Water treatment options for plumbed in espresso machine - Page 2
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Marshall
- Posts: 3445
- Joined: 19 years ago
Not without compromising flavor. The best shops I've talked to about this use around 125-150 TDS and accept regular descaling as the price they pay for quality.sweaner wrote:Ken, this is currently what I do. I use my tap water, which is about 120 ppm on the TDS. I dilute it down to about 45 ppm with distilled. Is this more scaling for the boiler than softened water? I would like to essentially eliminate scaling, if that is even really possible.
Marshall
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
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Ken Fox
- Posts: 2447
- Joined: 18 years ago
Hi Marshall,
I think this is overly simplistic.
My TDS is almost exactly the same before and after cation softening, yet the mineral composition is obviously different. I don't think that every "dissolved solid" is the same as every other "dissolved solid."
The water I use now (cation softened) is boiler safe and has a higher TDS reading than the level that you quote. Since I'm not home, I can't test it and give you a number.
As to what the best shops use, they can't possibly be knowledgeable about the water found in other places and how it is effected by various water treatment methodologies. Instead, they have "experienced" the Cirqua marketing program (or something similar) and they believe they have found a solution, for them.
The "water treatment industry" has something to sell (their types of water treatment) and would like potential customers to think there is only one sort of "perfect water" for coffee beverages, when I think there may be at least "several."
ken
I think this is overly simplistic.
My TDS is almost exactly the same before and after cation softening, yet the mineral composition is obviously different. I don't think that every "dissolved solid" is the same as every other "dissolved solid."
The water I use now (cation softened) is boiler safe and has a higher TDS reading than the level that you quote. Since I'm not home, I can't test it and give you a number.
As to what the best shops use, they can't possibly be knowledgeable about the water found in other places and how it is effected by various water treatment methodologies. Instead, they have "experienced" the Cirqua marketing program (or something similar) and they believe they have found a solution, for them.
The "water treatment industry" has something to sell (their types of water treatment) and would like potential customers to think there is only one sort of "perfect water" for coffee beverages, when I think there may be at least "several."
ken
What, me worry?
Alfred E. Neuman, 1955
Alfred E. Neuman, 1955
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Marshall
- Posts: 3445
- Joined: 19 years ago
Actually, quality-minded shop owners do talk with each other about water quality in different parts of the country. I used "TDS" numbers because they are a useful shorthand, particularly for non-cation systems, such as RO with re-mineralization (the typical Cirqua-type setup).
Here is such a discussion among professionals, including the owner of one low-volume shop you know well (who uses ion exchange) and a roaster engineer you also know (who recommends Cirqua): http://forum.coffeed.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=598.
I may be wrong, but I do not believe there is a treatment that eliminates the need for descaling without compromising flavor. If there were, everyone would be using it.
Here is such a discussion among professionals, including the owner of one low-volume shop you know well (who uses ion exchange) and a roaster engineer you also know (who recommends Cirqua): http://forum.coffeed.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=598.
I may be wrong, but I do not believe there is a treatment that eliminates the need for descaling without compromising flavor. If there were, everyone would be using it.
Marshall
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
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Ken Fox
- Posts: 2447
- Joined: 18 years ago
Hi Marshall,
Let me further clarify what I am saying. Cirqua, and perhaps their competitors (if there are any) are selling a particular type of water treatment system that is used in some high end coffee houses. The system starts out by removing everything from the incoming tap water, presumably by reverse osmosis. Following this, they add back in minerals to reach a certain TDS number. What minerals they add back in is obviously a choice they have made, and I am presuming they are using a calcite cartridge or something similar, which means they are not producing "boiler-safe" water.
Within the confines of how their equipment operates, I have no doubt that there is an "optimum" level of TDS in the water as regards the ability of the water produced to make fine coffee beverages, including espresso. You and I have experienced their demonstation(s) at the SCAA and at your fine (former) SCAA "Homecoming" conference in Long Beach. If you use a Cirqua-like system, at the predefined "optimum level" of TDS, you will get good results at the cost of having to regularly descale your equipment. But, Cirqua has set up a demonstration that considers no other options than their own, with varying amounts of calcite added back in. When you limit the demonstration to variations of your own technique, you define the outcome as being one of the options that you sell. It is like a taste test between Coke, Diet Coke, and Coca Cola Light; this may tell you that you prefer Coke, but it tells you nothing about the comparison between Coke and Pepsi.
But this is not the only way of treating incoming tap water, and (to my knowledge) there is no scientifically conducted experimentation with the "end product water" that Cirqua wants to sell you, and a whole host of other options. These other options include straight or filtered tap water in places where this is feasible, or such other treatments as cation softening of hard water, or simply plugging an inline calcite cartridge in the water flow for places with normally very soft water as is found, for example, in parts of the coastal northwest US and Canada.
Incoming tap water is highly variable, from locale to locale, and the results of other types of treatments on it will be similarly variable. Since these other options do not start with "ionless" water, you can't "intuit" a comparison with what Cirqua is selling based upon a TDS level that they "achieve" by adding back calcite into RO or distilled type water.
In order to actually KNOW whether a Cirqua type system would be worth installing in a given location, you would have to compare its results onsite with the other options available to the user at that location. Cirqua has not done this in a systematic fashion because it is obviously impossible to do this everywhere, and from a business standpoint does nothing to help them sell their equipment. The people posting on that Coffeed thread you link to, regardless of whom they might be, haven't a clue about any of this sort of detail or the testing required to establish any verifiable benefit. We are all aware of many common coffee "myths" that have been repeated over long periods of time, and which have been accepted by us "mere mortals" as truth handed down from on high. I have tried to scientifically test a few of these "truths" myself over the last few years (rotary pumps yielding "superior" results to vibe pumps; freezing "ruins" coffee by "condensation" or whatever, for example) and had difficulty confirming them.
I believe that Cirqua's demonstration shows exactly what it obviously shows; that if you take all the minerals out of water and then add back in various quantities of calcite, you will get differing results based upon the amount of calcite you add back in. For someone in the business who is looking for a "quick and easy" fix, and who doesn't mind regularly descaling equipment, it offers a very viable "one size fits all" solution. It does not, however, tell you anything about what an individual might achieve in various locations with varying types of input water, treated in various other ways, as compared to what Cirqua could produce for you with their standard set up.
ken
Let me further clarify what I am saying. Cirqua, and perhaps their competitors (if there are any) are selling a particular type of water treatment system that is used in some high end coffee houses. The system starts out by removing everything from the incoming tap water, presumably by reverse osmosis. Following this, they add back in minerals to reach a certain TDS number. What minerals they add back in is obviously a choice they have made, and I am presuming they are using a calcite cartridge or something similar, which means they are not producing "boiler-safe" water.
Within the confines of how their equipment operates, I have no doubt that there is an "optimum" level of TDS in the water as regards the ability of the water produced to make fine coffee beverages, including espresso. You and I have experienced their demonstation(s) at the SCAA and at your fine (former) SCAA "Homecoming" conference in Long Beach. If you use a Cirqua-like system, at the predefined "optimum level" of TDS, you will get good results at the cost of having to regularly descale your equipment. But, Cirqua has set up a demonstration that considers no other options than their own, with varying amounts of calcite added back in. When you limit the demonstration to variations of your own technique, you define the outcome as being one of the options that you sell. It is like a taste test between Coke, Diet Coke, and Coca Cola Light; this may tell you that you prefer Coke, but it tells you nothing about the comparison between Coke and Pepsi.
But this is not the only way of treating incoming tap water, and (to my knowledge) there is no scientifically conducted experimentation with the "end product water" that Cirqua wants to sell you, and a whole host of other options. These other options include straight or filtered tap water in places where this is feasible, or such other treatments as cation softening of hard water, or simply plugging an inline calcite cartridge in the water flow for places with normally very soft water as is found, for example, in parts of the coastal northwest US and Canada.
Incoming tap water is highly variable, from locale to locale, and the results of other types of treatments on it will be similarly variable. Since these other options do not start with "ionless" water, you can't "intuit" a comparison with what Cirqua is selling based upon a TDS level that they "achieve" by adding back calcite into RO or distilled type water.
In order to actually KNOW whether a Cirqua type system would be worth installing in a given location, you would have to compare its results onsite with the other options available to the user at that location. Cirqua has not done this in a systematic fashion because it is obviously impossible to do this everywhere, and from a business standpoint does nothing to help them sell their equipment. The people posting on that Coffeed thread you link to, regardless of whom they might be, haven't a clue about any of this sort of detail or the testing required to establish any verifiable benefit. We are all aware of many common coffee "myths" that have been repeated over long periods of time, and which have been accepted by us "mere mortals" as truth handed down from on high. I have tried to scientifically test a few of these "truths" myself over the last few years (rotary pumps yielding "superior" results to vibe pumps; freezing "ruins" coffee by "condensation" or whatever, for example) and had difficulty confirming them.
I believe that Cirqua's demonstration shows exactly what it obviously shows; that if you take all the minerals out of water and then add back in various quantities of calcite, you will get differing results based upon the amount of calcite you add back in. For someone in the business who is looking for a "quick and easy" fix, and who doesn't mind regularly descaling equipment, it offers a very viable "one size fits all" solution. It does not, however, tell you anything about what an individual might achieve in various locations with varying types of input water, treated in various other ways, as compared to what Cirqua could produce for you with their standard set up.
ken
What, me worry?
Alfred E. Neuman, 1955
Alfred E. Neuman, 1955
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Marshall
- Posts: 3445
- Joined: 19 years ago
The purpose of my posts was not to argue for or against Cirqua as the best water treatment solution, although they do sell home systems. I actually suggested a Bunn cartridge system. My point was that you cannot have a descaling-free system without compromising flavor. If you have contrary evidence, I will stand corrected, but, as I said before, if it existed, everyone would be using it.
Marshall
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
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Ken Fox
- Posts: 2447
- Joined: 18 years ago
Hi Marshall,
You are asking me to "disprove a negative," which from a purely scientific standpoint would be a waste of time. Does the fact that almost all the marquee cafes use Synessos or LMs prove that these brands produce better espressos than other brands of espresso machines? What is the evidence of that?
The high end cafe community is rather clannish and this is self-evident (although I am sure that there are individuals within it who hate each other). They tend to do a whole lot of things in their cafes in lock step, more because this is what everyone else does than for any other reason. One only has to skim a few threads at coffeed.com in order to know that this is the case. When you look at the real innovations that have come out in the last decade or so, most of those that I am aware of came out of the enthusiast community (e.g. from people like us) rather than from cafe owners. This is one reason why I glance over this board and very seldom go over to coffeed.com. On those rare occasions when I do go over there, it is usually in search of some nugget of knowledge and I very seldom end up finding it over there.
We all have certain things we do in our regular espresso routines that we accept as having validity, but on closer inspection one can have questions. For example, although the 5 gallon bottled spring water you (Marshall) use for espresso has certain chemical similarities to that produced by a Cirqua system, do you have any actual proof that it produces similar espressos as you would get from the aforementioned Cirqua-type system? I would suggest that you'd need to do a side by side comparison of what you get with what you are using vs. Cirqua vs. another cheaper option such as filtration followed by a cation softener cartridge in order to really know what was "best." Otherwise, the inference would be that one could dispense altogether with coffee cupping and tasting in favor of basing decisions on what a TDS (and maybe also PH) meter would show to be "optimal."
As to what sort of regimen will produce the "best" espressos, obviously this is open to question and is determined in part by personal taste. I may prefer espressos made with single origin coffees made with 14g in a double basket whereas you may prefer signature blends dosed as 21g in a triple basket. This doesn't (necessarily) make me right and you wrong
Finally, the variations in what we can do in making espressos are almost endless, and we all must decide for ourselves when we have reached the point of diminishing returns. I have asked quite a few well known people in this community what they do with their water, and for the most part they don't do a whole lot with it. I don't know any home enthusiasts personally who take a Cirqua-like approach, although I am sure that they exist and they will respond to this sentence after they have read it
As another example, I am (I think) a pretty decent home roaster nowadays but I am certain there are many high end commercial roasters who do a better job. I could, of course, pay an exorbitant sum to have their best coffees sent by air freight from wherever in the world they are located so that I will receive it one day after roasting. I don't do this because I have reached what I would define (for myself) as the point of diminishing returns.
I would submit that for many serious home enthusiasts, they have reached their own point of diminishing returns where switching from their own water solution to a Cirqua-like (or Bunn-like, whatever that is) system will add sufficiently little that they have determined, with good reason, not to change what they are already doing as regards to water. Dealing with scale in the boiler of an espresso machine is not a trivial maintenance exercise, and those who invite the need to do that must convince themselves that their time and effort in doing so will be rewarded in the cup. Otherwise, it is just another PITA time waster, and we all have enough of those in our lives that we probably do not need any more of them!
Fondly,
ken
You are asking me to "disprove a negative," which from a purely scientific standpoint would be a waste of time. Does the fact that almost all the marquee cafes use Synessos or LMs prove that these brands produce better espressos than other brands of espresso machines? What is the evidence of that?
The high end cafe community is rather clannish and this is self-evident (although I am sure that there are individuals within it who hate each other). They tend to do a whole lot of things in their cafes in lock step, more because this is what everyone else does than for any other reason. One only has to skim a few threads at coffeed.com in order to know that this is the case. When you look at the real innovations that have come out in the last decade or so, most of those that I am aware of came out of the enthusiast community (e.g. from people like us) rather than from cafe owners. This is one reason why I glance over this board and very seldom go over to coffeed.com. On those rare occasions when I do go over there, it is usually in search of some nugget of knowledge and I very seldom end up finding it over there.
We all have certain things we do in our regular espresso routines that we accept as having validity, but on closer inspection one can have questions. For example, although the 5 gallon bottled spring water you (Marshall) use for espresso has certain chemical similarities to that produced by a Cirqua system, do you have any actual proof that it produces similar espressos as you would get from the aforementioned Cirqua-type system? I would suggest that you'd need to do a side by side comparison of what you get with what you are using vs. Cirqua vs. another cheaper option such as filtration followed by a cation softener cartridge in order to really know what was "best." Otherwise, the inference would be that one could dispense altogether with coffee cupping and tasting in favor of basing decisions on what a TDS (and maybe also PH) meter would show to be "optimal."
As to what sort of regimen will produce the "best" espressos, obviously this is open to question and is determined in part by personal taste. I may prefer espressos made with single origin coffees made with 14g in a double basket whereas you may prefer signature blends dosed as 21g in a triple basket. This doesn't (necessarily) make me right and you wrong
Finally, the variations in what we can do in making espressos are almost endless, and we all must decide for ourselves when we have reached the point of diminishing returns. I have asked quite a few well known people in this community what they do with their water, and for the most part they don't do a whole lot with it. I don't know any home enthusiasts personally who take a Cirqua-like approach, although I am sure that they exist and they will respond to this sentence after they have read it
As another example, I am (I think) a pretty decent home roaster nowadays but I am certain there are many high end commercial roasters who do a better job. I could, of course, pay an exorbitant sum to have their best coffees sent by air freight from wherever in the world they are located so that I will receive it one day after roasting. I don't do this because I have reached what I would define (for myself) as the point of diminishing returns.
I would submit that for many serious home enthusiasts, they have reached their own point of diminishing returns where switching from their own water solution to a Cirqua-like (or Bunn-like, whatever that is) system will add sufficiently little that they have determined, with good reason, not to change what they are already doing as regards to water. Dealing with scale in the boiler of an espresso machine is not a trivial maintenance exercise, and those who invite the need to do that must convince themselves that their time and effort in doing so will be rewarded in the cup. Otherwise, it is just another PITA time waster, and we all have enough of those in our lives that we probably do not need any more of them!
Fondly,
ken
What, me worry?
Alfred E. Neuman, 1955
Alfred E. Neuman, 1955
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Psyd
- Posts: 2082
- Joined: 18 years ago
African or European?
In any case, thanks for the reminder to check my TDS content. I'm off to go recharge my softener...
C
In any case, thanks for the reminder to check my TDS content. I'm off to go recharge my softener...
C
Espresso Sniper
One Shot, One Kill
LMWDP #175
One Shot, One Kill
LMWDP #175
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SteveN
- Posts: 54
- Joined: 17 years ago
I'm now trying to decide between a Vivaldi Mini or standard Vivaldi and so this discussion on water softening is very timely for me.
I have yet to see these Bunn filtration/softening systems mentioned earlier. Why aren't they spoken of more on this or other coffee sites? They seem like a great solution for hard water.
I currently have a dual cartrage (Doultan) under sink system with a nice looking spigot on top of the sink. It uses John Guest fittings under the sink. Any reason why I could not put one of the Bunn cartrages in place using the existing under sink hoses and John guest fittings?
That would make it a bit easier to buy the Mini.
-Steve
I have yet to see these Bunn filtration/softening systems mentioned earlier. Why aren't they spoken of more on this or other coffee sites? They seem like a great solution for hard water.
I currently have a dual cartrage (Doultan) under sink system with a nice looking spigot on top of the sink. It uses John Guest fittings under the sink. Any reason why I could not put one of the Bunn cartrages in place using the existing under sink hoses and John guest fittings?
That would make it a bit easier to buy the Mini.
-Steve
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HB
- Admin
- Posts: 22018
- Joined: 19 years ago
That's what I did.SteveN wrote:Any reason why I could not put one of the Bunn cartrages in place using the existing under sink hoses and John guest fittings?
FYI, you can also buy Watts brand push-in fittings at Home Depot/Lowes, but they're not the commercial grade sold at Chris' Coffee. Watts' tubing and fittings for home are rated up to 120 PSI versus John Guest's commercial rating of 230 PSI. That said, most homes have the water pressure set to ~50 PSI.
Dan Kehn
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SteveN
- Posts: 54
- Joined: 17 years ago
Are you happy with the Bunn performance?
They aren't that cheap but seem to last, and if they work.....
-Steve
They aren't that cheap but seem to last, and if they work.....
-Steve
