"Water For Coffee" book discussion - Page 2

September 1st, 2015, 7:10 pm

I received a shipment verification email today for my "Water For Coffee" book, I'm looking forward to receiving it, but I'm not so sure how long it's going to take me to absorb the material.

http://users.rcn.com/erics/ · #12: Post by **erics** » September 1st, 2015, 7:15 pm

I received a similar email . . . It could be a long read.

September 1st, 2015, 7:19 pm

Yes, considering I never made it through the SCAA Water Quality Handbook.

#14: Post by **TomC** » September 2nd, 2015, 3:08 am

erics wrote:I received a similar email . . . It could be a long read.

That would be cool. I was under the impression that it was a short work. I'm seriously excited to expand my own understanding of water's effects on different levels of roasts. I've been toying around with micronized magnesium and CaCO3 when I choose to brew something past a FC roast and enjoying the results.

#15: Post by **OldNuc** » September 8th, 2015, 5:31 pm

No e-mail but the book was in the mailbox today.

September 11th, 2015, 12:30 am

Got my copy today. USPS wins over Canada Post

.

After a ten-minute glance:
- About 130 pages printed on very thick paper.
- I'd guess that about 80% of the book is about the chemistry of water.
- The rest is the practical aspects, testing water, treating water, etc.
- To me, the "money shot" is a graph of General Hardness vs. Carbonate Hardness. Colonna-Dashwood and Hendon (C-D&H

) define acceptable and ideal areas for coffee on the graph. The SCAA water recommendations would give a rectangular area on the graph. C-D&H's areas are not rectangular. C-D&H's areas include parts, but not all, of the SCAA area.

Perhaps the best way I can summarize the book is via the Phil&Sebastian anecdote. Maxwell recalls the anecdote about 10 minutes in at his 2015 SCAA presentation (link at Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood on the complexities of water and flavor [video]). The book includes this anecdote as a short case study which gives/explains the underlying numbers. Now I understand why coffee that I have ordered from well-regarded roasters in Toronto just doesn't do anything for me. My water is different, and C-D&H explain which differences are important for coffee, and how to fix those differences (if I wanted to). More importantly for the coffee industry, C-D&H start the discussion about what roasters can do about water differences - if they want to satisfy a geographically-diverse clientele.

I'll follow-up once I free up some time to read the book cover-to-cover.

September 11th, 2015, 12:20 pm

Got my copy too. I'm slowly making my way through the introductory chemistry and physics material. I was not a big fan of organic chemistry in college which is not helping me.

#18: Post by **GlennV** » September 14th, 2015, 1:23 pm

CHHendon wrote:Hi guys,
Thank you for the interest in our work.

It has taken quite a long time to get this book to print (nearly 2 years). The book has had input from many designers, so it looks good. It has been peer-reviewed by other scientists, so it is pretty serious. It has also been proofed by many non-scientists, so it reads well.

I sincerely hope you enjoy it, but also learn a lot from it. I am more proud of this than I am of my own PhD thesis.
With regards to the formats it is available in, we elected, in the end, to go for a printed version only. There are many reasons for this but the most pertinent being that:

i) the book looks and reads much better as a real life book.
ii) the people who read this book will value it as an educational object.
iii) I did not want any digital imagery of our 'money shot figures' available for download because we don't have a legal team strong enough to chase things down.

I realise that it is quite expensive for a book that on face value is about coffee and water. I hope that upon reading it, you will realise that this is way more than that. I would like to think that we've written it with an assumed base knowledge of nothing, and by the end you should be at least as capable as a 1st year university student. It is for the enthusiast, the barista, the roaster and the curious.

From Maxwell and I, thank you again for the interest in our work. I am excited to be able to teach chemistry to such a broad audience.

Hi Chris,
Good to see you posting here. I received your book earlier today and have had a quick read. It's all beautifully presented. If I may, though, I have a question about units. In chapter 1 you say that the units of concentration throughout are ppm, by weight, of the dissolved ions themselves. This fits in with your calculations of chapter 6, e.g. 1g/L of CaCl2 adds 273 ppm Ca++. However, this stuff is normally discussed in "ppm as CaCO3", and this is what the simple drop test kits usually report. So, my question is what are the units of your "money shot" figure, as you describe it. Is it really ppm as Ca++, Mg++ or HCO3- (in which case the results would be surprising to most people, I would expect) or is it actually hardness "as CaCO3"?
thanks
-Glenn

#19: Post by **GlennV** » September 17th, 2015, 11:13 am

Just to follow up on this, and in case anyone else is wondering, Maxwell got back to me to confirm that the numbers are indeed ppm, by weight, of the ions themselves (NOT "as CaCO3").

#20: Post by **GlennV** » September 18th, 2015, 10:03 am

One more thought, and then I'll shut up ...

The reason I thought people might be surprised is that the GH over most of the recommended region is really rather high - it's a whole region of water chemistries that I hadn't played with before. I must say though, initial results are very tasty indeed! As an engineer I found the odd bit of the book infuriating (p24 grrrr....) but not anything central to the main theme. Overall it's an excellent read, and to be recommended.