Hey guys! I'm about to pick my Profitec pro 600 soon. I am trying to figure out the best way to protect my machine from scale or rust.
Was advised by a machine technician that my water is soft enough and shouldn't need any filtration, but have been getting mixed info from elsewhere.

My setup: Profitec pro 600 and Eureka Specialita

My water (Melbourne, Au):
TDS: ~69ppm.
Total Hardness GH (API GH and KH Test Kit): ~53ppm or 3°.
Carbonate Hardness KH: ~53ppm or 3°.

Water quality report from water provider:
Alkalinity: average ~16, max 45.
Hardness as CaCO3: average 21, max 60.
pH: 7.5

My question is, am I safe to use my tap water as is or should I get a filter (BWT jug be BWT tap filter vs Brita c150 tap filter). I am reluctant to buy bottles of distilled water as don't want to constantly produce waste plastics. I've been getting mixed information, any info will be much appreciated.

Thanks

Your machine has stainless steel boilers.

Melbourne based specialist says:

https://www.talkcoffee.com.au/education/filtration/ wrote:I have an espresso machine with stainless steel boilers. What should I do?

Use a Brita C150 finest.
This filter employs a buffering system to maintain water pH whilst softening water. Conventional filters can lead to acidification of water where TDH is higher. This filter overcomes this problem.
We are now recommending that this filter be used wherever possible and always with machines which employ stainless steel boilers.
The only limitation of this filter when compared to the C150 purity is that the finest MUST be installed vertically. There are however areas of Australia where the C150 Finest will not be adequate and only bottled water or Reverse Osmosis with remineralisation will be satisfactory for your machine.

If you have stainless steel boilers it's essential that you have your water professionally tested and then choose the right option for your circumstances.

My water tests are similar to yours and I haven't had scale issues in ~7 years with the bulk of those being unfiltered, regular inspections have been conducted. I don't have a SS boiler though.

Take a sample down to an expert to get tested and targeted advice.

Thank! I actually had a chat to the guy that runs TalkCoffee, he tested my water with a TDS reader and it was ~70ppm. He mentioned that a tap filter will not be necessary as I can't plumb my machine and a BWT pitcher would be sufficient. Just wanted to get a second opinion. Thanks mate, appreciate it.

I tend to agree with that TalkCoffee recommendation of filter. But I think that TalkCoffee page is not a very a good source of water treatment information, partly because it fails to understand and discuss the difference between the two very different softening resins used in these Brita Purity C cartridges. Brita is at least partly at fault here because they fail to describe the difference in unambiguous terms. You have to read between the lines to understand that the "Quell ST" filters use WAC resins that replace hardness minerals with hydrogen ions, which then are buffered by carbonate (so they reduce the alkalinity, and tend to acidify the water.) The current "Finest" filters are conventional SAC resin filters that replace hardness minerals with sodium ions and do not acidify nor reduce alkalinity. The latter are run at zero bypass and are far preferable when you have corrosion issues related to low alkalinity and/or high chloride ion in your water. They are also better at assuring that you don't get dreaded calcium sulfate deposits. To see some evidence in the Brita product lit you can refer to a couple PDFs: https://www.brita.com.au/dam/jcr:71fc8f ... -en-EN.pdf and https://www.brita.com.au/dam/jcr:39fc23 ... -en-EN.pdf

In this case I would say that your water is soft enough that your best bet is probably a plain carbon and particulates filter - a typical fridge filter would do nicely. I suppose the BWT jug filter would work OK here. (I prefer the Brita-US longlast as a pitcher filter - it has no WAC resins that might acidify your water - but I don't think you can get it in Australia.)

If you don't soften, be aware that your water's hardness and alkalinity numbers are not clearly down in the scale-free zone, so you still want to be vigilant about scale if you run a hot steam boiler, and about the concentration effect of using the steam wand: If you steam a lot and don't regularly use your hot water tap, the steam boiler water will gradually become more concentrated and may deposit scale. You can manage that if you take care to periodically drain or purge your steam boiler.


To play it extra cautious on the machine health side you might still consider using that Brita C finest and use it to fill your reservoir. It would drop your total hardness very low without making your water potentially more corrosive. The low hardness would help avoid any issues with calcium carbonate (limescale) or calcium sulfate (gypsum) deposits.

If you do get your water tested, or evaluate it using data from your water utility it would be good to know the calcium hardness, the chloride ion (and chloride is not to be confused with chlorine here), and the sulfate ion numbers to make a really informed choice about what water treatment would be best.

Thank you so much for that detailed response, really appreciate it. From the sounds of things, a particulate filter would be sufficient for my water and a Brita or BWT tap filter might soften my water even more and increase risk of corrosion slightly. Since the BWT filter replaces Ca for Mg, I think it would be a safe option to go for. Just to be vigilant, I've been purging the steam boiler every 2-3 days or so with about 300ml of water (enough for 2 cups of tea).

The numbers from my water quality report from my water supplier are as follows:
Chloride: Mean 12mg/L
Hardness (as CaCO3): Mean 21mg/L
Calcium: 6.5mg/L
Sulphate: 5.8mg/L

Thanks!

Looks like you have really good water and everything nicely covered. Your calcium ion number translates to a calcium hardness of only around 16 mg/L as CaCO3, and your chloride and sulfate is nice and low.


P.S.

MrElephant96 wrote:Since the BWT filter replaces Ca for Mg, I think it would be a safe option to go for.

I think that filter will be fine, but worth pointing out that while it replaces some Ca²⁺ with Mg²⁺, it replaces some with a pair of H⁺ ions. To the extent that it does that, which I believe is not much over the life of these pitcher filters, those H⁺ ions will reduce your alkalinity. Given your water's healthy alkalinity and low chloride I don't think that's anything to worry about, but if you have a plain old charcoal filter on your refrigerator water I think that would be a better choice. Your calcium is plenty low so you don't really need to reduce it.

For those interested in details about how this BWT 'patented magnesium technology' works, you can look into their patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20130306541.pdf

homeburrero wrote:Looks like you have really good water and everything nicely covered. Your calcium ion number translates to a calcium hardness of only around 16 mg/L as CaCO3, and your chloride and sulfate is nice and low.


P.S.
I think that filter will be fine, but worth pointing out that while it replaces some Ca²⁺ with Mg²⁺, it replaces some with a pair of H⁺ ions. To the extent that it does that, which I believe is not much over the life of these pitcher filters, those H⁺ ions will reduce your alkalinity. Given your water's healthy alkalinity and low chloride I don't think that's anything to worry about, but if you have a plain old charcoal filter on your refrigerator water I think that would be a better choice. Your calcium is plenty low so you don't really need to reduce it.

For those interested in details about how this BWT 'patented magnesium technology' works, you can look into their patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20130306541.pdf

Thank you for the reply! It seems like there is a slight increase in hardness between the main water reservoir and the tap in my house. An increase of hardness from 16mg/L to ~32mg/L (GH test from API), but still within the safe zone for scale build up.

homeburrero wrote:Looks like you have really good water

That's Melbourne water for you.
Between that and the high turn over of water in my boiler I've had no build up in the (single) boiler, being unfiltered for 5 of 7 years.

Now I'm curious what one of these filters that add Mg would do for taste.

Edit: Do you know much about these filters? https://www.3m.com.au/3M/en_AU/p/d/v000224428/ They're used in some of the counter top filtering units.

MrElephant96 wrote:It seems like there is a slight increase in hardness between the main water reservoir and the tap in my house. An increase of hardness from 16mg/L to ~32mg/L (GH test from API), but still within the safe zone for scale build up.

I think those two numbers are in reasonable agreement. That 16 mg/L is your calculated calcium hardness from the water report and the 32 mg/L was a titration measurement of total hardness, which includes magnesium plus calcium hardness. Your best number for estimating limescale deposits is the calcium hardness. As you say, it's down in a safe zone for scale deposits.

_Ryan_ wrote:Do you know much about these filters? https://www.3m.com.au/3M/en_AU/p/d/v000224428/ They're used in some of the counter top filtering units.

I have no experience with them, but the CFS117-S product literature makes it clear that it's a large granular activated charcoal filter with a little polyphosphate added to inhibit scale deposition. It has no ion exchange resins, which is good in this case. (There was a similar filter, the CFS117S--R that did have an ion exchange resin. Not sure they still sell that one.)

That filter fits in a generic 10" housing, which is nice, but is probably way more capacity than you need (it handles up to 10,000 gallons!) The polyphosphate is something your particular water does not need for scale reasons, but theoretically might make the water less corrosive. It would be only a tiny amount, but purists might argue that the polyphosphate is not sufficient for scale reduction in an espresso machine, and since it might somehow effect the extraction (and therefore the taste) you are better off without it. If you can find a plain CFS117 you can get the same thing without that polyphosphate.

The -R is used in some of the counter top units but there isn't a datasheet available on the 3M website. Perhaps it's old stock.
If the polyphosphate isn't needed, there are heaps of options for charcoal filters in countertop units (I previously had RO and did remin, but the more basic filtering I know less about). The GAC only cartridges used are: Pentek CBR2-10, Matrikx Pb1 and Omnipure OMB-934-1mPB but it's not clear what they remove other than contaminants.

It's easier and prob similar price per year to use a counter-top unit than a BWT jug.