Fantastic : )

I never assume I got it right, too expensive in this hobby....

Thanks for answering my questions, very much appreciated.

Re Copenhagen water, we just today got a post from Luke Smetherham about a video by a shop in Copenhagen that included an analysis of Copenhagen tap water:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Ok5ZliIJg wrote:Copenhagen Tap Water

pH: 7.8
TDS: 574
Chloride: 67
Total Hardness (dH): 25
Carbonate Hardness (CdH): 18

Agrees with the OP about water being very hard, but interestingly also gives us a chloride number that is really high. Most espresso machine manufacturers that advise about max chloride in your water advise using RO treatment if the chloride is above 30 mg/L. Synesso is more conservative, advising RO when the chloride ion is greater than 15 mg/L.

Well first of all, thank you for posting.

Now I have some questions, I just tried googling about "chloride" - And as always when trying to learn about water I just get more confused than ever.

1. I guess my main question is, how should I react to this?

2. Will my BWT BestMax Premium not filter this sufficiently enough?

3. Are there any test kits that I can buy? I am guessing a pool kit is not relevant to this scenario? I need chloride not chlorine, that much I think I got correct...

EDIT: One more variable, I find that my coffee loses crema very fast, does not produce much to start with and in 2 minutes everything is gone. Is that an indicator of anything? I just re read the quote from previous reply about excessive crema, that is why I included it. I did find corrosion on my hot water dispensers aerator, and I recently emptied my steam boiler and refilled it, which produced a lot of debris. can upload pictures tomorrow. The machine is one and a half years old now.

I don't know enough about chemistry to understand how this affects my machine (E61 Dual Boiler, stainless steel boilers, Lelit Bianca) with the other factors of my water quality, see below image from professional test.

I can find out how they did it, I think.
At least if they took the sample with them or if they performed it on site. The ones installing the water treatment also did the test, and they gave him a BWT Best Protect.

I checked the reported values from the main 2 plants that should deliver to me, 53 and 62 mg/l test done in 2021, I have it in xlsx format, I can link it if it helps
https://www.hofor.dk/wp-content/uploads ... _2021.xlsx

The water in copenhagen comes from 14 different plants. In my area mainly 2 of them. This means that water reports really don't mean much for the individual tap point.

There is a big water-softening project under ways, and they estimate that hardness levels for many will drop significantly in the Autumn and when the project finishes in 2028 the max should be 10-12° DH

I will include the report from the coffee shop that resides in the same building as me:

Is this a good test kit?

https://www.wassertest.de/wasser-test.p ... artikel=40#

It is the most reasonable priced...

Here is a list of all their tests

https://www.wassertest.de/wassertest.php?q=Chlorid

esbndk wrote:1. I guess my main question is, how should I react to this?

Your ~80 mg/L chloride is way up at levels where most manufacturers recommend going to RO or to bottled water. See Boiler-safe level of chlorides (and other compounds) in water and Chloride in Water - Recommended Acceptable Ranges . For a valuable machine that you want to keep for many years, or especially for a vintage machine, you have more reason for concern here. To reduce that chloride the easiest solution is bottled water, or a recipe water based on minerals added to purified water. Or you could go with a reverse osmosis (RO) system equipped with a remineralizing cartridge or blending valve. (There are specialty resin filters that will reduce chloride but I don't think any of them are practical for home use.)

esbndk wrote:2. Will my BWT BestMax Premium not filter this sufficiently enough?

I don't think that would not be a good choice at all. It will not reduce your chloride and the WAC softening resin used in the Bestmax will reduce the alkalinity and acidify the water, making the chloride corrosion risk even worse. If you must use a softener you should use one with a conventional (SAC) softening resin, like the BWT BestProtect. The BWT BestAqua would be better yet, but that's a full RO system and not a simple softening cartridge.

esbndk wrote:3. Are there any test kits that I can buy? I am guessing a pool kit is not relevant to this scenario? I need chloride not chlorine, that much I think I got correct...

esbndk wrote:Is this a good test kit? https://www.wassertest.de/wasser-test.p ... artikel=40

That looks like a reasonable kit at a good price for testing chloride ion, which is what we are interested in. Note on the titrant bottle it says "1 drop = 1 °f ", and a French degree is equal to 0.2 mEq/l, which would be 7.1 mg/L chloride ion*, so even with the most cautious recommendations (like Synesso's 5-15 mg/L) you could use this to get a handle on whether your chloride is too high.

But in your particular case you don't need to measure your tapwater's chloride level - - those water reports make it clear that your chloride is in the 60 - 100 mg/L ballpark. That's enough to tell you that you do have a potential chloride corrosion issue. You could use this kit to check treated or blended water that you hope is down to 5 - 30 mg/L levels.

* Edit correction note: My post initially said: "... and a French degree is equal to 0.1 mEq/l, which would be 3.54 mg/L chloride ion ..." which is incorrect and I came back and corrected that. (When I do these in my head I sometimes screw up and neglect to allow for divalent vs univalent ions. 1 french degree is 10 mg/L as CaCO3, which is 0.1 mmol/L of divalent ion, which is 0.2 mEq/L.)

Thanks for the fast reply, I really appreciate all your advice.

So here is what I think I have understood:

My boilers are AISI316L, so not the worst but not the best.
My sulfate is 60 mg/l at worst and my Chloride is 79mg/l
If I switch to BestProtect I will have higher PH than now, the 2021 data shows alkalinity TA 5.81

Can you give me some guidance, not a guarantee I know this is not ideal, if I could use the BestProtect method?

I don't have a useful idea about the risks involved. My only real other option would be bottled water which is really expensive here.

My financial situation will change in few months, how much of a hurry am I in? (This is my main question I guess, how bad is this situation)

I though I had my water figured out, not sure how I am going to figure out safe water for tank use, I don't really have the money for an RO system.... I saw the BWT RO but that firmly out of my reach.

I spent some time reading your comments in other threads, learned a lot and so thanks again for sharing all your knowledge

Also going to ask the café where I got the first measurements from what his water expert told him....

esbndk wrote:My sulfate is 60 mg/l at worst and my Chloride is 79mg/l
If I switch to BestProtect I will have higher PH than now, the 2021 data shows alkalinity TA 5.81

That total aklalinity number was quantified in mmol/L, which is consistent with that report's carbonate hardness of 16 °dH (about 290 mg/L as CaCO3). With the BestProtect you will stay at that alkalinity level and the pH will stay the same. Having that very high alkalinity along with the above neutral pH will help reduce the corrosion risk from the chloride. Admittedly the alkalinity will be well above what is typically recommended for ideal taste.

esbndk wrote:I don't have a useful idea about the risks involved. My only real other option would be bottled water which is really expensive here.
My financial situation will change in few months, how much of a hurry am I in? (This is my main question I guess, how bad is this situation)

It's a judgement call, and one that is tied to an unclear understanding of corrosion risk, but not a dire situation and I think you're OK with simply switching to the BestProtect. If you can find a convenient and affordable source of purified water (RO, distilled, or de-ionized) there in Copenhagen, I think the recipe water, like rpavlis, would be a better solution.


P.S.
I'll quote myself from an earlier post in this thread just to emphasize part of the reasoning for using BestProtect for very hard water like this.

homeburrero wrote:The advantage of the Bestprotect, which uses a conventional softening resin and is always used at zero bypass, is that it reliably reduces the hardness to very low levels without reducing the alkalinity and without acidifying the water. Some recommendations, including the SCA Water Quality Handbook caution that treating very hard (over 17 °dH) water with an inline decarbonizing softener may over acidify the water*. If you used a Bestprotect it would avoid that issue, but I'm not sure that it would improve the taste, because with that filter your water would be coming out with a higher alkalinity than is usually recommended for taste.

* SCA Water Quality Handbook , section 9.2:
"The working principle of the decarbonizer that reduces total hardness and alkalinity is based on the exchange of magnesium or calcium ions by protons. This means that although the hydrogen carbonate is protonated and therefore not an acid buffer anymore, it is still present in the form of carbonic acid, which in turn is in a constant exchange with dissolved carbon dioxide. If the treatment is done by an in-line system where the carbonic acid cannot escape as carbon dioxide, it leads to two effects. Firstly, the pH of the treated water will decrease and in case of a water with a high starting level of total hardness (i.e. > 300 ppm CaCO3), this can effectively make the treated water so acidic that the risk of corrosion increases significantly. Secondly, a large amount of carbonic acid will also lead to excessive crema production during the extraction of espresso."

You are a life saver : ) Thank you....

I hope you know that many many people rely on your knowledge, I see references on forums here in Denmark and on Reddit back to your replies here.

I will switch to BestProtect soon, and see if I can find either an easy cheap way to get demineralized water shipped (Found some 20L containers for 1 GBP per liter) or I might get a cheap RO setup for a 100 GBP, just need to find out if it does what it says.

But at least I don't have to stress over it, and I can look forward to experimenting with making my own water.

If you had not posted that video I'd be non the wiser

Did not even know about April Coffee, have to visit and taste their espresso

Hi again,

I was having a discussion on Reddit, we were talking about RO water and someone said that using is RO water directly is perfectly safe.

Is this true?

Here is the thread, a guy uses RO water and finds the e61 mushroom covered en white/green "minerals"

esbndk wrote:I was having a discussion on Reddit, we were talking about RO water and someone said that using is RO water directly is perfectly safe.

Is this true?

I would say don't trust most of what you read on reddit (or Discord for that matter), but I'm biased toward HB for this sort of info. It is the home of Jim Schulman (author of the Insane water FAQ) and the late Robert Pavlis.

If an RO system has a fouled membrane then it may not be filtering properly and then you don't know what's in that water. Properly filtered RO would not cause that sort of scaling, but pure RO is still not a good idea for espresso machines because it's low in alkalinity (acid buffering capacity) and may have an acidic pH, adding to corrosion risk. RO with minerals added may not be good, especially if the minerals added include chlorides. But remineralized RO using a calcite cartridge or with a smidgen of sodium or potassium bicarbonates (rpavlis recipe) should be perfectly fine.

The white minerals in that picture are likely calcium carbonate or calcium sulfate deposits, and the greenish minerals are an indication of copper corrosion.

P.S.
Digging thru OMGFdave's reddit posts, this pic appears to be a case of 5 years using steam distilled water with an ill defined amount of dietary supplement minerals added, not simple RO.