Since the OP specifies non-plumbed in setup. Go to 1st line equipment, Chris Coffee service, Espresso Parts etc and get water softener pouch designed to go in the water reservoir. Most specify recharging monthly and replacing annually. Cost is around $15 +/-.

Well, i think if he lives in LA and the hardness there is near mine (likely), the pouch would be worthless.
from CC service:

To give a better idea of how many gallons of water can be softened with one of these pouches we created a small chart below:

# of Grains of hardness in your water vs # of gallons of water that can be softened

5 grains of hardness 23 gallons can be softened
7 grains of hardness 16 1/2 gallons can be softened
10 grains of hardness 11 1/2 gallons can be softened
13 grains of hardness 9 gallons can be softened

My LADWP water right now is around 550PPM (was over 600ppm, but i just tested it again today). that is over 32GPG. So it might function for 3 or so gallons, before needing replacement (at $25 shipped). That would be expensive water.

rodcell wrote:Yes, I should look into that.
I prefer the simplicity of that approach, but I don't really know any good providers of water.
BTW, do I really have to re-mineralize?
Any suggestions for LA people?

Water stores are everywhere. Just google "water store" wherever you live. It is a thing in Mexico because the municiple water is SO bad.
I had never heard of it before living here.

And yes, you will then need to add minerals to it if it is STRAIGHT RO water, which many are. But it will be source dependent, so you will need to either buy pre-mineralized water there (if they have it - most seem to only offer "alkaline" water because it is a marketable fad), or add your own to taste. low mineral/distilled water makes crappy coffee.

buy a TDS meter, test your tap water and the RO water at a store you are considering, read everything in Randy G's post, and ask yourself how deep you want to go down the rabbit hole.

I kept reading so much about proper water for espresso that I now think I know less due to information overload.

My tap water comes out at around 240 ppm, water from the fridge door through an old filter around 200-210 ppm (but takes forever to fill anything). I get water delivered every 2 weeks for my water cooler, I usually fill my reservoir with 1/2 to 3/4 tap water then top it off with the spring water that I get delivered. The spring water is < 10 ppm, I usually dilute down to 150-180 in my reservoir. I would do more, but I try to save some of the spring water for actual drinking/hydration.

Interested to finally know where I should keep my ppm

http://www.scaa.org/?page=resources&d=water-standards

rodcell wrote:Any suggestions for LA people?

As lacoffee pointed out, the LA water is pretty hopeless. Since you are not plumbed in I agree that a bottled water would fit the bill. Volvic, or a perhaps a Crystal Geyser - see if your local bottles come from the Olancha plant - that would be close to ideal and not very pricey. (See EricS' nice chart listing Crystal Geyser's numbers for each water source.)

For plumbed in, based on what I see in this 2015 water report: https://www.ladwp.com/cs/idcplg?IdcServ ... stReleased,
I'd have to agree with lacoffee that RO + remineralization is the best option. Besides the very high hardness, most of the LA water utilities show a moderately high chloride value. (~100 ppm for the Weymouth and Diemer water plants) and that's something that can be a corrosion concern and is not reduced by softeners.

I went with the somewhat lazy route and bought Arrowhead spring water from Costco.
I'm hoping this will be soft enough for a while.

rodcell wrote:I went with the somewhat lazy route and bought Arrowhead spring water from Costco.
I'm hoping this will be soft enough for a while.

Arrowhead's online report is not too helpful. (see http://www.nestle-watersna.com/asset-li ... AR_ENG.pdf .) If you convert the Mg and Ca numbers it indicates a hardness somewhere between 15ppm and 200ppm as CaCO3. Probably they have lots of different bottling plants with a wide variety of minerals.

The other minerals, and the pH in that report look good, so I think if your bottle of Arrowhead comes out reasonable on a TDS meter you could go with it. If it's above 100 ppm on the TDS meter you'd probably need to periodically descale.

If you want consistent soft, never descale water you're better off going with formulated water instead of natural spring water. Gerber Pure is one example. Or buy distilled and mineralize it yourself - The simplest being Professor Pavlis' method:

rpavlis, in post above wrote: I personally use, as I have stated many times, about 0.5 to 1.0 mMolar potassium bicarbonate. You can simply add from 250 to 500 milligrams of potassium bicarbonate to a 5 litre container. You can use sodium bicarbonate too, but I do not like doing that because it seems to create peculiar flavours because Na is very low in coffee beans. You would use less of it perhaps 150 to 300 mg in 5 litres.

As I mentioned earlier, you could use a Crystal Geyser natural spring water if you check the bottling source. You have to search fine print on the bottle label. The Shasta/Weed CA source is very soft, but would certainly not cause scale. The Olancha CA source is a bit harder (50-60 ppm total hardness) and is better in agreement with the SCAA and SCAE guides for optimal taste.

I have very hard tap water - I had samples taken by my plumber (a good friend, too) which determined the best machine for my house. I didn't take after samples, but glasses, dishwasher, shower head show the calcium issue is solved. From a taste perspective, my tap water is superb. Every city water refugee loves our water - extremely clear taste and zero odors.

I tried the Crystal Geyser on a whim - mostly because of its alignment with "you still need some" minerals per info cited in this thread. I believe my shots taste better with it. When I had a problem with the ECM heating a few weeks ago, I found a miniscule amount of scale as I disassembled it. It looks like descaling will make sense as an annual event.

So, tastes great & easier to maintain make it a great combo for me.

I think the good answer is an RO system (before someone goes PC nuts on wasting water - most of us don't live in a desert - and water literately just falls out of the sky for free where I live! Sometimes too much at once! And if it goes down the drain, it gets used again the next town down the river (really!))

Anyway, the problem is that RO systems work too well - there is no dissolved calcium left to talk of.

So I'm looking at a product called ConcenTrace. Has anyone tried it - used it?

There are also cartridge systems, but they really just re-normalize the PH - and don't put minerals back in the water.