# Softening your water



## robint (Jun 6, 2013)

Hi All

Another newbie observation

I seem to remeber that if you boil tap water in a kettle than you removes temporary hardness (calcium bicarbonate) and this shows as a cloudy suspension (in my area of chalk downs)

This could be allowed to settle and then the resulting water could be used in the Gaggia with less scale problem? Any thoughts

Also one could use harvested rain water? It is slightly acidic but would it matter? Any thoughts

CheersR

Robin


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## glevum (Apr 4, 2013)

Honestly, get a Brita. Only £5 a month for a new cartridge. Coffee will taste better as well.

page from Reiss; http://londiniumespresso.com/blogs/londinium-espresso-blog/2492292-brita-water-filters-protecting-your-espresso-machine-from-limescale


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## series530 (Jan 4, 2013)

glevum said:


> Honestly, get a Brita. Only £5 a month for a new cartridge. Coffee will taste better as well.
> 
> page from Reiss; http://londiniumespresso.com/blogs/londinium-espresso-blog/2492292-brita-water-filters-protecting-your-espresso-machine-from-limescale


I second that - our Fracino came with an integral Brita filter but we bought a proper jug and some cartridges on Amazon. With a decent set up it's amazing how much water you can get through producing coffee and our new jug not only serves the coffee apparatus but also encourages the whole family to drink more water - the stuff from the tap, otherwise, being pretty off putting.


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## shrink (Nov 12, 2012)

You make it sound like you guys are drinking sewer water down there!!

Guess I must just be lucky, but my water has almost no hardness and tastes just fine


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## robint (Jun 6, 2013)

Boiling will substantially reduce temporary hardness, if you leave the lime to settle out and and clear

It will also boil out any chlorine

http://chestofbooks.com/food/household/A-Manual-Of-Home-Making/How-To-Soften-Water.html

It wont reduce permanent hardness, but thats not the issue for boilers

Shrink , you live in bonny scotland home of the braes (and radium gas)

down in the London basin, water is recycled and some of it still around was passes by Julius Caesar

I worked in Oslo for a year and the water came out of the taps as effervescent. It was drawn straight from mountain streams at the back of the hotel. Amazing. then I landed back in heathrow and got a shack at how bad the smell and taste of London water was

hmmm

Will look at Brita filter, it does take out temporary hardness


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

robint said:


> down in the London basin, water is recycled and some of it still around was passed by Julius Caesar


Wow, never knew Julius Caesar was a water inspector. Thames Water been around longer than I thought.


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## vintagecigarman (Aug 10, 2009)

I would exercise caution in relying totally on Brita filters. I live in a very hard water area, and have used Brita Filter jugs for years for all our comestible water. I also replace the cartridges after three weeks, instead of four. But limescale still builds up inside our kettle, and I'd rather descale the Rocket every three months than think of that scale building on its innards.


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## glevum (Apr 4, 2013)

Totally agree. Every little precaution helps with the dreaded limescale


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## painty (Jul 25, 2011)

I use Tesco Ashbeck Mineral water for espresso. 80 mg/L hardness seems a good compromise between scaling and flavour.


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## El carajillo (Mar 16, 2013)

Has anyone done tests on bottled water to check the hardness? Many of them imply that they contain "good" minerals, these could equally cause limescale. I have not seen any information stating that the water is "soft" .


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## robint (Jun 6, 2013)

IMHO, its quite easy to see if you have hard water potential, simply by boiling water and putting into a glass. The result is quite cloudy. Even running hot water through my machine produces this cloudy result

OBTW

may I mention Tea drinkers, they are adamant that water must be hard and only just brought to boil. Over boiling realeases dissolved oxygen and makes the tea taste flat (what fuss pots?)


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## sjenner (Nov 8, 2012)

Where I live in south-east London, on the edge of the North Downs, we get a bad deal indeed... Not only has the water been passed by yon Julius, but the Downs are made of chalk., I have (on average) something over 300mg/l of calcium/magnesium hardness. I had to get serious with my coffee machine water, since I have a Londinium and I understand that this is a major operation to descale.

I learned at purchase that my pre-existing reverse osmosis system, which I had been using for around twenty years, two systems, as I moved around nine years ago and the first one packed up when I disturbed it... it's output was somewhere around PH 5.6 (weak acid)... Not only does that sort of water cause a sort of "bright, lemony" taste and require bigger doses of coffee, it also has a tendency to rot boilers and pipework.

So I invested in an Everpure Claris water softener... This proved to be a waste of money, as it was unable to bring my revolting water anywhere close to acceptable levels of hardness... Though I am sure that in another water area, one of these would suffice, though they would still be an expensive option... See SCAA PDF on water quality:

http://scaa.org/PDF/ST%20-%20WATER%20STANDARD%20V.21NOV2009A.pdf

So together with Reiss from Londinium, I set out to achieve something close to the above standard. Firstly we bought a couple of exotic reverse osmosis systems from a company called PurePro... The products from this company are marketed through what appears to be franchised outlets across the world, and they use one or more membranes which seem to manufactured in the USA by DOW chemicals... They seem to be patented, and just about all companies that sell RO systems seem to use the same membranes...

Of course this meant that I was effectively back to square one, with acidic water, my previous system was nine years old and was probably due for replacement anyway.

So my PH 5.6 water then needed to have "hardness" added... we initially bought re-mineralisation cartridges which are placed inline, post the RO system...

I have now spent approximately six months experimenting with various different versions of these cartridges, and none of them were able to produce anything better than the SCAA minimum levels, which is not ideal... Technically they work, but in practice the coffee is somewhat bright, and although no harm will come to those that use these with their machines and having started with the goal of achieving the "gold standard", I plugged away.

The good news is that for the last couple of months I have been running a specially tailored (for me) re-mineralisation cartridge that is consistently there, or thereabouts. Finally, I am a happy bunny.

As I said, Reiss and myself have been working together on this, and he will be marketing, what is a relatively cheap solution (geddit?) from his website in the near future.


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## mike 100 (Jul 15, 2010)

robint said:


> Boiling will substantially reduce temporary hardness, if you leave the lime to settle out and and clear
> 
> It will also boil out any chlorine


I was told that using boiled water can alter the taste of tea and coffee, due to the reduced oxygen in the water after boiling.


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

El carajillo said:


> Has anyone done tests on bottled water to check the hardness? Many of them imply that they contain "good" minerals, these could equally cause limescale. I have not seen any information stating that the water is "soft" .


 Reiss at Londinium has produced a detailed list of bottled waters and their suitability for espresso machines. Volvic gets an unequivocal thumbs up. Trawl through the blog back pages to find the list.


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## robint (Jun 6, 2013)

WOW SJ

thats quite a dissertation, impressive.

Are we saying that pre-boiling and settling tap water isnt useful?

Someone else posted that boiled water loses its oxygen and spoils the coffee taste. Well water left in the coffee mc reservoir for a few days will also lose much of its oxygen

Dear me, so many armchair scientists

Robin


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