Water quality?
I've been experimenting again...
We have a big aquarium at home with a few exotic marine fish. My hubby is rapidly becoming an enthusiastic water chemist to keep the critters happy in their tank. Consequently, he has got himself an RO unit - in laymans' terms this is a machine which filters water by Reverse Osmosis, takes out 99.9% of impurities in water, no nitrates, phosphates, copper, chlorine, calcium etc. The result is about as pure as you can get - certainly more so than if you used household water filters or even distilled water.
So I thought, I bet this tastes good. So I tried using that water in my espresso machine (I've got a little one-handle Krups machine at home). It REALLY makes a difference, makes the coffee noticeably smoother. We are lucky, the tap water round us isn't normally too bad at all, (a lot better than where we used to live in the South East for example) but I never realised quite how much of an effect filtering water can have!
Does anyone else bother filtering water for espresso? How do you do it? Is it worth it (I mean, in coffee shops? I imagine it would cost quite a bit to set up!)
We have a big aquarium at home with a few exotic marine fish. My hubby is rapidly becoming an enthusiastic water chemist to keep the critters happy in their tank. Consequently, he has got himself an RO unit - in laymans' terms this is a machine which filters water by Reverse Osmosis, takes out 99.9% of impurities in water, no nitrates, phosphates, copper, chlorine, calcium etc. The result is about as pure as you can get - certainly more so than if you used household water filters or even distilled water.
So I thought, I bet this tastes good. So I tried using that water in my espresso machine (I've got a little one-handle Krups machine at home). It REALLY makes a difference, makes the coffee noticeably smoother. We are lucky, the tap water round us isn't normally too bad at all, (a lot better than where we used to live in the South East for example) but I never realised quite how much of an effect filtering water can have!
Does anyone else bother filtering water for espresso? How do you do it? Is it worth it (I mean, in coffee shops? I imagine it would cost quite a bit to set up!)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brady on
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There is a fascinating many-page dissertation on water quality somewhere around here... coffeegeek perhaps?
There are two sides to water quality. From a machine maintenance standpoint, "hard" water containing too many dissolved minerals creates a bad situation for the machine boiler... so soft water is preferred. I think many shops use a small water softening unit (Cuno makes one) to take care of this.
On the other hand, I see many references to the idea that a small amount of minerals in your water will add positive flavors to your coffees. I have not done side-by-side tests to confirm this. This means that there is a "sweet spot" that balances the mineral content. We use a filter (not a softener) to achieve this, since our municipal water is very soft.
I'll look for that dissertation and post later.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Haeger on
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Brady said:
Jim Schulman's Insanely Long Water FAQThere is a fascinating many-page dissertation on water quality somewhere around here... coffeegeek perhaps?
There are two sides to water quality. From a machine maintenance standpoint, "hard" water containing too many dissolved minerals creates a bad situation for the machine boiler... so soft water is preferred. I think many shops use a small water softening unit (Cuno makes one) to take care of this.
On the other hand, I see many references to the idea that a small amount of minerals in your water will add positive flavors to your coffees. I have not done side-by-side tests to confirm this. This means that there is a "sweet spot" that balances the mineral content. We use a filter (not a softener) to achieve this, since our municipal water is very soft.
I'll look for that dissertation and post later.
I've read it. I wish it went more in-depth.
Cirqua is what you really want if you're looking for that perfect balance not only of TDS, but also of what those solids are comprised of, and how they chemically react to coffee.
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