Ok, although I am primarily a Cap drinker I have been working on drinking more espressos. The main issue is that I seem to have poor extractions in terms of taste. Poor mouth feel (thin) and lack of sweet and fruit. Of course there are a lot of variables so trying to work on this slowly and methodically. My current focus is on the water. I recently had bought some green beans from Velvet Sunrise and while there had some of their Velvet Espresso blend. It was amazing. Sweet with fruit flavors. I bought some of their Velvet Espresso beansand then ran some trials with my softened water and then some bottled water (Fernbrook and Cdn Springs) to see how this impacted flavor. Of course they have a Speedster (not sure on the grinder). Mark at Sunrise gave me his brew variables 18.5g dry, 28-30sec, 32-35g so I targeted the same. Of course my equipment is not the same (Duetto III and Quamar M80e) but that I cannot currently change. Note: Getting the new design burrs for the Quamar has improved the physical look of the extraction but as often pointed out that does not mean good flavor.

Anyway my initial conclusion was that the bottled water produced more flavor (fuller and sweeter). I have not had a chance to verify(Can I reproduce this several times) this so this is not conclusive for me. I will need to buy more of the Velvet Espresso blend as I used up the pound pretty quickly. My home roasting is throwing in additional variables so wanted to have that out of the mix for now. I have a TDS meter on the way but had the softened water tested at a local water shop and it came in at 99, pH 7.5. I had also done some testing as well with the API 5 in 1 strips and read GH 38, KH 120, pH 8.

My questions to forum members is:

- comments on pros/cons of house water softening
- recommended bottled water - I live just North of Toronto (Aurora). Our water is a combination of well and lake water.
-any other testing I should be doing

Thanks Chuck

I'm using softened well water with measurements similar to yours; 38 ppm hardness although my PH is 7. TDS runs around 125 ppm. I have no issues getting sweetness in my shots once I've dialed in the variables. No idea if they'd be better if I used my unsoftened well water as I'm not interested in descaling every few months.

You could always add a bypass to your softener set up (unless it's whole house) and add back some hard water to see if you notice an improvement with the harder water.

I don't know what bottled waters are available in your area, but for me I have found differences in taste in some waters that are offered in my area. I prefer spring waters vs most drinking waters, some waters from the same brand are not sourced from the same springs thus are harder waters. In my area I like Crystal Geyser sourced in Norman AR, Ozarka and Nestle Pure Life if I recall correctly.

Hi Chuck
This is slightly off topic,you mentioned your roaster was using a Speedster,.I wonder if roasters use Speedsters, Slayers and other pro machines to indicate dose and finished product by weight and time, if these suggestions might be off for home baristas-- who are using E61 machines without all the pressure profiling bells and whistles?

"Bottled" water can be hard or soft depending on the location/brand. It will vary in the same locale/day of the week/ etc. To be certain of the condition of the water it should be tested at the same time as the shot is brewed.

Based upon using a number of different water solutions for my espresso making over the years...changing water to "A/B" can be an easy and cheap way to test flavor impart. I've found rpavlis' distilled + potassium bicarbonate mixture to completely resolve my water chemistry issue, from both a taste and balanced hardness/softness perspective. I've been using this recipe for my all my espresso machine's for the past several months and don't foresee any reason to change. This method is 100% consistent and eliminates continual monitoring of water chemistry balance with filters and/or commercial water sources as well as the potential for taste differences with same.

As an experiment, in addition to many different water mixtures and/or filtration systems, I tried pure distilled water and the results were taste terrible. Point being: Water can have a significant impact on taste in the cup. Fortunately IMHO its the easiest component in the espresso making process to get consistently correct and/or experiment to verify in the cup taste differences.

spressomon

1. On your reference to rpavilis I found this posting on the forum
How long do you let water sit in the boiler between uses?

I prefer straight distilled water with medium-dark and dark roast, and 1.0 millimolar KHCO₃ (potassium bicarbonate) for light to medium light roasts. This also turns out to be near the conditions that provide maximum protection from corrosion. (I have discussed making this before, get potassium bicarbonate from some health food stores or other places, dissolve ten grams of it in 100 mL of water, add 1 mL of it per litre of distilled water. It has about the same bicarbonate concentration as moderate hard water, but does not have the Ca or Mg to create scale. Ca and Mg are in the coffee beans in great quantity already.)

This is what you are referring to? I am going to pickup distilled water and potassium bicarbonate and will report back. Just going to focus on distilled water with potassium bicarbonate present.

2. I have seen postings that ion exchange softened water is not recommended. Why?

3. As well that TDS readings with it are problematic or inaccurate, Why?

Note: My water is treated for the whole house. System is about 15 years old but still working well replacing Ca and Mg with Na. Our water was pretty hard when we moved in. Laundry was a pain.

I run the softened house water through a distiller and run 50 gallon batches into 5 gallon water bottles. Works very well with the potassium bicarbonate. The high concentration of sodium in the softened water is considered bad for your health, YMMV however.

Having been involved with industrial sized clean pure water production facilities the steam distiller is a perfect home solution. RO and cation/anion exchange columns are both labor and $$$ intensive solutions.

OldNuc

I did have concerns on the Na from the water softener but was led to believe it was significantly less than whats in processed food?

How would I get this tested?

Also, could you provide some details on a steam distiller.

I love having the Duetto plumbed in. So for now I am trying to experiment to see how these water changes impact the espresso but still need to consider a solution if it makes sense that is better than the built in tank on the espresso machine.

Chuck -
It's not hard to do the math on sodium levels from softening. I believe your tap water there would be coming in at about 17 grains of hardness (based on this.) That's a hardness of about 290 ppm (as CaCO3). And your strip test showed that you have about 38 mg/L of hardness remaining in your softened water. So your softener has removed about 250 mg/L (as CaCO3) of hardness, replacing each calcium (Ca++) ion with two sodium (Na+) ions. Molecular wt of CaCO3 is 100 g/mol, so your softener is replacing 2.5 miilimoles/L of calcium with 5 millimoles/L of sodium. The molecular wt of sodium is 23 g/mol, so you are looking at 115 mg/L of sodium added to your water as a result of softening.

That is not high enough that you can taste saltiness, but some might argue that it unfavorably affects your extractions (SCAA ideal for sodium is less than 30 mg/L.)

As far as health affects, if your softened water accounts for all your daily water intake - about 3 liters/day - you would get about 350 mg/day of sodium from that water. It is low compared to the sodium in typical processed foods - 1 cup of a popular raisin bran has 350 mg of sodium. If your doc has you on a low sodium diet (generally less than 2000 mg/day) then perhaps it's worth working to reduce that source of sodium intake by switching to potassium salts in your softener, or drinking unsoftened or low sodium bottled water instead of softened tap water.