Have you tried Costco/Kirkland water? I believe its supposed to be low hardness.

lancealot wrote:When you mentioned you were on municipal tap water , I remembered that I was on well water. My well water reads 525 on a cheap TDS meter

Do you know what it is for hardness?

I did at one time. I don't know anymore. Its liquid rock. It is softened. We don't drink it or use it for cooking. It is pretty gross.

Yikes.

It kinda forced me to find suitable water for my machine early in the game.

Is Poland Spring still the best option in the Maryland area? Put the info into LM calculator and it says it's balanced, but could cause corrosion with chlorides. Getting a Linea Mini and I'm wondering what the best bottled water option is. Waiting LM to respond to email I sent them.

Just got a La Bianca a couple of weeks ago and have been using Acqua Panna (bottled) and Amelia Springs Electrolyte spring water. Using the Bianca filter.
Replaced VBM Double Boiler Super which was plumbed in. Decided not to connect the Bianca to the plumb line and use the water tank instead.
Both spring waters taste good. Any thoughts about using Amelia Springs Electrolyte spring water?

Amelia's Electrolyte Sweet Alkaline Water, with a natural pH of 7.6.
Naturally occurring Minerals...Calcium 7.81 mg/12oz Magnesium 2.06 mg/12oz Potassium 2.45 mg/12oz.
Filled directly from the Historical Black Creek Aquifer, NC
Giant

Acqua Panna
Bottle
PH 8 to 8.5
Total Wine

I just purchased an Apera digital pH/TDS (and Sal and Continuity) test kit.
Assuming I set this instrument up properly, here are some readings I registered -

Acqua Panna

pH 7.84
TDS 188
Sal .13
Cont 272

Amelia Springs Electrolyte spring water

pH 7.47
TDS 302
Sal .21
Cont 421

Deer Park

pH 6.81
TDS 78.8
Sal .05
Cont 109.7

Fairfax Tap water

pH 7.46
TDS 246
Sal .17
Cont 348

According to a posting on the web, the SCAA sets a target TDS range of 75-250 ppm and an ideal value of 150 ppm.
https://www.raleighcoffeecompany.com/tds-and-coffee/
See also
https://international.lamarzocco.com/en ... episode-2/

It appears that pH levels between 7 and 8.5 are recommended

While I like the taste of Amelia Springs Electrolyte, it appears that the TDS rating of 302 is not recommended. So, it looks like Acqua Panna is the best option for the La Bianca.

Don't know what the continuity reading of 348 for Fairfax water means.

Any thoughts?

That's a nice meter, but be aware that it is measuring conductivity, then using that measure to display an estimated TDS and an estimated salinity. You can calibrate it to use different factors. Right now you appear to be calibrated so that the TDS estimate in ppm is about 0.7 x the conductivity measure (in μS/cm) . And the salinity in ppt is about 0.0005 x the conductivity.

TDS tells you a lot if it's very low -- a low TDS is an indication that the water is soft and probably won't scale. If it's moderate or high you still don't know much. A water with a moderately high TDS may be hard and scale-prone, or it may be softened and scale free, or it may even be dangerously corrosive.

It's always best to first look at numbers for hardness and alkalinity. Knowing the calcium hardness helps, and knowing the chloride is always a good idea (high chloride is a common corrosion issue.)

You can often find detailed analysis reports from the bottler or the water utility. For example, Acqua Panna's water analysis report tells you it has an alkalinity of 84 mg/L and total hardness of 110 mg/L. The calcium ion of 32 mg/L = calcium hardness( as CaCO3) of 80 mg/L. Those numbers tell you that you're going to need to regularly descale the machine if you use this water straight. (The bible for estimating scale deposits is: Jim Schulman's Insanely long water FAQ )



The Deer Park analysis is interesting - indicates that the water is highly variable with alkalinity ranging between 7 - 130 mg/L and hardness ranging between 18 - 150 mg/L. Probably due to different sources, and unlike Crystal Geyser (which has seven different sources) they don't label the bottles with the source and provide analysis numbers for each source. I think that might steer me away from recommending Deer Park.

David5 wrote:Don't know what the continuity reading of 348 for Fairfax water means.

Looks in the range (228- 433) that I see in online reports of Fairfax water: https://www.fairfaxwater.org/sites/defa ... Source.pdf .
That report indicates a water that would tend to deposit scale if not softened, and has borderline high chloride that might suggest treating with RO and a remineralizer if you wanted to be very cautious about corrosion issues.

P.S.
There are a lot of good links and fundamental information to be found on this site here: Good references on water treatment for coffee/espresso

And a bottled water discussion here: Best bottled water for espresso machine

Homeburrero,

Thanks for your reply.
Is your recommendation to use Volvic or as a second choice Crystal Geyser water if I want to stick with bottled water without further treatment?

I saw a posting that suggested that if you wanted to use Acqua Panna to do the following:

" .... you could try something like 70% Acqua Panna with 30% purified (distilled or RO), which would get you closer to typical hardness:alkalinity recommendations."

Volvic or Acqua Panna with La Marzocco GS3?

Thanks