I just wanted to get some feedback to ensure I'm in the right path. My tap water is rather wretched. Of course machine health are of interest. Therefore:

1. Where I live, I can get 1gal jugs of Crystal Geyser. Weed, Ca. edition. Great in pinch.
2. I just discovered a Primo Water refill station less than a mile from my house. They charge $2.00/5 gal or $0.40/gal. Reasonable!

Can the Primo be substituted for distilled to make the 70/30 water? Is 70/30 water still the way to go?

My current way is I mix:
14g of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) with 1L of distilled.
14g of Epsom Salt (Magnesium Sulfate) with 1L of distilled.

I then use 4 tsp of each concentrate per 1 gal of distilled.

Thanks!

William

wrz0170 wrote:Can the Primo be substituted for distilled to make the 70/30 water?

I think it should be fine for that purpose, with the caveat that you first verify that the RO water kiosk is functioning well by testing it with an inexpensive TDS/conductivity meter. Make sure the TDS of the kiosk water is below around 20 ppm (conductivity below 40 μS/cm). Some areas near Reno have very hard water but most of the central part should come out of an RO very clean. (see here for Reno area hardness numbers.) If the kiosk RO unit is poorly maintained and inspected it might come out much higher, so it's good to always check. Also, be aware that you may have a smidgen of calcium carbonate in that RO water, and if you really concentrated that by steaming but never drawing water from your steam boiler water tap, it might possibly concentrate enough to drop calcium carbonate scale in your steam boiler.

wrz0170 wrote:My current way is I mix:
14g of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) with 1L of distilled.
14g of Epsom Salt (Magnesium Sulfate) with 1L of distilled.
I then use 4 tsp of each concentrate per 1 gal of distilled.

Your recipe is a little heavier on the Epsom than the Five Senses 70/30 recipe, which suggests 12g rather than 14g in the concentrate, but that isn't a significant difference.

wrz0170 wrote:Is 70/30 water still the way to go?

My opinion is that it's probably one of the better of the Epsom salt recipes. It has good alkalinity and not too much magnesium sulfate. If you leave out the Epsom entirely and it tastes as good or better, I'd say go with that. You could also try using 17g of potassium bicarb in place of the 14g of sodium bicarb.

Primo water has a remineralization step after the RO step so it won't be like using straight RO or distilled water.

They say that about their exchange water, but I was under the impression that self-serve kiosks were RO followed by UV and charcoal finishing (no remin.) Certainly something to watch out for.

Pat and Chris, thank you both for your replies. It would appear I have some homework and some experimenting! I did double check Primo refill station. They advertise their process as:

Activated Carbon filter
Micron Filter
RO
Post carbon filter
UV

Failing that. I did find a Spring Depot that does 1 or 5gal distilled water refills. A bit further away and about $0.30 more per gal.

William

The refill station may be the way to go. I did some preliminary checking into Primo when I saw their bottled water at a home improvement store, but I wasn't able to get an answer on the TDS or composition of their water to confirm that it wouldn't scale.

For $0.40, I may get a gallon and see what's there. Unfortunately, my tester appears to be TDS only. But I have test strips for 16 other tests. If anything, maybe get in the ballpark of what's in there. My fallback is the 24/7 Distilled refill station. Just not as convenient and more $ per gallon.

My goal is to make 3-5gal for use with my new Decent DE1Pro that has the refill kit. Just stick in a hose and pull shots. All the while, reducing waste of throwing away gallon jugs all the time. I just picked up some Potassium Carbonate and will try Pat's suggestion of 17g for my concentrate.

William

So for $.040, I got a gallon of the Primo from the Refill station. Using an older TDS meter and test strips, this is approx

TDS: 001
Hardness: <25
PH:~6.0
Alk: 0

Hopefully this is enough to go on. I'm a layman on whether or not this is good enough to sub for distilled.

Thanks!

William

At a TDS reading of 1 ppm you have good confidence that the RO very pure - no need to check hardness, etc. It will take the place of distilled when making water from mineral recipes.

Thank you Pat. I will add the suggested 17g of Potassium Bicarbonate and see how it tastes!