# Zerowater



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Hadn't seen this previously in the UK, in the absence of my usual Deeside picked up a jug. Anticipating using 10 parts to 1 part hard Surrey tap water for brewed, water heated with a kettle.


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

How does it work, is it like a reverse osmosis filter? Have you tried measuring the TDS of the output? I mix tap water to reverse osmosis 20%/80%, my tap water is very hard (16/22 KH/GH) but lower ratios I found to give very acidic brews sometimes..


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Ion exchange apparently. TDS meter comes with it, instructions to change cartridge when reading hits 006 TDS.

I've tried 1:10, 1:7 & 1:5 so far, brews are all OK, but heading into flat/stoney sort of flavour the more tap water I add.

I haven't tested with a drop kit yet, but will do when happy.

Currenty comparing with Voss water (16/16 KH/GH), but that's too pricey to be sustainable.


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

I bought Voss once, purely for the nice slim glass bottle so I could fit some fizzy Ashbeck in the fridge without having to accommodate a 2l plastic bottle. It was nice water but sooo expensive  such a cheapskate!

Would this Zerowater likely be of interest to the espresso crowd or is it really a brewed thing?

___

Eat, drink and be merry


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

hotmetal said:


> Would this Zerowater likely be of interest to the espresso crowd or is it really a brewed thing?
> 
> ___
> 
> Eat, drink and be merry


Could be if you can work out how much tap water to cut it with, for me it should be in the region of 1:4 tap:zero. But they suggest hard water areas might only get 8-25 gallons per cartridge. A 4 pack can be had for ~£50, so £0.13 to £0.40 a litre/cartridge?


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

Thanks Mark. I started reading reviews after I read your post. Interesting tech, and lots of people saying how good it was, but also that people in hard water areas were getting through the expensive cartridges way too fast. I'd wondered if it would be a way of avoiding the plastic bottle recycling issue, but the water here (Thames Valley) is so hard it would cost me a fortune in cartridges, which are presumably harder to recycle than the Waitrose Lockhills bottles that can go in the kerbside collection.

___

Eat, drink and be merry


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

MWJB said:


> Ion exchange apparently. TDS meter comes with it, instructions to change cartridge when reading hits 006 TDS.
> 
> I've tried 1:10, 1:7 & 1:5 so far, brews are all OK, but heading into flat/stoney sort of flavour the more tap water I add.
> 
> ...


Do you mean 16ppm KH/GH? Not degrees I think







My tap water is 250ppm TDS and the RO system outputs around 20ppm TDS, and I bring it up to around 70ppm typically for brewing.

If you're already blending, you could probably use the filter a little past its recommended life as well, up to something like ~60-70 TDS?


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

In the reviews I read, some said that once the filter was saturated (as in needing replacement) the taste rapidly worsened. One guy suggested using a second jug to pre-filter it using the worn out filter to extend the life of the final one, but that's then 2 jugs, a lot of faff and then you have to start wondering at what point that old filter isn't actually dumping more crud (and maybe algae) into the water.

___

Eat, drink and be merry


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

the_partisan said:


> Do you mean 16ppm KH/GH? Not degrees I think
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes, ppm.

With my water, I'm not liking as much as 40ppm TDS so much for brewed.

I saw a hack on Youtube where a guy used an out of spec jug to pre-filter for the main jug, extending the life of the cartridges. Might give it a go.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

hotmetal said:


> Thanks Mark. I started reading reviews after I read your post. Interesting tech, and lots of people saying how good it was, but also that people in hard water areas were getting through the expensive cartridges way too fast. I'd wondered if it would be a way of avoiding the plastic bottle recycling issue, but the water here (Thames Valley) is so hard it would cost me a fortune in cartridges, which are presumably harder to recycle than the Waitrose Lockhills bottles that can go in the kerbside collection.
> 
> ___
> 
> Eat, drink and be merry


I seem to prefer a softer water than Lockhills for brewing (Lockhills still favoured for use with a boiler), but sure, I'm not expecting this to give me a saving over Lockhills, it's just currently the practical way for me to get around 20ppm KH & GH. Maybe it will pan out, or maybe I'll invest in a distiller in the future.

I did previously look at another cartridge and that only worked out as twice as much weight of waste per L over the rated life for Lockhills compared to the cartridge.


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## Gotchaman (Oct 23, 2018)

Wanted to get thoughts on whether a 80/20 mix (ZERO water being 80%) was sufficient to avoid the water being corrosive in nature for the machine.

My unfiltered water has a TDS rating of around 380. I have a water softener that i currently pass through the zero water to achieve 001 TDS reading.

To be fair, i am not mad about the taste of the water out of the Zerofilter but the coffee tastes great.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Gotchaman said:


> Wanted to get thoughts on whether a 80/20 mix (ZERO water being 80%) was sufficient to avoid the water being corrosive in nature for the machine.
> 
> My unfiltered water has a TDS rating of around 380. I have a water softener that i currently pass through the zero water to achieve 001 TDS reading.
> 
> To be fair, i am not mad about the taste of the water out of the Zerofilter but the coffee tastes great.


We don't know without knowing how much bicarbonate/alkalinity your tap water has. You want to shoot for 40-60ppm alkalinity as CaCO3 in the final mix for a boiler.

I wouldn't drink the water out of the Zerowater personally.


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## Gotchaman (Oct 23, 2018)

MWJB said:


> We don't know without knowing how much bicarbonate/alkalinity your tap water has. You want to shoot for 40-60ppm alkalinity as CaCO3 in the final mix for a boiler.
> 
> I wouldn't drink the water out of the Zerowater personally.


Good point.

So keep it simpler and to maybe make it easier to answer (chemistry in the classroom was never my strong point) if i was to use volvic together with Zero water, what ratio would work. Volvic analysis below.

Thanks in advance


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Gotchaman said:


> Good point.
> 
> So keep it simpler and to maybe make it easier to answer (chemistry in the classroom was never my strong point) if i was to use volvic together with Zero water, what ratio would work. Volvic analysis below.
> 
> Thanks in advance


I never did chemistry, luckily it's not really needed.

Volvic's already in range, bicarbonate is 74mg/L (AKA ppm) as per the bottle label.

Multiply that by 0.82 for alkalinity as CaCO3 = 61mg/L

If you wanted to use 20% less Volvic you could use 4 parts Volvic to 1 part Zerowater...not sure it's worth the hassle?


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

It might just be cheaper to use a 3-stage RO filter. If you're conscious about space you can plug to the shower and then unplug when not in use. This is what I do anyway. I make about 15L at a time (takes about 1 hour) and lasts me 2-3 weeks. The membrane only needs replacing every 3 years or so and the unit didn't cost more than £50.. Just make sure to measure your water pressure and get an appropriate membrane.


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## Gotchaman (Oct 23, 2018)

Challenge is the overall mineral content or rather lack there off running it through RO or Zero.

Running blind after that


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## the_partisan (Feb 29, 2016)

Jury's out on what makes best brewing water in terms of minerals. Alkalinity seems to have the biggest effect. I think the best way would be to add some CaCO3 to RO water, but it's solubility is very low.


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

You'd need to put it under pressure with a CO2 tank to make it dissolve. I use MgSO4, CaCl2 and KHCO3 to remineralise distilled water. I should probably use a bit of NaHCO3 too to give it a bit of sodium. Third wave water use Calcium citrate in their recipe but I didn't want to get into that.


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

That's just reminded me why I still buy Volvic or Lockhills! I started off quite fascinated by the water threads we had a few years ago when Spence was practically blogging about it. At some point I tipped over into TL;DR how do I preserve my R58 without plumbing or titration.

___

Eat, drink and be merry


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## Gotchaman (Oct 23, 2018)

Volvic it is


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## Power Freak (Dec 14, 2018)

I use my zerowater filter to "make" my own water, for that it's very convenient I find (don't like buying big bottles of distilled water and don't want a big water distiller in my kitchen). Using it straight does not make nice coffee, mixing it with a BWT Mg2+ filtered water to get a reasonable TDS produces decent results.



Rob1 said:


> You'd need to put it under pressure with a CO2 tank to make it dissolve. I use MgSO4, CaCl2 and KHCO3 to remineralise distilled water. I should probably use a bit of NaHCO3 too to give it a bit of sodium. Third wave water use Calcium citrate in their recipe but I didn't want to get into that.


From my experimentation calcium citrate is not a pleasant addition at all, I'd keep well clear. I really struggled to notice the difference between sodium vs potassium bicarbonates, I wouldn't bother experimenting if you're happy.

(My water recipe involves: calcium carbonate dissolved using a soda stream, a small amount of MgSO4, MgCl and a little sea salt)

For those interested in scaling for espresso machines:

You can use the formula:

LI* = 13.12*log(T +273) +log(H) +2.465*log(A) -log(max(A,H))/10 -39.61

T is water temp in celcius (just chuck in 100 in there for safety)

H is water hardness as CaCO3

A is alkalinity as CaCO3

If LI* 0 then there is potential for scaling


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Settling on ~1 part tap to 8 parts Zerowater for brewed at the mo' (~30GH:22KH).


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