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

homeburrero wrote:Good point! I failed to note that you are in Italy, and the availability of purified drinking water is totally different over there than it is here.

Water that is distilled or otherwise purified so as to be perfectly good in a steam iron or a car battery may not be at all suitable for human consumption.

If you can buy a ZeroWater pitcher filter over there, and feed it any low mineral tap or bottled water you would be good to go. Or if you can find a very low mineral (less than around 50 ppm TDS or so) bottled water at an affordable price you could use that as a base.

Posting a new thread with a topic title something like: "Where can I get purified potable water in Italy for coffee recipes." might catch a helpful response.
I've tried using filtering caraffe at homes (for drinking water) and wasn't satisfied.

I can buy low TDS water but it's not cheaper and then the math would get more complicated.

Atm I'm set to call the seller of the bi distiller water I saw online and see what's the deal with the shipping cost, If i can get below 1 € / lt with a 6 x 10 lt jug purchase I'd be pretty good

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homeburrero
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#12: Post by homeburrero »

Mirazur wrote:I've tried using filtering caraffe at homes (for drinking water) and wasn't satisfied.
ZeroWater is a somewhat unique pitcher filter. It does the usual carbon filtration but also uses a mixed bed ion exchange resin to give you de-ionized water, usually 0 - 2 ppm, always less than 6 ppm, which is a good choice for recipes that use distilled or de-ionized. If your water is high in minerals though the filters don't treat much water and they are a little pricy.

https://www.zerowater.it/


And on HB: How pleased are you with ZeroWater solution?
Pat
nínádiishʼnahgo gohwééh náshdlį́į́h

Mirazur (original poster)
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#13: Post by Mirazur (original poster) »

Hello guys, wanted to give updates!

Took me a long time to find suitable distilled water and yasterday i prepared the water for the first time.

The process was harder than imagiend, I hope I can make it easier over time.

I had to slightly tune the recipe since I wanted to end up with 1.030 lt of water in a bottle (aiming for 5x 205-206 pour).

Since I didn't want to up the 2 and 8 gr of solutions cause they were harder to measure, I decided to increase the concentration:

ended up with 0,86 sodium + 103 potassium and 2,53 magnesium.

I tried to aim for perfection but something in the process was a little bit off as I expected, like a 0,01 that i couldn't shake into the bottle to maybe not putting exactly the 2 gr and 8 gr in the 1 lt bottle (drops were stuck etc) but overall I think i was reasonably precise.

Today I did my first brew keeping everything the same (it's a medium roast specialty blend, this is actually my 5th cup so I got to know the coffee a bit) trying to keep everything the same and I noticed a lot of difference in the cup.

It's a little bit brighter and there are definitely more flavours coming around than usual, but I feel like they are not armonized very well.

I get a bit of "saltyness" more as a sensation on the tongue than as a proper taste, an a bit of "lactic" taste that I have experienced in the past as well but not in this coffee (which was primarely nougaty I'd say).

For the trouble I went to, I want more. What do you think should I do to the water recipe? Should I alter my coffee recipe (grinding as well) now that I have a new water?

Mirazur (original poster)
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#14: Post by Mirazur (original poster) »

Updates:

Tried to grind finder (2 clicks, so 25 micron VBM on my grinder) and everything came togheter a little bit better, but I'm still not getting extra pleasure out of my cofee compared to my old water. bitterness and astringency bits seem to have dulled and that's a plus, but other than that it's not kicking my coffee up a notch

Mirazur (original poster)
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#15: Post by Mirazur (original poster) »

Update 2:

I'm pretty sure I fucked up the first time: I was making another 1,03 lt bottle of water and i noticed 2 things:

1) I'm pullin the concetrated water out of the 2 bottles with a syring, aided by a plastic tube to reach inside it: there's water that remains inside the tube, and I din't pay attention to it the first time, so when I was pulling an release x ml of water read on the syring scale, I'm also adding the ones stuck in the tube. That is the first mistake.

2) I was payin attention at the bottles and the mangesium sulphate one had a lower level compared to the other one, which shouldn't be the case. My first thought is that I put on them the wrong label, but I tasted the content and the bicarbonate one tastes like sodium bicarbonate and the sulphate one tasted strange and unpleasant. I must have switched them while they were still unlabelled!

I'm going to make a try tomorrow and I should see improvements

Mirazur (original poster)
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#16: Post by Mirazur (original poster) »

Last update (if anybody in the future stumble upon this thread).

Much much better now. It doesn't unlock anything "new" but i get good body, extreme persistence with very very little harshness. 10/10 would do it again

jmcarriere810
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#17: Post by jmcarriere810 »

Jeff wrote:I found the "simplest" way for me was to make up concentrates so that nn g of concentrate in 1000 g of mix (a liter) results in nn GH (or KH)

If I got the numbers right:

2.46 g/L epsom salt for GH

1.68 g/L baking soda or
2.00 g/L potassium bicarbonate for KH

"L" there is a tad sloppy, but the errors compared to 1000 g total aren't large enough to worry about for this purpose.

To make my 20/80 water, I add 20 g of GH concentrate to an empty bottle. I add 80 g of KH concentrate to that. I add distilled or RO/DI water for a total of 1000 g. I can do that with sleepy hands and foggy brain on cold, dark mornings.
Jeff is that what you like is 20/80 for yourself. And what do you recommend for someone just starting with their water recipes. I was thinking 40/80

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Jeff
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#18: Post by Jeff »

I use 20/80 with "high-extraction" burrs (like 98 HUs) and very light coffee for espresso.

I'd probably start with something more middle of the road. Try making some big jumps and see how that impacts the flavor of your coffee. Just to pick some numbers out of the air, maybe start with 20/40 and see if you can taste the difference with 20/80 or with 60/40.

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