Hey Guys,

Espresso water is frustrating and I just wanted to offer another alternative water treatment strategy that I have been using for about a week now with good success, Optipure BWS 175. In short I needed an RO system because my chlorides were too high 43ppm and had some scaling potential. There are a couple of reasons I opted for this system, 1) Superior Tech support, I didn't have any faith really in tech support from the budget competitors (BWT, Home Master, APEC, or iSpring). Whenever I tried to ask about some of the technical details, it seems they would just get lost 2) Built-in Blending Valve and TDS meter. Blending is a unique way to add minerals back into RO water and the TDS meter is such a simple way to gauge effectiveness 3) Brand, Optipure is owned by Pentair which owns Everpure. They have been around forever and I felt some reassurance that in the future cartridges would be available. Lastly the only downside I forsee is cost. This system costs a lot more than the budget RO systems and way more costly than making your own water, but some of those costs are not as bad as it seems.

As far as the system goes, RO + Remin water ranges from a TDS of 110ppm (initial morning usage) to 20ppm (steady state continuous draw). With my usage, 1-2 espresso drinks/day, it averages out to around ~70ppm TDS in the tank which is what my machine sees. When I have run API water tests on this ~70 ppm TDS water, the results have been favorable (~40 ppm alkalinity,~45ppm total hardness). Right now coffee tastes great and haven't really needed to adjust the blending valve, but since my tap water has a proportionally low chloride to alkalinity and hardness it adds a ton of flexibility. I've spoken to La Marzocco about even bypassing the remineralization cartridge all together and blending 30-50% of my tap into the pure RO water to achieve lower variability and even lower maintenance costs, which they have agreed could be a good idea. From my understanding it should create water pretty close to the SCAA superior brew specs (chlorides <30ppm and ~64ppm total hardness and 40 ppm alkalinity) and without any added variance d/t the remineralization cartridge. I figure once the remineralization cartridge starts to run out, I'll give it a shot.

Overall I am quite happy with the system.

Thanks for sharing. I concur with your reasoning for going with this system, just lots more confidence in the quality offered, the company, and the flexibility it offers. Your numbers look really good! My chloride levels pre-filtering are a bit higher, in the 60's, but hardness is similar to yours(190's). While I had already been considering this system, your purchase inspired me to do the same-it's on the way.

Questions about the install: Did you pay to have it installed, or did you DIY? If you paid, do you mind my asking a ballpark figure? It looks like you installed in an area other than under the sink? I have my existing 2 systems under-sink (which I installed myself), and I'm thinking to remove them both (Aquasana water to spigot and Homeland HCWS for espresso) and replace with just one, as I have very small area to work with. Not sure if it's worth the hassle to do myself, although I have a lot of adapters in place already.

After I get my system setup, I'll try to post some pre/post numbers as well. It should be interesting to compare.

Hey David,

I did a DIY. I am not at all handy and managed to do this in ~2 hrs + 2 trips to Lowe's for parts. I had a small area to work with underneath my wetbar sink and so I opted to install the system in a closet nearby. I probably could have figured out a way to install it underneath my wetbar sink but wanted some more room incase I needed to tinker with it.

With your hardness numbers you might also be able to blend ~25% and eliminate the remineralization stage, or at the very least blend a small amount in the event the remineralization overtime becomes less effective.

Nice post, Razi. Always good to have an example with measurements of actual output.

One question:

rrahman wrote:As far as the system goes, RO + Remin water ranges from a TDS of 110ppm (initial morning usage) to 20ppm (steady state continuous draw). With my usage, 1-2 espresso drinks/day, it averages out to around ~70ppm TDS in the tank which is what my machine sees. When I have run API water tests on this ~70 ppm TDS water, the results have been favorable (~40 ppm alkalinity,~45ppm total hardness).

It's not clear if your final numbers are purely RO + Remin. Are you doing a little blending to get that result in the tank?

homeburrero wrote:Nice post, Razi. Always good to have an example with measurements of actual output.

One question:
It's not clear if your final numbers are purely RO + Remin. Are you doing a little blending to get that result in the tank?

I did a little blending to 60ppm TDS to initially fill the tank, but now that its filled I closed the blending valve entirely and its been holding steady at ~70ppm as I make my daily drinks.

BTW thanks again for your help and guidance in building this system.

Funny timing, I just got one of these too!

I'm really liking it as well. I did notice that once the water has been sitting in the RO tank a while it acquires a bit of an off taste (I'm using it for drinking water as well as espresso water) -- some RO systems include a final "polishing filter" AFTER the tank for that reason, but this one doesn't. I put in a BWT Besttaste after the tank; it took like 4 minutes to install and completely eliminated the issue.

One question -- do you notice that yours pulsates somewhat noticeably after use until it has refilled up the tank? The drain line actually moves quite a bit during this process (it's almost as if it becomes possessed). Not a huge deal; it's a bit noisy, but doesn't last for very long. But curious if it's just mine.

Final tip -- the TDS meter seems to use a 0.5 "conversion factor" for converting EC (electrical conductivity) to TDS, whereas most of the TDS guidelines you will read are based on a 0.7 conversion factor. You can multiply your readings by 1.4 to compensate for this.

Very happy with the results of this, noticeably more consistent shots, and delicious drinking water!!

I just tried a little bit of the water and thought it tasted fine. The Optipure tech had mentioned that adding a chloramine reducing filter after the tank could improve the taste since the prefilter probably would not remove all of the chloramines in my water. I debated on it, but after 100$/yr on the prefilter, 40$/year for the remineralization filter, I didn't want to increase my annual maintenance expenses.

As far as the sound goes, all I ever notice is a brief click and then a squirting sound coming from the waste line. Its not even perceptible if I keep the cabinet/closet door closed.

I also agree, I have noticed alot more consistency with my espresso shots as well. I also think they taste better, but thats much more subjective.