Hey all,

I have recently picked up a gs3 and am looking to get the water squared away prior to receiving it. I have ready through most of the relevant threads in this forum and each new thread I come across I change my mind on what route I should go in plumbing in the GS3.

Here are my local water levels given by the city:
bicarb: 114
Calcium: 45.1
Chloride 32.1
Conductivity: 449
Mg: 6.38
pH: 7.5-8.4
Sodium: 31.1
Sulfate: 62.3
Total alkalinity (CaCO3): 119
TDS: 270
Total hardness (CaCO3): 117
Complete Report: https://www.grapevinetexas.gov/Document ... 017?bidId=

I tested my water today and got similar numbers
Hardness ~100
alkalinity ~100
pH:7.5

Going off of LM water specs
TDS: 90-150
Hardness: 70-100
pH: 6.5-8
Alkalinity: 40-80
Chloride: <30

Overall I feel like I am in pretty good shape. However, I need to bring down my TDS a good bit. Then small amount to hardness, alkalinity. My biggest concern is the chloride. I mainly see my options are simply going with an inline filter, I have looked into bwt will help me get me where I need to be but will not pull the chloride out or Claris Ultra which claims to be able to pull the chloride out or just get a 6 stage RO system with remineralization (https://www.amazon.com/Home-Master-TMAF ... 01N7T81JZ/ vs. https://www.freedrinkingwater.com/ro-ph90-detail.htm) see what the output looks like and if my TDS is too low add in a bwt on the end to mix. Ultimately I would obviously love to go the cheaper and easier route of just an in line filter, and I guess if the Claris Ultra can really pull chloride that might be best, but I only want to do this once and never need to thin about water again so I am ok to go RO + possible in line filter to be sure to mitigate future issues. Thank you everyone in advance for your help. I never new the water rabbit hole went so deep before this site, good and bad thing.

I think your water leaves you with many options.

The chloride is the problem, and as some manufacturers and water experts on this site say, there is no safe chloride level, and any chloride may contribute to corrosion. Some recommenations you see out there are: below 15 mg/L (Synesso), below 30 mg/L (La Marzocco water calculator), below 50 mg/L (older La Marzocco machine manuals) and below 80 mg/L (Pentair/Claris advice here: /downloads/ ... pdated.pdf )

Your water's chloride isn't too bad. Note that your city water is a blend from two sources - Grapevine Reservoir and Trinity River Authority, and the 2017 report indicated chloride at 32.1 mg/L for Grapevine and 21.5 mg/L for TVA. The other thing you have in your favor is a good level of alkalinity in your water. Given that, I think any conventional WAC filter (decarbonizing filter, that exchanges H+ ions for hardness minerals) with a bypass should do the job. Just set the bypass so that the alkalinity coming out is in the 40 - 80 mg/L (as CaCO3) range and don't worry about that 30-ish mg/L chloride in the filtered water.

If you want to be extra cautious, your best option is probably RO, which will reduce that chloride. An RO with a remineralizer would do the job, and probably would be your simplest option. It would reduce the chloride to near zero. The Homemaster you mentioned looks fine ( see the links at Ideal water filtration system for La Marzocco GS3 for an example)

Your water has good hardness and alkalinity relative to the undesirables (chloride), so you also have the option of using an RO + bypass system. It could be adjusted so that you cut your hardness, alkalinity, TDS, and chloride in half. The Claris Prime could perhaps do better, using adjustable cation+anion exchange rather than RO - but I think that might be a complex and pricy option.

Note:

Nanilla wrote: I guess if the Claris Ultra can really pull chloride

The Claris Prime can pull out the chloride, but I believe the standard Claris Ultra is just a WAC filter with some additional calcium carbonate sequestering agents that are supposed to help reduce scale formation.

Nanilla wrote:However, I need to bring down my TDS a good bit.

If you get the other numbers right, especially the alkalinity, I wouldn't worry what the TDS reads. There's also some taste test evidence that you don't really need all that hardness.

Why not use an ever pure 4fc? The Claris line is unnecessary imho. You can add a softening cartridge if you want.

The 4fc without any softening on your Grapevine TX water would leave your hardness and alkalinity high enough to require frequent descaling in a GS3 steam boiler.

If you used that filter backed up by a conventional softener, or if you went with a filter like the one at Clive Coffee (which combines charcoal, sediment, and conventional softening) I think you'd be OK and would not need to descale. Your numbers would come out low for total hardness, and relatively high (~ 120 mg/L as CaCO3) for alkalinity. Of course chloride goes through the filter unchanged. But this system is still OK for machine health because the high alkalinity should help mitigate corrosion concern. Some might argue that the high alkalinity would affect taste, making it flat and chalky. But I think that opinion is based on brewed coffee, not so much on espresso, which has far less water in relation to extracted coffee. Note the taste test in Jim Shulman's water FAQ (here ) where, for espresso, high alkalinity softened (IonEx) water fared very well.

The combined filter from Clive is nice for space savings and I like supporting small businesses. But with everyone focused on Claris and Everpure as the top brand, it is far more economical and easier to use the conventional 4FC with an Everpure softener. The softener is good for 1000 gallons but the filter is good for 4000. Those claris filters are way overpriced for what you get, imho.

If you could get high alkalinity in the water, it would break down the machine over time. But the other side of that coin is all machines are breaking down over time and the difference probably doesn't matter that much in reality.

The manual for the GS3 lists different specs from what they have on their website:
http://www.lamarzoccousa.com/wp-content ... ations.pdf

The manual that came with my GS3 says Chloride <50 and PH 6.5-8.5 which is different than the PDF you'll find online. I'm not sure which one trumps the other, but I'd guess for warranty purposes the manual should be the overriding document, although whatever problems you might have will almost certainly happen well after the warranty is gone, at least for home use.

I'm just down the road from you in Keller and I think our water all comes from the same supply. FWIW I'm using the Claris with a setting of 5.

homeburrero wrote:The 4fc without any softening on your Grapevine TX water would leave your hardness and alkalinity high enough to require frequent descaling in a GS3 steam boiler.

If you used that filter backed up by a conventional softener, or if you went with a filter like the one at Clive Coffee (which combines charcoal, sediment, and conventional softening) I think you'd be OK and would not need to descale. Your numbers would come out low for total hardness, and relatively high (~ 120 mg/L as CaCO3) for alkalinity. Of course chloride goes through the filter unchanged. But this system is still OK for machine health because the high alkalinity should help mitigate corrosion concern. Some might argue that the high alkalinity would affect taste, making it flat and chalky. But I think that opinion is based on brewed coffee, not so much on espresso, which has far less water in relation to extracted coffee. Note the taste test in Jim Shulman's water FAQ (here ) where, for espresso, high alkalinity softened (IonEx) water fared very well.

What about the opposite? I still don't know what effect or summary of having high total hardness and very low alkalinity is, can't seem to find much information the web either.

sluflyer06 wrote:What about the opposite? I still don't know what effect or summary of having high total hardness and very low alkalinity is, can't seem to find much information the web either.

High hardness and very low alkalinity is an unusual situation so you don't find a lot of online discussion there. It's not a scale problem if the alkalinity is low, but may be a corrosivity problem - that's why the newest SCA handbook has a rule of thumb water guideline that total hardness be no more than 80% higher than the alkalinity. This is a rule of thumb, based on a Larsen-Skold index related to keeping non-bicarbonate anions (mostly chloride and sulfate) low in relation to the bicarbonates. Some discussion of that can be found here: SCAE Water Chart is available online and here: Good references on water treatment for coffee/espresso

There are proponents of higher hardness to alkalinity ratios for coffee extraction and taste, including the authors of the Water for Coffee book.