ZeroWater is a new filter pitcher which, unlike Pur or Brita, produces completely demineralized, 0 TDS, water. The cost for a 4 pack of cartridges is roughly $50 or around 50 cents per gallon. This is less than the supermarket charges for RO or distilled water, and also a bit less than a counter top distiller costs in electricity. It is also more convenient. The per gallon cost of an installed RO filter is less, but that is not an option for some people.

Flush your steam boiler weekly with the straight 0 TDS water, and mix in tap water to get 75 to 150 TDS, depending on how much you hate to descale, for your espresso. A TDS meter comes with the filter pitcher, so you can monitor your mix.

Thanks for this tip:

(I hate descaling.) What would happen if you mixed Brita filtered water with this water? I don't like the local tap water at all. How low can you go before the taste goes flat in the espresso?

Howard, that would work fine. Just mix to get your desired TDS and you will be good to go.

Thanks for the great tip, Jim!

Got the last pitcher and 2-pak of spare filters today at the local Walgreens for the same price as Amazon with shipping. What a neat product -- it really works. It produces zero TDS water that reads identically to distilled water.

The TDS meter is worth the price of admission. I had lots of fun testing everything from my tap water to the ZeroWater to distilled water to various brands of bottled water. The results correlate well with the hardness titration kit I have. It can't measure alkalinity, but I have a another kit on the way for that.

The bottled water ranged from about 11mg/l for Crystal Gyeser (available locally only in small bottles), to about 30mg/l for Poland Springs (a more or less local brand that's fairly cheap and easily available in gallon jugs), to a whopping 246mg/l for the local grocery store "Spring" water (perhaps it's literally made with metal springs...) My tap water, which comes from a drilled well and tastes really good, is about 170, very close to the number given by the hardness titration test. Should be no problem using my tap water to dial in whatever TDS I want (still cogitating on that one for my new GS/3, and will post some thoughts on it shortly.)

I'm a bit confused by the readings I got on Crystal Geyser bottled water. The online analysis I found at http://www.bottledwaterweb.com says TDS for Crystal Geyser is 590 PPM, about half of which is sodium. That's gotta be a typo, wouldn't you think? After all, in Jim Schulman's Insanely Long Water FAQ, you recommend Crystal Geyser because it won't scale and tastes OK for coffee. I'm sure you wouldn't have recommended Crystal Geyser if it was really 590 PPM! Assuming my TDS measurement is accurate, I certainly agree it won't scale, but the TDS seem awfully low to meet your criteria for taste. What TDS measurment for Crystal Geyser were you using? Your own or a published report.

Thanks for the live report. It didn't look like a scam, but its good to know for certain.

Back when I wrote, the reported TDS was around 60, the hardness around 40. However, it turns out that bottled "spring" water is not very stable in TDS, since any spring can be used to make it (hence the high reading you got). For instance, actual Poland Springs water is around 200 TDS, your Poland Spring is using a different natural source.

Drinking or Baby water is more consistent, around 30 TDS, starting as RO and then having some minerals added.

On any pourover machine with an autofill boiler, including the GS3, I recommend weekly flushing with distilled/RO water. Just fill your reservoir with it, then run the hot water tap. You'll add minerals when you steam, but this will dilute them and keep the boiler scale free. It means you can run higher minerals in a pourover than in a plumbed machine without having scale problems (HX are easily descaled, brew boilers won't scale if you keep the water TDS reasonable. Only steam boilers have the inherent scaling problems of getting water+ minerals in and only pure steam out).

another_jim wrote:Back when I wrote, the reported TDS was around 60, the hardness around 40. However, it turns out that bottled "spring" water is not very stable in TDS, since any spring can be used to make it (hence the high reading you got).

You mean low. I got a reading of 11. I still think the 540 number on bottledwaterweb is a typo.

another_jim wrote:On any pourover machine with an autofill boiler, including the GS3, I recommend weekly flushing with distilled/RO water. Just fill your reservoir with it, then run the hot water tap.

On the GS/3, the default mode ("Tea Water Pump On") is to mix reservoir water with boiler water to reduce the temp at the hot water wand (the mixing rate is adjustable by means of a valve.) The boiler will still fill up with RO, but you'll waste some reservoir water out the hot water tap in the process. I think it would be best to set "Tea Water Pump Off" when filling the boiler with RO, though this might result in some sputtering.

FWIW, LM recommends draining both boilers on a monthly basis to minimize scaling. I would think the combination of weekly flushing and monthly draining, along with keeping the daily TDS level reasonable, would be pretty effective.

another_jim wrote: . . . However, it turns out that bottled "spring" water is not very stable in TDS, since any spring can be used to make it (hence the high reading you got). For instance, actual Poland Springs water is around 200 TDS, your Poland Spring is using a different natural source.

Agreed . . .

Dick, "my" Crystal Geyser comes from a spring located near Mount Shasta in Northern California; "your" Crystal Geyser, no doubt, comes from a source much closer to New Hampshire. (The label will tell you the location.)

Cheers,
Jason

Yes it can vary, a lot:


Source: http://www.ag.auburn.edu/poul/virtuallibrary/curtiswater.html

Where I live (and we have well since we're rural) my water is extremely hard. Running a house softener is a must, luckily it works extremely well as my water is near zero hardness post softener. Makes great espresso, as good as the 3-grain hard water at our old (non-rural) house (municipal water).

another_jim wrote:Thanks for the live report. It didn't look like a scam, but its good to know for certain.

Jim, after reading your helpful suggestion about the Zerowater pitcher, I was searching for a place to purchase one when I came across this site: http://www.m4040.com/AssholeFiles/Zerowater.htm

I guess it just shows you the different ways people look at things.

On a slightly more serious note, I just finished re-reading The Insanely Long Water FAQ. After reading that, and what has been said here, I think I need to flush the steam boiler on my Duetto with Zerowater or RO, probably about once a month. I am using an Everpure ESO filter that I think is doing a pretty good job of conditioning the water, but I now see that won't do anything about the accumulation of minerals in the steam boiler. I appreciate all the valuable info I have read on this site.

Vince

The guy is right that they use mythological reasoning: distilled water is purer, therefore healthier. But if he wrote nasty letters to all mythologizing advertisers, he'd have no time for anything else.

If your boiler has an easy drain, do that once a month; in this case add a little regular water back to the distilled, since the autofill needs it. If you flush, enough minerals will stay in the boiler to keep the autofill happy.