Hi. After descaling my machine I cant get rid of an almost indistinguishable blue water coming out of the grouphead. Upon further investigation I read this may be caused by chloride in the water. My water utility publishes its water tests and you can see here:

https://www.fairfaxwater.org/sites/defa ... r_2018.pdf.

The chloride was as high as 64ppm in 2018. I dont do any water filtering or processing. I have had this machine hooked up since 2012 to this water supply.

How can I be sure the blue tint is really being caused by chloride? If so, what can I do to fix it and mitigate this from happening again?

Thanks.

If you've had it hooked up for several years and it only gave this tint after descaling I would think that would be the issue. How did you descale it, anyway? Just the boiler? (Which wouldn't affect the water coming from the group head, I suppose), or did you send some solution through the hydraulic? I'm partially just wondering for myself because I've thought of descaling but don't really understand what the easy way is on a plumbed in machine...

Hello:

miamichillin99 wrote: After descaling my machine I cant get rid of an almost indistinguishable blue water ...

What did you use to descale the machine and how did you go about it?
ie: descaling agent used, ratio of water to descaling agent, rinsing procedure, etc.

Have you had this happen before or just now after descaling?

Here's a post explaining (and very well) all that may have happened and most important, why.
Blue water after descaling...

My guess is that your solution was a bit too strong and you did not rinse properly afterwards, but it's just a guess.
But I've been there and done that too ... = ^)

Cheers,

CIV

I'm not convinced that chloride is a major issue here. The average chloride concentration over the year in that report is about 32 mg/L. That is right at the 30 mg/L level where La Marzocco would advise you to use RO and remineralization. (To filter out chloride you generally need reverse osmosis.) But since your water has good alkalinity and pH, I think you can get away with what you're doing.

civ wrote:Here's a post explaining (and very well) all that may have happened and most important, why.
Blue water after descaling...

+1
If there is copper corrosion of any kind inside the machine, including copper chloride, but also copper sulfate, and copper carbonate deposits, which I think are are fairly common, you will see blueish water after a descale. After a thorough rinse, which should always be done after descaling it should go away. The descaling process itself may contribute to copper corrosion if you use strong acids and/or let it sit too long and/or descale more frequently than is necessary.

Your water report indicates that your calcium hardness and your alkalinity varies month to month, and averages out around 56:52 mg/L as CaCO3. In a soft water month it will tend to dissolve scale and in a hard water month it will tend to deposit scale. Over the long run it may deposit very light scale in a hot (125C) steam bolier, maybe 10 mg per liter of throughput, requiring a descale after perhaps 250 - 500 liters.* If you wanted to avoid descaling entirely a conventional softener would do that. A decarbonizing filter (aka WAC resin filter aka hydrogen ion exchange filter) like a BWT bestmax, Mavea Purity C, or Everpure Claris would not be recommended because it would lower your alkalinity and you want to keep that high when you have that much chloride.


*per Jim Schulman's Insanely Long Water FAQ

Thank you all for all the great questions and information. I dont descale often. Im guessing the last time was 6 months ago. I always use the same solution which is 1tbs of citric acid per liter of water. I mix it up well in a bucket and let the pump suck it up. This time I did leave in a bit longer. I filled the boiler with the mix and turned on the machine to operating temp for about 2 hours. Then ran about a liter through the group head too. Turned it off and let it sit warm for another 2 hours. Then I drained it and drained and refilled the boiler at least 10 timea now. The group head has been flushed with probably 3 liters by now too. At first the water was very green in the boiler and coming out of the grouphead. Now its become a very light blue. Obvious when you put it side by side with a glass of water but not so obvious when you look at it by itself. Well at least not to me. To my wife its obvious. Its so slight the tint that in the attached pic I cant even notice the blue. In person its there. Now Im not sure if this blue tint existed prior to the descaling since I never analyzed the water by itself coming out of the grouphead until now since I was trying to get rid of the green tint that was very obvious after the descale.

I have tried to peek into the boiler by removing the vacuum breaker and peeking in but with the little I can see I see no scale of any color. I did have on the HX connection from the grouphead to the heat exchanger a little blue scale buildup on the outside of the connector. Attached to post. Not sure what that means. On other connections on the boiler I have some white scale buildup too.

I have ran an additional 2 liters through the grouphead, backflushed the machine twice and still the water has this very light blue tint. I had some neighbors come over to confirm they too saw it. Im a bit worried of drinking this water. Any ideas? Can I get it tested for any health hazards?

miamichillin99 wrote: Im a bit worried of drinking this water. Any ideas?

I would just continue to flush your machine. What I had done was flush till there was virtually no discernible difference in taste between a glass of plain cold water from our machine and that from the tap. This was after a citric acid flush of our entire machine; in fact our espresso no longer has a metallic taste after the citric acid flush.

I'm still here - It's the dose that makes the poison!

Worry less - drink more!

I have no expertise in health effects of blue-tinged water. Internet searching tells me that copper levels as low as 1 mg/L might have a detectable blue tinge and/or a detectable metallic taste, so if it were me I would probably flush a few more liters and start using it. The EPA MCLG is 1.3 mg/L, and that's set on the assumption that you drink a lot of it, not just a few ounces of espresso. You could always get it tested for copper just to make sure.

Hello:

miamichillin99 wrote: Thank you all ...

You're welcome.

miamichillin99 wrote: ... dont descale often.
... last time was 6 months ago.

It sounds like a bit too often (to me).

I do it maybe once every 18 months if not longer.
But of course, it depends on your type of water.
City water is usually not too problematic but then, that depends on your city.

miamichillin99 wrote: ... did leave in a bit longer.

Maybe that's why you've no seen this happen before.

miamichillin99 wrote: ... filled the boiler ...
... turned on the machine to operating temp for about 2 hours.
... let it sit warm for another 2 hours.

That's a whole four hours of hot descaling (very active because of the temperature) not counting the time it took to get to operating temperature which would make it roughly five hours.

Methinks it's too much. Other more experienced HB members may opine differently.

Since you do not really know (ie: cannot actually see it) just how much descaling is needed (I have a USB gooseneck camera but it has not been of much use), I'm of the opinion that it is much better to do it two or three times soft than just one time hard, so to speak.

IMO you should fill the boiler, take it to operating temperature, turn it off (I'm assuming it is a SB with HX) and then empty it through the water wand, flushing the HX once every 5' while it is getting to temp and while it is emptying.

Doing that a couple of times should do it.

Cheers,

CIV

+1 for copper. Keep on flushing.