Help Assessing City Water Report/Choosing Treatment Options - Page 3

Water analysis, treatment, and mineral recipes for optimum taste and equipment health.
PIXIllate (original poster)
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#21: Post by PIXIllate (original poster) »

I just mixed up my next gallon of water at .2g Potassium bicarb and .2g of Epsom salt. I'll see how it goes.

Thanks to you introducing me to Marco here's a link to what I feel is an excellent basic talk on the subject:

https://scanews.coffee/2016/08/01/colab ... -wellinger

I feel like I might be getting to understand the factors at work here at least on a basic level.

PIXIllate (original poster)
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#22: Post by PIXIllate (original poster) »

Coming back to this to say I've now spent a few bags at a mix of 1 gallon of BWT filtered water to 0.2g of Potassium Bicarb and 0.2g of Epsom salts. This seems to be a nice trade off. With 0.5g of Epsom slats I almost found that I was ending up bitter with very little effort. With no Epsom salt there were quite a few shots leaning sour/tart. With the 0.2g/0.2g mix I'm getting more even flavors on a much higher percentage of my shots.

I'll continue to play with it but I want to thank Pat once again for demystifying some of this for me and allowing me to use my filtered tap water with confidence.

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PIXIllate (original poster)
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#23: Post by PIXIllate (original poster) »

Just coming back to this a final time to say that I've been using 0.2g of Potassium Bicarb and 0.2g of Epsom salts for months now and everything has been great. The mushroom and flow control have been out and I see no evidence of scale and the coffee has been tasting great.

Thanks to Pat once final time. This may be the single most helpful post on H-B for me personally.

PIXIllate (original poster)
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#24: Post by PIXIllate (original poster) »

Revisiting this after a year of adding. 2g of Potassium Bicarbonate and. 2g of Epsom salt. Everything has been going well and I've made some pretty big strides in my own skills and have found a couple of great roasters to use in regular rotation. In the last few weeks I've started to add a bit more Epsom salts (.225g instead of. 2g} and both my tastebuds and my Refractometer are telling me it's better. Maybe something like +0.5%EY on average.

I'm not sure how far I should push this to remain in the no sclae region and it would seem the latest report from my water commission has changed slightly. I wonder if Pat would be so kind as to have a look and maybe offer some thoughts.


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homeburrero
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#25: Post by homeburrero »

PIXIllate wrote:I'm not sure how far I should push this to remain in the no sclae region and it would seem the latest report from my water commission has changed slightly. I wonder if Pat would be so kind as to have a look and maybe offer some thoughts.
Looks like it hasn't changed significantly from your first post, so your addition of 0.2 grams of potassium bicarbonate per gallon still seems appropriate.

And I see no problem with adding the Epsom if you think it improves taste. Even if you were to add 0.4 grams of Epsom per gallon you will not get scale problems. That amount would bump your total hardness to 62 mg/L. It would not change your calcium hardness and alkalinity which are key to limescale risk. It would bump your sulfate ion up to about 55 mg/L, which may or may not affect taste. The calcium hardness of this water is low enough that this level of sulfate should not cause calcium sulfate (gypsum) scale. So I'd say go for as much as .4 g of Epsom per gallon if you really think there is a taste improvement.

As with any HX or DB machine, If you use the steam wand, your mineral content will gradually become more concentrated, so you always want to take care to periodically flush or purge your steam boiler. This water, even with the added bicarbonate and Epsom, will be non-scaling enough that you can use this approach: Using hot water tap to manage steam boiler water concentration .


Showing some math:
0.4 grams of MgSO4*7H20 (molar mass = 246.5 mol/g) is 1.62 millimoles of Mg²⁺ and of SO4²⁺
1.62 mmol / 3.78 liters = 0.49 mmol/L
0.49 mmol/L * 100 mg/mmol = 49 mg/L magnesium hardness as CaCO3
0.49 mmol/L * 90.1 mg/mmol = 44.6 mg/L SO4²⁺ ion
Pat
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PIXIllate (original poster)
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#26: Post by PIXIllate (original poster) »

homeburrero wrote:Looks like it hasn't changed significantly from your first post, so your addition of 0.2 grams of potassium bicarbonate per gallon still seems appropriate.

And I see no problem with adding the Epsom if you think it improves taste. Even if you were to add 0.4 grams of Epsom per gallon you will not get scale problems. That amount would bump your total hardness to 62 mg/L. It would not change your calcium hardness and alkalinity which are key to limescale risk. It would bump your sulfate ion up to about 55 mg/L, which may or may not affect taste. The calcium hardness of this water is low enough that this level of sulfate should not cause calcium sulfate (gypsum) scale. So I'd say go for as much as .4 g of Epsom per gallon if you really think there is a taste improvement.

As with any HX or DB machine, If you use the steam wand, your mineral content will gradually become more concentrated, so you always want to take care to periodically flush or purge your steam boiler. This water, even with the added bicarbonate and Epsom, will be non-scaling enough that you can use this approach: Using hot water tap to manage steam boiler water concentration .
Thank you Pat, once again proving to be some of the most helpful posts here on HB.

I'll begin experimenting with increased Epsom salt over an extended period of time (weeks/months) so I can track the change over enough tanks/bags of coffee. You've given me the confidence and parameters to safely play within and I'm extremely grateful. I do use the hot water tap everyday to heat a Cappuccino cup and then to rinse said cup, mainly for the reason you state above with is to try to constantly draw water out of the service boiler to avoid mineral concentration.

PIXIllate (original poster)
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#27: Post by PIXIllate (original poster) »

homeburrero wrote: Showing some math:
0.4 grams of MgSO4*7H20 (molar mass = 246.5 mol/g) is 1.62 millimoles of Mg²⁺ and of SO4²⁺
1.62 mmol / 3.78 liters = 0.49 mmol/L
0.49 mmol/L * 100 mg/mmol = 49 mg/L magnesium hardness as CaCO3
0.49 mmol/L * 90.1 mg/mmol = 44.6 mg/L SO4²⁺ ion

I have a friend who's on a well and has a VERY sophisticated whole house RO system. How much Potassium bicarb and Epsom salt would he have to add to equal my amended city water?

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homeburrero
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#28: Post by homeburrero »

PIXIllate wrote:I have a friend who's on a well and has a VERY sophisticated whole house RO system. How much Potassium bicarb and Epsom salt would he have to add to equal my amended city water?
Given a 0.1 gram resolution, 0.4 grams of potassium bicarbonate and 0.6 grams of Epsom salt per gallon of very low TDS RO water would get them close to your levels -- total hardness (GH) would be 64 mg/L as CaCO3 and alkalinity (KH) would be 53 mg/L as CaCO3. The hardness would be all magnesium, so no limescale problems.
Pat
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#29: Post by PIXIllate (original poster) »

Thank you Pat. Hopefully this will get him to a better place. Currently he is using the RO water in his vintage La Pavoni Professional that I just redid all the gaskets for him on.

boren
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#30: Post by boren »

homeburrero wrote:Given a 0.1 gram resolution, 0.4 grams of potassium bicarbonate and 0.6 grams of Epsom salt per gallon of very low TDS RO water would get them close to your levels -- total hardness (GH) would be 64 mg/L as CaCO3 and alkalinity (KH) would be 53 mg/L as CaCO3. The hardness would be all magnesium, so no limescale problems.
I have a RO system which produces very soft water. Would the following process achieve the above recipe:

- To make potassium bicarbonate (aka RPavlis) concentrate: Mix 5 gram potassium bicarbonate into 500 ml of RO water
- To make the Epsom salt concentrate: Mix 7.5 gram of Epsom salt into 500 ml of RO water
- To make the machine-ready water: Mix 40 gram of each concentrate (80 gram in total) into a gallon (or 3.8 liter) of RO water

Is this expected to be better for espresso than plain RPavlis water? How about pour-over?