Hi All,

Hope I can find someone to help with pointing to the right under sink filtration system in Vancouver BC.

I have a lelit Bianca V2 which I have been feeding with distilled water + thrid wave water (espresso profile). The time has come where I would like a more permanent under sink solution, that should also work as drinking water (I would assume that is a given but worth mentioning). Due to space limitations, I am not looking to plumb in the machine, just either install a system that connects to the existing kitchen faucet or a new dedicated water faucet.

I have been able to find the report below but my ignorance does not lead me to any conclusions. Hopefully someone more versed is able to suggest suitable approaches.
https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/water-qu ... t-2021.pdf

Your wisdom is very welcome.

Thanks beforehand!

The usual water chemistry numbers are on page 30 here: http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/ ... lume_1.pdf

You'll have to figure out which treatment plant feeds your house, but all three give pretty similar results.

I never use anything to treat the water when I'm out there as I'm used to soft water. However, you might want to add some hardness if you're used to 3WW - which others can recommend.

Vancouver BC water is famously soft, with total hardness and total alkalinity numbers down in the 10 - 20 mg/L (CaCO3 equivalent) ballpark. This is even after the use of soda ash or slaked lime by treatment plants to bump up alkalinity an pH. Vancouver uses chlorine as a disinfectant, so you can use any good activated charcoal or carbon block filter to adsorb that chlorine along with other trace compounds that may cause of tastes and odors. A particulate filter is also usually advised, and many charcoal filters (including typical refrigerator filters) have that.

If you want more mineral for taste reasons you can use this water as a base for recipe water. You could even use it with your TWW packets. To get rpavlis - like water you could just bump the alkalinity -- 0.07 grams of KHCO3 per liter of this would bump you into the 50 mg/L alkalinity ballpark of the full strength rpavlis water.

For standard plumb in from the tap, just use any particulates with a carbon block or GAC filter. Even if you were to add an inline
calcite filter it would likely not gain you much at all because, unlike water from an RO system, this tap water already has an above neutral pH.

baldheadracing wrote:The usual water chemistry numbers are on page 30 here: http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/ ... lume_1.pdf

+1. This report is easy to read and has all the numbers you need. After treatment, all three plant's waters are very similar. The numbers show that besides having low hardness and low alkalinity, the water is also very low in undesirables like chloride, silica, sulfate, etc.

That's super useful. Thanks for your feedback.

Do you have any suggestions on a good "tried and tested" carbon block or GAC filter? I have come across this one on Amazon, but I would welcome your thoughts:
Waterdrop 15UA Under Sink Water Filter System, Reduces https://a.co/d/bX8ObjP

As to water recipe, just to make sure I'm fully understanding. The water coming from the tap after installing the inline filter above (or whichever one that is appropriate) can be used as a base, where by dissolving 0.07 g/l of Potassium bicarbonate would get me great water. Is it recommended to do a multi step approach by doing a concentrate first and then adding it to the water or it can be added directly to the water that will be used in the espresso machine?
Would you mind letting me know where the amount is coming from? I'm guessing it has to do with the hardness present in the Vancouver water, but want to understand better what I would be doing as all of this is pretty new to me.

Sorry if I am asking dumb question and thanks beforehand for your help!

george_stobbart wrote:Do you have any suggestions on a good "tried and tested" carbon block or GAC filter? I have come across this one on Amazon, but I would welcome your thoughts:
Waterdrop 15UA Under Sink Water Filter System, Reduces https://a.co/d/bX8ObjP

That one looks good to me. It's NSF42 certified and that's the standard you want for chlorine, taste and odor reduction. It has no ion exchange resins, which is good in your case. And it handles particulates or rust that may come from your house plumbing.

george_stobbart wrote:As to water recipe, just to make sure I'm fully understanding. The water coming from the tap after installing the inline filter above (or whichever one that is appropriate) can be used as a base, where by dissolving 0.07 g/l of Potassium bicarbonate would get me great water. Is it recommended to do a multi step approach by doing a concentrate first and then adding it to the water or it can be added directly to the water that will be used in the espresso machine?

The reason you might use a concentrate is because it's difficult to measure such small amounts - - in this case you could make a concentrate using 1 gram of potassium bicarb in a 750 ml bottle, then you could add about 50 ml (50 grams) of that concentrate to each liter of your tap water to bump the alkalinity from about 15 mg/L up to about 50 mg/L (CaCO3 equivalent) . There are tons of recipes with and without concentrates discussed here: Easiest way to make rpavlis water?

george_stobbart wrote:Would you mind letting me know where the amount is coming from? I'm guessing it has to do with the hardness present in the Vancouver water, but want to understand better what I would be doing as all of this is pretty new to me.

Your water has 10 - 20 mg/L as CaCO3 of alkalinity according to the water report. I think this is perfectly healthy for your machine as-is because the water has an above neutral pH and is very free of corrosives. But if you wanted more alkalinity as is often recommended and like the popular rpavlis recipe, you can bump that up with sodium bicarbonate or potassium bicarbonate. 0.07 grams of potassium bicarb per liter of water will add another 35 mg/L (as CaCO3) of alkalinity, giving you a total alkalinity in the 50 mg/L ballpark.

Some people believe that hardness minerals (calcium and/or magnesium) improve the taste (it would depend on the coffee as well as the taste preferences). And your water is very soft, at less than 20 mg/L as CaCO3. Many think that a hardness of around 50 - 70 mg/L makes a superior tasting brew, and the TWW formula is even harder yet at over 150 ppm. If you use a recipe water you can experiment with harder water and taste by adding TWW salts or perhaps Epsom salts to your tapwater *. But there's no practical way to do that with a directly plumbed system.

* If you simply added a gallon packet of TWW to 1.1 gallons of your tapwater you would end up with around 150 mg/L as CaCO3 total hardness: 15 mg/L from the tapwater and 135 mg/L from the TWW.

homeburrero wrote:Your water has 10 - 20 mg/L as CaCO3 of alkalinity according to the water report. I think this is perfectly healthy for your machine as-is because the water has an above neutral pH and is very free of corrosives. But if you wanted more alkalinity as is often recommended and like the popular rpavlis recipe, you can bump that up with sodium bicarbonate or potassium bicarbonate. 0.07 grams of potassium bicarb per liter of water will add another 35 mg/L (as CaCO3) of alkalinity, giving you a total alkalinity in the 50 mg/L ballpark.

Thanks for your thoughtful response.
I have purchased a mg scale because it seems relatively easy to just measure the 0.07 g/L you mention to get me to the 50mg/L as CaCO3.

If as part of this experimentation I were to pursue 70mg/L as CaCO3 (or even more for argument sake), is the amount of KHCO3 achieved through simple arithmetics? In other words, will 0.098 g/L of KHCO3 get me to 70mg/L as CaCO3, and same logic for any target amount?

Thanks for your help!

george_stobbart wrote:If as part of this experimentation I were to pursue 70mg/L as CaCO3 (or even more for argument sake), is the amount of KHCO3 achieved through simple arithmetics? In other words, will 0.098 g/L of KHCO3 get me to 70mg/L as CaCO3, and same logic for any target amount?

Not exactly but the the arithmetic here is pretty simple. To convert mg of KHCO3 to mg of CaCO3 equivalents you simply divide by 2. Then, since we know that you already have about 15 mg/L as CaCO3 in the base water, here's how you calculate the effect of the KHCO3 additions to one liter of base water:

15 + 70/2 = 50 mg/L as CaCO3
15 + 98/2 = 64 mg/L as CaCO3
15 + 110/2 = 70 mg/L as CaCO3



P.S.
For those interested in understanding why we divide by two: A mole of KHCO3 weighs 100.11 grams. A mole of CaCO3 weighs about 100.09 grams - coincidentally about the same molecular weight. But a CaCO3 molecule neutralizes two acid protons and a KHCO3 molecule only neutralizes one. So 100.18 grams of CaCO3 is chemically equivalent to 200.22 grams of KHCO3, a factor of about 2.00.

homeburrero wrote:Not exactly but the the arithmetic here is pretty simple. To convert mg of KHCO3 to mg of CaCO3 equivalents you simply divide by 2. Then, since we know that you already have about 15 mg/L as CaCO3 in the base water, here's how you calculate the effect of the KHCO3 additions to one liter of base water:

15 + 70/2 = 50 mg/L as CaCO3
15 + 98/2 = 64 mg/L as CaCO3
15 + 110/2 = 70 mg/L as CaCO3

Splendid, thanks so much for clarifying.

I guess that takes me to my last question. Right now I have a filter in my bianca's water tank. The product is the PLA930M, with a description that reads:
Two l sodium-based cationic water softeners filters. They trap calcium and magnesium salts, preventing limestone incrustations and releasing sodium salts.

Is having one of these counterproductive and voids the work we have done with our water recipe?

george_stobbart wrote:Right now I have a filter in my bianca's water tank. The product is the PLA930M, with a description that reads:
Two l sodium-based cationic water softeners filters. They trap calcium and magnesium salts, preventing limestone incrustations and releasing sodium salts.
Is having one of these counterproductive and voids the work we have done with our water recipe?

That filter (discussed here: Lelit water softener cartridges ) is a conventional ion exchange softener, exchanging two sodium ions for each calcium or magnesium ion. Since your water is already so soft it won't do anything useful, and also won't do any harm provided you replace it every 6 months or less. It will not do anything to reduce the alkalinity that you've taken pains to add to your water. The reason you can't keep it longer is because it might harbor microbes.

It's not cheap and often unavailable, so your best bet is to remove it, perhaps replace it with a little hose-end particulate filter. If necessary replace your intake hose so that it reaches the bottom of your reservoir.