I have been trying to determine the best method to get my water chemistry to the best characteristics for brewing espresso. My untreated water chemistry is PH 8, Total Hardness 4g, Calcium Hardness 1g, TDS at 95f = 85ppm, 70f = 70ppm

Since I relatively low concentration of minerals in our municipal water supply, my initial treatment was to treat the chloramines with catalytic carbon in line with a simple sediment filter.

I upgraded my espresso machine and decided to try to improve my water quality. I asked BWT for a recommendation based on my parameters above, however they just indicated to add their carbon filter without regard to the request to adjust TDS and some other items.

Since I was already treating the water for the chlorimines, I decided to install the BWT bestmax Premium, as I would get redundant filtering with as in the description "Balanced mineral content thanks to Mg2+".

However, after installing the filter, my chemistry stayed the same, I am using the bypass setting of 3, based upon the directions for hardness.

I really do not want to mix my own water and set up a flojet system. I do not want the noise and I have used pressure water pumps before and do not want the associated pressure fluctuations.

My only thoughts at this point, is to add the BWT bestmin filter "Filtration system for mineralising water with a low mineral content", however there does not seem to be any data on exactly what this filter adds and how.

Any ideas on how to achieve better water quality, would like to get TDS in a better range, 150 or so and get the ph 6.5 to 7.0. Am I chasing my tail?

^
Wondering why you want to achieve an acidic pH as opposed to neutral or better yet slightly alkaline.
Also why are you looking to achieve the upper recommended tds of 150ppm ?
Ideal taste for me has been much lower than that. This does vary on what makes up your mineral content also.

It seems that generally water with a TDS of 80 ppm to 150 ppm are recommended for the best results, the World Brewers Cup parameters (acceptable range 50-125 mg/L.) My tastes are probably different from yours. In my case I have only been able to achieve tasting my espresso in the lower limits of the range. I would like the opportunity to taste my espresso with a higher concentration of solids, then I can determine what best chemistry works for me. I might be surprised and find that I like what I have now.

Same thing with the PH, would like to see what best suits my tastes.

I think that part of the fun is trying different variables and seeing if I can make adjustments for a better cup of coffee. Other wise why go to all the trouble?

MSS wrote:Any ideas on how to achieve better water quality, would like to get TDS in a better range, 150 or so and get the ph 6.5 to 7.0. Am I chasing my tail?

I think so, or maybe letting the tail wag the dog a little in focusing on TDS and pH.

Given this question and the topic title, I think a long-winded and somewhat geeky opinion (hopefully not too pedantic and irritating) might be OK here.

My opinion is that you first need to address things that harm your machine or ruin the taste. Chlorine and chloramine, of course, but that's easy - just use a good carbon filter, maybe double or high performance catalytic carbon if you have chloramine. I think you have that covered.

Next would be things like high chloride, high silica, or very high sulfate that might require you to go with purification (e.g., a reverse osmosis system). Synesso, for example recommends RO if your chloride is above 15 mg/L, La Marzocco if above 30 mg/L. If you have good alkalinity and pH you can worry less about chloride and sulfate. If you do have to go with RO, your choices are constrained with respect to hardness and alkalinity - you have to live with what you can safely get with either bypass, remineralization, or a combination of the two. (Unless you are drawing from a reservoir or Flojet bottle - in which case you have a rabbit hole full of water formulating options to explore.)

Next you need to address alkalinity and hardness from a machine health perspective. That means shooting for an alkalinity at or above about 40 mg/L, and hardness and alkalinity together at a level that won't require frequent descaling, or as some manufacturers recommend, will require no descaling at home. The best guide for that is the Jim Schulman Insanely Long Water FAQ (can be found here). (Notice that the Kees Speedster Installation manual excerpts and recommends that FAQ.)

In your case, if you do have a total hardness of 4 gpg and a calcium hardness of only 1 gpg, then irrespective of your alkalinity you do not need any softening. That's why the BWT people didn't recommend that Bestmax filter - it's unnecessary and ineffective in improving your water.

Your hardness numbers look interesting to me. With 4 gpg total hardness and 1 gpg calcium hardness, then you must have about 3 gpg magnesium hardness, and that's a little odd for natural water. I know there are some folks out there that would argue that a high magnesium hardness is a great thing for tasty extraction without scaling problems.

One key thing that's missing from your data is your alkalinity value. It's very important - you must know that in order to estimate scale, and if your alkalinity is good, your pH should be fine. The Jim Schulman FAQ has a handy equation and chart that shows equilibrium pH at different alkalinity values.

There are lots of recommendations out there, often conflicting, so you shouldn't get too hung up on using any one recommendation as gospel. The 2009 SCAA numbers are widely used (including in the Kees Speedster manual - which at the moment can be found here ) but, especially the 150 ppm TDS recommendation should be taken with a grain of salt. It was a good number for the minerals in water that the SCAA was evaluating back then, but can't necessarily be applied to water with different mineral makeup. I think that if you have your hardness, alkalinity, chloride, and sulfate where you want it you can ignore TDS.

Covering all of the above can be a little daunting. You can do as many machine vendors recommend and employ the help of a local water treatment expert - ideally one experienced in setting up home espresso equipment. If you get lucky you might find a home barista in your area on the same water source who has already done that, and just copy what they did.

As for where to get your bicarbonate, calcium, and magnesium right for the best taste, there is a very wide range of opinion about that, with different ideals depending on both the taster and the coffee. Here's an interesting quote from the 2016 SCAE water chart related to that:

1. Influence of total hardness on extraction efficiency: Higher total hardness is assumed to increase extraction efficiency (Hendon et al., 2014). In our own test series we could not verify this effect by means of a coffee refractometer, though a clear impact on flavour balance and aroma was detected.
2. Influence of alkalinity on perceived acidity: The higher the alkalinity the lower the perceived acidity. Moreover for high alkalinity (' 100 ppm CaCO3) the neutralization of acids extracted from coffee by hydrogen carbonate, forms large amounts of carbon dioxide. This can increase extraction time and thereby lead to overextraction (Gardner, 1958; Fond 1995; Navarini and Rivetti 2010). This effect is more pronounced if increased concentrations of sodium are present (Gardner, 1958)

From: M. Wellinger, S. Smrke and C. Yeretzian, The SCAE Water Chart: Measure Aim Treat, (Specialty Coffee Association of Europe, 2016), https://scae.com/tools-and-resources/re ... ater-chart

A lot more information on this subject can be found here: Good references on water treatment for coffee/espresso

Given this question and the topic title, I think a long-winded and somewhat geeky opinion (hopefully not too pedantic and irritating) might be OK here.

Pat your reply was neither irritating or pedantic, it was a fantastic reply and loaded with information. You have steered me in a better direction, thank you very much!!

I still think the easiest solution for this problem is using a flojet and making your own water. It's cheap, it's easy, and you have TOTAL control. Tons of info on this site about using your machine with a flojet.

MSS wrote:It seems that generally water with a TDS of 80 ppm to 150 ppm are recommended for the best results, the World Brewers Cup parameters (acceptable range 50-125 mg/L.) My tastes are probably different from yours. In my case I have only been able to achieve tasting my espresso in the lower limits of the range. I would like the opportunity to taste my espresso with a higher concentration of solids, then I can determine what best chemistry works for me. I might be surprised and find that I like what I have now.

Same thing with the PH, would like to see what best suits my tastes.

I think that part of the fun is trying different variables and seeing if I can make adjustments for a better cup of coffee. Other wise why go to all the trouble?

A couple of things to keep in mind. Baristas in competitions have only one water goal: to achieve the best possible tasting coffee. As the owner of a machine (whether in a shop or at home), you also have the goal of dismantling and soaking your machine in a descaling bath as infrequently as you can. That means a compromise, which usually is somewhere toward the lower end of the recommended ranges.

My wife is a retired water treatment chemist and monitors the output of our treatment system. After almost 9 years of continuous use, the external plumbing of our GS3 (the plumbing-in tube) was scale-free, but the internals of the machine were due for a disassembly and acid bath. Minerals precipitate faster out of hot water than cold water, so what you see outside does not tell the whole tale of what is inside.

FWIW we use an adjustable Everpure Claris system and generally (depending on the varying quality of L.A. water input) get an output of around 28-40 mg/L hardness, 35-50 mg/L alkalinity and 72-150 TDS. We aim for the lower end, but we have no control over the L.A. water system, which uses several different sources, including hard well water and Colorado River water, depending on the season and drought conditions. You can avoid these sorts of variations by making your own water, as has been suggested, but we like the convenience of plumbing it.

Thank you Marshal, some what glad that we live in a small municipality with only one treatment plant. I was hoping that I could deal with treating the water with a cartridge like system, however I am finding that difficult with our existing water lacking any significant mineral content. I appreciate your comments about preserving your machine, there is some compromise in not clogging up your internals.

Ellejaycafe wrote:I still think the easiest solution for this problem is using a flojet and making your own water. It's cheap, it's easy, and you have TOTAL control. Tons of info on this site about using your machine with a flojet.

I agree with this.

I started out exactly same way and wanted to clean the incoming city water, after adding softners and filters i realized water was still not giving me the results that were as clean as i would like (in terms of taste). My next step would have been to get an RO system and add mineralization cartridges to get what i want and to the cost of about 500+ dollars, and then running costs of water cartridges etc, and not to mention the water waste.

I was all set to get this until i stumbled on making your own water here and the rest is history. I can try different recipes and there is a ton of people who do so and it just works! You start with pure h20 and add things to it to get the desired effect. 4L bottle of distilled water costs $1 and lasts me 15-20 days!

I have come to the conclusion that I can't achieve the water quality I desire by using a cartilage type treatment. I have purchased a RO unit and have two choices as how to mix water to the specifications that I want to try. The first is the simplest, one dose ro water in a tank and pump to machine with a flojet or similar. The second choice is more complex, use a tds controller to dose minerals directly into the RO stream and into a pressurized holding tank. I have done a lot of reading and research into the equipment to do this and is a bit daunting. Wondering if anyone has tried this approach and could offer insight to how it was done. The reason that I prefer the dosing pump, etc. is that I really do not want a flow jet due to noise and delivery issues.

Thanks
Mark