Mountain Valley mixed water for La Marzocco

[microespresso]

Hi there,

I just got my first home espresso machine, the new La Marzocco Linea Micro. Immediately I got deep into the water rabbit hole wasting hours of my life in the process!!

It seems to me I can use Aqua Panna, although that would be on the harder side.

I usually drink Mountai Valley water, which is way too hard. Mountain Valley has 220 TDS, 200 hardness, 190 Alkalinity, 3 Chloride, 7.1 PH.

My question is - if I mix Mountain Valley 50/50 with distilled water (or 40/60 maybe) then it seems to me the numbers get pretty close to the recommended ranges. Is this something the experts in this forum think would work?

Thank you

[homeburrero]

Yes, that would work. Your hardness and alkalinity will be reduced in proportion to the dilution. The analysis report for mountain valley indicates an alkalinity of 190 mg/L, a total hardness of 200 mg/L, and a calcium hardness of 168 mg/L (all as CaCO3). The high alkalinity and very low chloride and sulfate make this a nice water for this purpose.

You could dilute it with 40/60 and end up with a GH:KH of 80:76 mg/L as CaCO3 with a calcium hardness of 67 mg/L, which would require you to watch out for limescale. I think I would dilute it down more to avoid limescale. At 20/80 you'd have a GH:KH of 40:38 with calcium hardness at 34 mg/L as CaCO3. That's enough alkalinity for machine health and the calcium is low enough that you expect little or no limescale deposits in a 125℃ steam boiler.

[microespresso (original poster)]

thank you!