Hi All, first time poster looking for some advice.

We have just upgraded to a prosumer setup with a Profitec Pro 700, and Baratza 270wi.
I would like to plumb this unit and am looking for some advice on water filters. I would ultimately like to use one of the quick fit style cartridges from BWT or Everpure if possible.
This is the water chemical makeup according to our water supplier



Any suggestions on what I might need to reduce scale build up and have maximum coffee flavour is much appreciated.

Thanks

Compliments to your water authority on that report. Nice and complete. Also you have excellent water - low chloride and sulfate, ideal alkalinity, ideal non-scaling hardness. All you need is a particulate and charcoal filter (carbon block or granulated activated charcoal) and you should be good.

Note that g/m³ is essentially equivalent to mg/L or ppm in these drinking water reports, and a total alkalinity of 52 mg/L as HCO3 is equivalent to 42 mg/L as CaCO3 - right at the usual SCA recommendation of at or near 40 mg/L. Expressing all of the key numbers in CaCO3 equivalents you have:
total alkalinity (KH) = 42 mg/L
total hardness (GH) = 45 mg/L
calcium hardness = 30 mg/L (calculated from your calcium ion of 12 mg/L)
carbonate hardness = 42 mg/L

No need at all to soften that, nor to run it through a decarbonizing filter like the BWT bestmax.

You have perhaps more than ideal silica in your water, but not enough to worry about, and short of using reverse osmosis you aren't going to reduce that with a filter anyway. Volvic, a commonly recommended bottled water for espresso machines, has about twice that amount of silica.

You can find lots of fundamental water links and info here: Good references on water treatment for coffee/espresso

For a very well organized comprehensive discussion of water for coffee, you can read Chapter 16 of the Craft and Science of Coffee. Available for free* download here: https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Treatment

* At one time was freely downloadable but now is restricted. May still be free to many if you can join via your university or some other affiliation.

Thanks for the prompt reply.
That's great news. I had heard that our water was of very good quality and apart from some short term chlorination while they replace some well heads it tastes brilliant straight from the tap.
Currently using a private well source and the coffee machine tank with scale filter in it but once the chlorination stops at the end of February I will plumb it in with a basic filter like suggested.

I am going to use this Brita C50 filter for ease of use.

https://www.brita.co.uk/purity-fresh-c50#tab-module

Is there any reason for or against not having any water allowed through the bypass other than filter life.
I.e. if the filter would outlast my volume usage by its date change at 0% bypass is there any reason not to run it like that ?

Thanks

The C-50 fresh filter in the link you provided is an activated carbon filter that normally uses the fixed 0% non-adjustable filter head. It would be a good choice for your water which needs no softening. I'm not sure if this one even fits on an adjustable filter head, but if it did you would want it at 0% bypass.

Whoops, looks like I attached the wrong link as the one the machine supplier has sold me is a Purity C50 Quell ST

Very hard to find out exactly what it is doing in regards to filtration and possible softening. I think this is the correct product link

https://www.brita.co.uk/purity-c-quell-st#tab-module

And it does mention lime scale reduction so may have some sort of softening stage ?

I have also been supplied an adjustable filter head that can be adjusted from 0 to 70 % bypass.

Supplier was very vague and just said "oh about 50% bypass should work " so I am trying to do a bit more home work as I want the best water I can get without hurting the machine and going full blown RO and remineraliseing. I suspect they just sell this filter to everyone to cover all water types to some degree.

To my thinking, that C-50 fresh is just the ticket for your water. It will handle chlorine and off-flavors and will do nothing to reduce carbonates or hardness. The quell ST, on the other hand, is a decarbonizing filter which has resins that will reduce alkalinity and hardness. Your alkalinity is already about perfect so you don't want that any lower, and your calcium hardness is already low enough that scale won't be a problem.

If you are stuck with the quell ST, and you have a 70% bypass capability, then I think you should use that in order to do as little decarbonizing as possible. Note their "Purity C Instructuion Manual" (brita-filter-purity-c-instruction-manual-INT.pdf) says:



And your °dKH value is only 2.6 (you divide 42 mg/L as CaCO3 by 17.8 in order to convert to German degrees).

Thanks homeburrero

Yes that is what I suspected. I will run the quell st for this first filter cycle at the 70% bypass and then change to the C50 fresh at 0% by pass as you suggest.

Thanks heaps for your helpful knowledge.