I tend to get a lot of scale in my electric kettles, such that one type I used would get build up so quickly I'd have to do a vinegar soak every week. Now that I bought a nice Skagg kettle I'd like to step up my prevention. I'm wondering which of the following (Or something I'm missing) would help most- or which would be a waste of effort. FWIW I use it for a Robot for 4 espressos a day... my espresso and drinking water taste good to me as is, but changing the water would change that a bit too, I suppose.

A) Softener: I have a whole-house softener that I've turned up a bit, plus a 10" softener and filter that runs to a drinking tap. Maybe I don't replace that often enough or have something wrong... (often the TDS from that tap is 400 compared to 300 from the other)

B) Buy water: for 4 espresso a day it wouldn't be that bad. I could even experiment with proportions of purchased water and my own mixed in.

C) Only put the minimum water in the kettle

D) Empty the kettle after each use (C & D make for filling the kettle 4x a day instead of once, so it's not no work)

E) Clean it often. Instead of doing some of the above, maybe it's easier just to fill it with tap water and occasionally clean the kettle with vinegar. I'm a little nervous with this approach (hence this post) because the inside of the Skagg looks really nice but also appears to have a whole bunch of difficult-to-clean crannies.

(My third type of kettle was just a basic one that I had on a little plug-in induction cooktop for a few months. I didn't care much about the kettle so I hadn't been emptying it or cleaning it and when I was finally done with it I was quite disgusted to see how much scale was floating around in the bottom third of the kettle! Wow! Kind of made me realize I had better do something different or not only will I get scale on my kettle but I might get a whole bunch in one of my espressos too!)

Any thoughts, things you've found to work? Or should I just do my own trial and error?

You have a water problem on your hands.

Making your own water at once and putting in like a 3-5 gallon holding jar would not be a bad idea. Just take the time to do that and it should last you quite a bit.

I have a RO filter + reminerlization filter added along with an extra one at the end to catch any bigger particles. I've been using my stagg kettle almost every day for over a year and I just peaked in and saw zero evidence of scale and the bottom is nice and shiny how it was the day I got it.

I have a feeling once you get a good water recipe sorted you'll find a good improvement in the taste of your espresso. If you had a traditional machine with a boiler I'd be super careful using that water you have now as it could scale up very quickly.

Thanks for the thoughts. I'll look into RO. One reason I liked the Robot was because there aren't water issues (I had to descale my Silvia and then plumbed-in HX occasionally). But getting it right before going back to regular machine certainly sounds in order.

Thanks!

If your water is so hard, you get scale in the toilets, dishwasher clothes washer, and so on, then perhaps the best bet would be a whole-house softener. We have hard water and when we bought our current house, even though it was still fairly new, there was white build-up on everything. We put in a whole-house softener, then used citric acid to clean out everything. Now, quite a few years later, everything is still shiny and new looking. A whole-house softener does not reduce the TDS; it just removes the scaling-mineral ions and substitutes sodium ions. If you're antsy about sodium in your water, you can use potassium chloride salt instead of sodium chloride. But, if you do a bit of research you'll find that whole house softeners don't really add that much salt. That said, I have an RO with a bypass line for the espresso bar, kitchen, and bathroom drinking water spigots. I know it's my imagination, but I don't like drinking the 'softened' water. If I could only have one of these two items, it would be the water softener.

I just got back from the store with 5 single gallon jugs of distilled water. I put a small ramekin bowl on my scale, tared it, and measured 1.9g of potassium bicarbonate. I then used a 5ml syringe without needle attached to draw a full pull from each jug and expel the water Into the bowl. I then mixed it until fully dissolved and drew up a full syringe of the mixture for each bottle. Anything you can use to draw a consistent amount of water which is sufficient to dissolve the potassium bicarbonate will work fine, I just happen to have syringes from my other hobby and leave one rubber-banded to the bag. You might find it easier to mix up the standard concentrate ahead and add that to your bottles.

It didn't take me more than 5 minutes and now I can use the bottles in my Stag kettle, Robot or lever machine with peace of mind and get great coffee. (I often use microwaved refrigerator dispenser filtered water for the Robot, since ours is decent and there's not really a worry of scale with it, like you mentioned.)

Thanks again for the good advice. My plan is to turn up our whole-house water softener significantly and see what difference it makes, mix my own water to get something a bit better (I have been buying distilled water already for the La Pavoni I've been using as a steamer), and someday soonish I think I'll do an RO + Remin under the counter, especially when I get closer to buying another, uh, real, espresso machine.

It really is amazing how complicated a simple thing like water is!

MNate wrote:
A) Softener: I have a whole-house softener that I've turned up a bit, plus a 10" softener and filter that runs to a drinking tap. Maybe I don't replace that often enough or have something wrong... (often the TDS from that tap is 400 compared to 300 from the other)

On edit: TDS is unimportant for determining scale potential, if your water has no calcium or magnesium, since those are the components of scale. My TDS actually went up, with an under sink softener, even as my scale potential went to zero.


For your application do not need RO. You just need a softening system and it does NOT need to be whole house. They make softeners specifically for espresso that You can put under your kitchen sink. You can get a compact and proprietary one line this: https://www.restaurantsupply.com/3m-esp ... n-capacity Or a bulkier one with cheap, non proprietary filters like this: https://www.chriscoffee.com/collections ... ion-system

When you might need RO would be if you go to an espresso machine with a boiler(s), AND if your muni water has too high chloride content. NOTE: chlorides are NOT chlorine. Chlorine is trapped by ordinary charcoal in almost every filter ever made. Chlorides need RO to trap them. If your muni water does not have chlorides (or very low chlorides), you still do not need RO, even if your water is very hard, (like most of Socal).

Chlorides can cause corrosion, but if you don't have a machine heating coils inside enclosed boilers, you don't have to worry about it. Or if your muni water doesn't have chlorides you also don't have to worry about it... But that can sometimes be difficult to ascertain. I've heard stories where people have asked their water suppliers about chlorides, and been given information on chlorine.

Note: When using a softener, your TDS might go up a LOT. BUT that is irrelevant because the dissolved solids will not be things that cause scale.

-Peter

MNate wrote:
A) Softener: I have a whole-house softener that I've turned up a bit, plus a 10" softener and filter that runs to a drinking tap. Maybe I don't replace that often enough or have something wrong... (often the TDS from that tap is 400 compared to 300 from the other)
Any thoughts, things you've found to work? Or should I just do my own trial and error?

With those 2 softening systems you shouldn't have scale issues. Are you testing for hardness with a kit or just TDS with a meter?