# Barista hustle water recipes



## Lefteye (Dec 30, 2014)

I was just reading the barista hustle email and was reading about water recipes. I know lots of people have been asking about what's the best water etc and so I thought I'd share the link (if that's ok mods?) to actual water recipes over bottle water.

https://baristahustle.com/blogs/barista-hustle/advanced-water-recipes


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## rob177palmer (Feb 14, 2017)

I was reading those articles last weekend and almost started this same thread!

My espresso machine is packed away for a couple of weeks but keen to try these when up and running in the new kitchen.


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

I'm just about ready to lose my mind over this stuff. I've spent a day trying to figure out why they multiply the epsom salt solution by 4.12 and divide the bicarb solution by 1.22 to represent ppm as CaCO3.

Can anyone who understands this stuff shed some light on the following recipe:

15.37g Potassium Bicarbonate (KHCO3)

25g Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salt) (MgSO47H2O)

Dissolved in 500ml water for concentrate.

3.5g of concentrate per 1L of DI water.

This is adapted from the barista hustle recipe for espresso using sodium bicarbonate instead of potassium. I multiplied their sodium bicarb weight of 12.9g by 1.1917 (KHCO3=100.115 NaHCO3=84.007 100.115/84.007=1.1917) Which is as far as I can get.

I'd like to know if this is safe for use in an espresso machine.


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

I can try to help. The easiest is to think of it in terms of the number of molecules.

so you're going to dissolve 15.37g+25g of solids to 500g solution, and I am going to assume here that you're not going to use 500g water but end up with 500g of solution as this will simplify the math.

Then you'll dissolve 3.5g of this in 1L, giving you 107.21mg of KHCo3 and 174mg of MgSO47H20. Diving the mass by molecular weight gives you number of molecules in moles, you get 174.4/246.4 (mass of MgSO47H20) = 0.707774973 mmol for MgSO47H20 and 107.21/100.115 (mass of KHCO3) = 1.07mmol for KHCO3.

1 molecule of CaCO3 is 100.086. You then just multiply the number of molecules of MgSO4 with this to find the equivalent as CaCO3, which would be 70.8ppm (100.86*0.7077mmol). For KHCO3, you would only take the half number of molecules since CO3 is a 2- ion but HCO3- is only one. This gives you a ppm of 53.59ppm for HCO3-.


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## Batian (Oct 23, 2017)

Rob1 said:


> I'm just about ready to lose my mind over this stuff. I've spent a day trying to figure out why they multiply the epsom salt solution by 4.12 and divide the bicarb solution by 1.22 to represent ppm as CaCO3.
> 
> Can anyone who understands this stuff shed some light on the following recipe:
> 
> ...


Your post reminded me of a little ditty that went the rounds way back when (I was in skule).

Sammy was a sailor

Sammy was not a scientist

What Sammy thought was H2O

Was H2OSO4.

(brew to acidic?)


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Excellent. Thanks for taking the time to explain. Now I can do my own calculations. BTW I think it's dissolved in 500ml not a final solution of 500g.


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

Rob1 said:


> Excellent. Thanks for taking the time to explain. Now I can do my own calculations. BTW I think it's dissolved in 500ml not a final solution of 500g.


That's fine, you then just need to include that in your calculation that you're taking 3.5g out of a 500+15.37+25g solution instead of a 500g solution.


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

So the hardness is 70.8 and the alkalinity is 53.59?

So my next question: Drum roll:

How do you calculate sulfites?

My math is slightly different to yours.

3.5ml of concentrate to 1000ml DI water

3.5/1003.5= 0.00348

MgSO47H20 = 203 mmol/l * 0.00348 = 0.706 mmol/l

0.706*100 = 70.6mg magnesium hardness as Caco3.

.706*24.3 = 17.155mg Mg/l Mg++

On the home barista thread a user states the sulfate concentration to be 91mg/l. I'm wondering how they got to this figure as its stated as a corrosion concern.


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

Sulfate would be SO4 2-, which has mass of 96.06,. 0.706*96.06 = 67.8mg/L of sulfates. Not sure how the calculation for 91mg/L is made ..


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

I'm onto my last bottle of Volvic and I've finally got the recipe down:

50g MgSO47H2O (246.4746 g/mol)

10.53g/l NaHCO3 (84.007g/mol)

18.2g/l KHCO3 (100.115g/mol)

For concentrate:

50g/l / 246.5 g/mol = 0.203 mol/l = 203 mmol/l

10.53 / 84.007 = 0.125 = 125 mmol/l

18.2 / 100.115 = 0.181 = 181 mmol/l

3.5ml of concentrate to 1000ml DI Water =

3.5/1003.5= 0.00348

MgSO4 = 203 mmol/l * 0.00348 = 0.70644 mmol/l

NaHCO3 = 125 * 0.00348 = 0.435 mmol/l

KHCO3 = 181 * 0.00348 = 0.629 mmol/l

Mg = 24.3g/mol

SO4 = 96.06g/mol

Na = 22.9898 g/mol

K = 39.0983 g/mol

HCO3 = 61.0168g/mol

Mg = 0.70644 mmol/l * 24.3g/mol = 17.166 mg/l

S04 = 0.70644 * 96.06 = 67.860 mg/l

Na = 0.435 * 22.9898 g/mol = 10.00 mg/l

HCO3 = 0.435 * 61.0168 g/mol = 26.54 mg/l

K= 0.629 * 39.0983 g/mol = 24.59 mg/l

HCO3 = 0.629 * 61.0168 g/mol = 38.37 mg/l

Total Water Composition:

Mg 17.16 mg/l

HCO3 64.91 mg/l

Na 10mg/l

K 24.59mg/l

SO4 67.86 mg/l

MgSO4 as CaCO3 = 70.644

HCO3 as CO3 = 32.45

So this is basically 70/30 water :/


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

So it turns out the above recipe is the opposite of 70/30 water, which would be 100ppm as 50 HCO3 (70mg KHCO3) and 6 mg Mg (30mg MgSO47H20).

The Magnesium in my concentrate started to react with the bicarbonates to form the insoluable Magnesium Carbonate, so I had to throw it out and start again. I wasn't really happy with how the coffee was tasting with the previous recipe, I found it emphasised the acidity too much especially with a conical grinder and the sweetness I got was a little thin, not quite balanced, so I took the opportunity to make ACTUAL 70/30 water in the hopes that the higher bicarbonates mute the acidity. I can always up the Magnesium if I want as the concentrates are now in different bottles.

The 70/30 recipe I found was as follows:

14g NaHCO3 in 1000ml

12g MgSO4 in 1000ml

5ml for a liter of water.

14 / 84.007 = 0.166 mol/l = 166 mmol/l

12 / 246.5 = 0.048 mol/l = 48 mmol/l

5 / 995 = 0.0050251256281407

166 * 0.0050251256281407 = 0.8341708542713562 NaHCO3

48 * 0.0050251256281407 = 0.2412060301507536 MgSO4

---

0.8341708542713562 * 22.9898 = 19.17742110552762 Na

0.8341708542713562 * 61.0168 = 50.89843618090449 HCO3

----

0.2412060301507536 * 24.3 = 5.861306532663312 Mg2+

0.2412060301507536 * 96.06 = 23.17025125628139 SO4

----

70.07 ppm NaHCO3

29.03 ppm MgSO4

24.12 ppm MgSO4 as CaCO3

50.89 ppm Bicarbonate

5.86 ppm Mg2+

HCO3 61g/Eq

50.89843618090449 / 61 = 0.8344005931295818 Eq * 1000 = 834.4005931295818 mEq/L

Alkalinity as CaCO3 (CaCO3 100mg / 2 = 50mg) So 0.83 * 50 = 41.72 mg/l mg/l Alkalinity as CaCO3

I altered it for my use (5ml to 3 liters). The recipe is essentially the same as Perger's but instead of 1mg HCO3 per ml to 1 liter I make it 10mg HCO3 per ml to 3 liters as that seemed more useful with a 5ml pipette graduated in 0.05ml increments and a water distiller that produces 3 liters of 0ppm water. I also substituted NaHCO3 for KHCO3 again.

30.45g MgSO4 in 1 litre DI water makes concentrate = 1mg/l Mg2+ when 1ml is added to 3000ml

49.23g KHCO3 in 1 litre DI Water makes concentrate = 10mg HCO3 when 1ml is added to 3000ml

30.45 / 246.5 = 0.1235294117647059 * 1000 = 123.5294117647059 mmol/l

49.23 / 100.115 = 0.4917345053188833 * 1000 = 491.7345053188833 mmol/l

0.333/1000 = 0.000333

123.5294117647059 * 0.000333 = 0.0411352941176471 mmol/l

491.7345053188833 * 0.000333 = 0.1637475902711881 mmol/l

0.0411352941176471 * 24.3 = 0.9995 mg/l

0.1637475902711881 * 61.0168 = 9.99 mg/l

(Actual value will be 1mg and 10mg as I'll be adding it by 1ml per 3 liter rather than 0.333' ml per liter) Why not just perform the calculation as dilution in 3 liters? Because I'd probably mess up if I wanted to add it to less or more than three liters by dividing the amount to add by 1000 and multiplying it by whatever rather than 3000.

5ml of Buffer solution and 6ml of Mg solution to 3 litres of DI water (having Mg to 1mg per ml makes it easier to adjust in the future although it's annoying to have to refill the pipette).


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Tested today with a TDS meter and only got 71ppm rather than 100. Odd but not necessarily accurate. Will have to test 0.5mg MgSO4 in 500ml and see what the reading comes out as.

Edit: 70 TDS is expected.


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## llcoolray (Mar 10, 2020)

If i use my own distilled water, do i still have to use the machines own water filter or should i remove it?


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Remove the water filter. And you need to remineralise the water.


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