, "Don't do it." Right. He said don't do it. He said the brew boiler won't scale because the temp is always below boiling, and if the steam boiler is drained once a year, that will be sufficient. Once a year! I pointed out that the manual says to do it monthly. He said that was just the Italians being overly cautious. He said they don't descale there in Seattle. Well, I've read that Seattle has soft water, so I'm not really sure how to interpret that. But he was clear about not liking the idea of introducing an acidic solution into the machine. Basically, he repeated what I'd heard from another LM USA tech and from Chris Coffee: keep the hardness low and don't descale.

Here are two people, just on this thread, misunderstanding information, garbling quotes, worrying about descaling boilers when running 30ppm hardness and alkalinity water, and then getting insulted when they are told they are living in a some sort of Super Mario fantasy world where monster water eats the plumbing. There were several more people frightening themselves in this wonderfully unique way on the other recent GS3 threads.

I really do not want to insult anybody; but Ken, I know you've read the Water FAQ, and I suspect Dick has as well. I certainly know John and Stefano have; since they told me they were fine on the content. So where is this BS coming from?

It's not Halloween yet, but this "Attack of the Killer Water" topic sure feels like it.

another_Jim wrote: I really do not want to insult anybody

Common Jim, You know you like to.....

shadowfax wrote:The FAQ suggests ~1 tbsp/L concentration of citric acid powder, and suggests leaving it in the boiler for about an hour.

OK, I missed that.

Jim -- Yes, I've read the water FAQ, but have had to read it several times (suggested by Nicholas) to really absorb the content. I probably need to read it again (and again.) It's not your writing, which is excellent, it's the newness and complexity of the subject matter to me. I think it's also a matter of having a range of choices of where to target the pourover water, and also a range of treatment options when I eventually plumb in. Add some uncertainty with the testing kits and just sorting through all this can be a little mind boggling. But I'm getting there.

Doing a little self-psychoanalysis, I believe part of my paranoia has resulted from being intimately familiar with the potential destructive effects of my well water. Although it tastes better than any water I've had (and, as I've mentioned, friends bring jugs over to take some home), it's loaded with "stuff". No dangerous chemicals or biological agents (at least according to lab tests done when we moved in), but right out of the well it's teeming with ulta-fine sediment. We use a 5-micron whole-house filter to get rid of that. Otherwise, every valve in the house would get gummed up with the stuff (perpetually running toilets are the first sign.) I have to be extremely careful when changing the filter not to let any of the sediment into the water system or it will wreak havok. We don't use any carbon filtration. The hardness and alkalinity of the water are each in the 150-200 ppm range, and scale forms incredibly fast. As I've mentioned several times, we used to have a Japanese water boiler that stayed on all the time, and big sheets of scale would form in it very quickly, usually in a week or two.

I realize that scaling take place more or less in slow motion with treated water. There's less urgency for me in this than it may appear. I do tend to be a little obsessive and tend to look ahead more than I probably should. I'm a long-term planner, and I'm thinking mainly of the machine's health and well-being over the long haul. I like to do that so I can set-it-and-forget it.

shadowfax wrote:Basically, with the GS3, shut the machine off... [massive snip]

Thank you, Nicholas! This is exactly what I was looking for. I printed out your instructions and placed them in the cabinet with a couple of boxes of CleanCaf I happen to have on hand. I am now fulfilled (at least on the subject of how to descale the GS/3 )

Peppersass wrote: I believe part of my paranoia has resulted from being intimately familiar with the potential destructive effects of my well water. Although it tastes better than any water I've had (and, as I've mentioned, friends bring jugs over to take some home), it's loaded with "stuff". No dangerous chemicals or biological agents (at least according to lab tests done when we moved in), but right out of the well it's teeming with ulta-fine sediment. We use a 5-micron whole-house filter to get rid of that. Otherwise, every valve in the house would get gummed up with the stuff (perpetually running toilets are the first sign.) I have to be extremely careful when changing the filter not to let any of the sediment into the water system or it will wreak havok. We don't use any carbon filtration. The hardness and alkalinity of the water are each in the 150-200 ppm range, and scale forms incredibly fast. As I've mentioned several times, we used to have a Japanese water boiler that stayed on all the time, and big sheets of scale would form in it very quickly, usually in a week or two.)

Ah, in that case my apologies for getting tetchy.

Your water is typical of limestone basin wells, very hard and very tasty. Once you have filtered out the grit, I'd look into a whole house cation (salt) softener, since that level of untreated hardness will clog up pipes a lot harder to descale than the GS3. This is a lot less wasteful than an RO system, and given the initial mineral level of the water, the cation softened water should be quite acceptable for espresso. If you already have an RO system for the house, adding minerals back would be a project -- you'd need to run the RO water, and the filtered hard water to a mixing valve, get it to around 50 to 60 TDs (given the higher than usual proportion of alkalinity to hardness) for acceptable quality with once every two year descaling, or 100 to 125 TDS for peak quality and twice a year descaling. The first option would be about the same in espresso taste as cation water, the second noticeably, but not greatly, better.

I was mistaken about calcite filters in the FAQ. Nicholas is right, they will raise the water to only around 20 TDS, which is appalling for coffee (if you have a whole house RO system and galvanized pipe, it's a good idea to prevent corrosion).

The difference between 20 TDS, RO + Calcite water, and any of these options is dramatic. The excessive softness reduces solids extraction from the coffee puck well below 20%. This makes it very difficult indeed to brew high end SOs without getting a sink shot level of overbearing sourness and cutting lemon peel flavors. In essence, the more minerals you start with, the more acidic and lighter roasted the coffees you can brew. The more acidic and lighter roasted the coffees, the higher their quality can get. Of course, not all highly acidic, light roasted cofffees are great; but almost all great coffees are highly acidic and best roasted light.

Perhaps I should have been clearer in my abrupt posts on the stakes here. If you decide to go with too soft water, you won't just get slightly less, but still huge body and chocolate on the feel-good Seattle style blends; you will also find that the finer and tastier SO coffees are closed to you. You will have gotten yourself a 4.5K comfort food espresso dispenser.

Peppersass wrote:Doing a little self-psychoanalysis, I believe part of my paranoia has resulted from being intimately familiar with the potential destructive effects of my well water.

And I can say, while making every effort to help clarify things for you, I can sympathize with your paranoia more than you might guess: I've experienced monstrous water in the "Super Mario fantasy world" that is Los Alamos, NM, whose municipal water has the dubious honor of being one of the relatively few places in the world that has very, very high concentrations of silica. The stuff is absolutely beastly in heated water applications, and seems to be unusually resistant to traditional methods of water filtration. Thankfully (for me), I ended up in Houston, a place with much more 'real world' water, not to mention the legendary Jon Rosenthal.