Drinking RO water, do you drink it straight or Rpavlis it ?

Water analysis, treatment, and mineral recipes for optimum taste and equipment health.
GeorgeP922
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Joined: 17 years ago

#1: Post by GeorgeP922 »

Sorry if this has been asked before.

So for the last year I have been going to my brothers and filling up gallons of RO water at a time, as the year went on I added more and more bottles, now I have a fleet of 20 gallons enough to last a month of my coffee, families water, cats water. I mark all my bottles with last date filled to know what is fresh for drinking and what is not for heating.

I have thus far blended it 67/33 with tap water now I am ready to graduate to Rpavlis.
As I debate whether to buy a 4 oz or 1lb bag I considered this, if we are adding sodium bicarbonate to our water for taste (and conductivity for fill sensor?) why not add it to RO for drinking.

I used to have my own RO plumbed at home and water cooler at office.
Side by side I prefer bottled drinking water, shoot I prefer tap.

Obviously none of this applies to Distilled as why would you not just buy a gallon of spring/filtered which is usually 20 cents cheaper.

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Jeff
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#2: Post by Jeff »

What is the mineral content of the RO? It may already have "enough" for flavorful drinking.

The recipes for machine use aren't much about flavor of the water itself. First is a right balance of the right minerals to reduce or prevent scale build up. Then there's the "buffering" action that can mitigate acidity. There's also belief that you need some minerals off the right kinds to extract coffee well. I don't think "how it tastes plain" factor into them.
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Nunas
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#3: Post by Nunas »

We drink the RO water straight. Our system is a generic 5-filter with a final carbon filter. It's in the basement and plumbed through the house to each bathroom, the kitchen and the espresso bar. In the espresso bar, I use it as is, without adding anything. However, our water is very hard, so the output of the RO system never goes to zero TDS. Usually, it's between 12 and 25. The system has a bypass for blending in a bit of source water; we needed that at our previous location, which had softer water. Where we now live, I find 25 ppm to be fine for all our uses. I'd add some sodium bicarb for the espresso if it came out softer, but not for drinking. In our motorhome, we had a similar system. Sometimes, the water going in was quite soft so that the TDS would be as low as 2 PPM TDS. The answer to your question is, "It depends a lot on the source water."

Nate42
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#4: Post by Nate42 »

As pointed out, RO water often has a fair bit of residual minerals already: what comes out of the RO depends on what went in. I wouldn't bother re-mineralizing for drinking purposes, personally. And even if I did, I would try to add some calcium or other hardness minerals, rather than using an rpavlis style recipe. The potassium bicarb in the rpavlis recipe is there to buffer the acid in coffee, not to enhance the taste of the water itself.