Using the right water for coffee was one of the best tips I learned from multiple sources in order to improve coffee at home. I live in a place in Italy with extremely hard water, so I have a cleaning filter installed that still leaves a series of minerals. Water is good to drink but not to brew coffee.
The solution I’m using now is bottled water, which works really well except for the fact that buying and wasting plastic isn’t ideal at all
Is there any way to obtain good quality water without having a ton of plastic in my bin? I mean I could buy mineral pills or something but still I’d need first to get demineralised water somehow, most likely bottled. So I don’t know really
We use rainwater harvested from the roof of our house and the rain comes from the southern Indian Ocean.
that’s pretty horrrible.
I have an RO, for reasons. It cost less than the cheapest espresso grinder that’s acceptable, but it has ongoing maintenance costs.
Edit - if you want to get nerdy, a permeate pump and/or high inlet pressure (which is largely out of our control) helps with the longevity of the membrane; I get about 2 years on mine and my intake water TDS is 500ppm; I replace around 75ppm outflow which is higher than “normal” but the water is designated safe to drink to begin with. Basically, the greater the delta in pressure between the inlet and outlet, the less waste is produced and the longer the membrane lasts.
Reverse Osmosis for those like me who had to search what RO means.
For the unselfish it means “reciprocating oral”
Currently use a Brita filter as its enough to take the chemically smell from my tap water. Espresso machine has a built in water softener that I change every six months or so. It isnt the most efficient way to do it but the machine does not have any build up when I have checked, my water tastes neutral and nice to drink if not amazing.
Long term I want to build in a proper water purification, strip, and remineralization solution into my mains supply when I get around to redoing the kitchen. UK is low risk for water contamination but we do have recent incidents of it happening so its not zero risk and I would rather not take the risk with the way our water companies are ran.
I can only speak to the U.S. and Thailand, but those two are so disparate I always assumed it must be fairly universal. Maybe Italy has something like it too…
They both have reusable water bottle delivery available in ~5 gallon/~20 liter bottles typically used for water coolers. In the U.S. the delivery costs are pretty ridiculous so many grocery stores also run little bottle exchange kiosks where you can return your empties and pick up full bottles.
This is the way. We got most of our water from a creek, which is GREAT for washing hair and clothes. But no so great for drinking. So we had to use one of those office cooler/heater units with the big jugs of spring water for drinking/cooking.
Now that we have a well we still use the big jugs because of the convenience of boiled water as well as chilled water. And the coffee is just better.
I will admit we are also very lucky in that our part of the world has abundant springs. So we can fill our jugs at a perfectly clear spring for free.
RO is really nice. Frankly a lot easier decision if your water isn’t already tasty as it tastes great, but bigger deal to install if it’s exclusively for coffee. I’d probably try at least one more simple sink filter if you haven’t already and see if it’s better.
In India, the tap water is not safe to drink, so we have a water filter. The water tastes good enough for the coffee.
You could get a similar reverse osmosis filter.
Is it still unsafe to drink if you boil it?
Many people do boil and drink it but I don’t think that would get rid of some particulate matter.
I hear the ganges river makes a magic cup of coffee.
Sink.
My solution was to be born in the country with the cleanest tap water.
Clean≠soft. You can have very hard water that’s clean, or very soft water with bacteria, heavy metals, and pesticides in it.
Also, unless you live in a microstate, water quality is going to be really regional. Assuming you are in the UK, a place like Burton-on-trent has notoriously hard water (which lead to the creation of the IPA).
I invested in a water distiller (a cheap Vevor clone of the Megahome) and I remineralize following this recipe. I live in a place where the water is so hard there is a spoonful of calcium carbonate “sand” at the bottom of the distiller. Not just deposit on the sides, actual silt.
This is what I do to. I would like to expand to adding calcium back to the water, but haven’t found a good guide.
You may have a local water distiller where you can take refillable containers. This is what I did prior to installing an RO system. My local one had a 24/7 refill station so I could refill whenever I wanted. It’s significantly cheaper than buying from a store, reduces plastic use long-term, and you’re shopping local. From there, you can use Barista Hustle’s water recipes in order to try out different mineral contents. Personally, I preferred this because it’s significantly cheaper than buying the mineral packets and allowed for more experimentation.
I used a 3 stage filter and whole house water softener. With that said, getting one of those larger bottles for water coolers could reduce your plastic usage. I think they sell pumps for them.
Using the Brita ultra filter pitcher.
Same. All drinking water goes thru the Brita filter in my house
Personally, my brew technique and beans aren’t at a level where water rises to the top as a difference maker.
Me too. Most on this group would be horrified at my Chefman grinder lol
That won’t really reduce hardness. The cheap Brita filters will replace some minerals with salt, but mostly they are there for filtering out pathogens and heavy metals ions/other contaminants with the active carbon.
My tap smells like pool water without the ultra but is otherwise not hard.
I’m in the same boat. Well, not pool water, but it does have chlorine i want to remove, so i use a brita, too. I just know too many people with hard water who try to use a filter to remove it, even though that’s not really the way that filters work.
I use a ZeroWater filter to get down to 0 Total Dissolved Solids and then third wave packets to reintroduce good minerals for coffee. Its still the case for me that this is cheaper than trying to buy distilled water or using distillation. Reverse osmosis is probably cheaper overall but a lot more initial outlay and it depends on how much water you need.
Brita and other similar small filters do a poor job of removing total dissolved solids (for me its the difference between 260 and 245 which is almost none removed) so they don’t change the situation for coffee extraction all that much
Seconding ZeroWater filters. They’re black magic. Fast, convenient, and the taste I get in my espresso is miles better than any Brita filter.
I’m blessed with excellent tap water, so I use that. I’ve never felt the need to change anything
For a couple hundred $/Euros, a 7 stage undersink reverse osmosis filter system with final stage remineralization is more than good enough for most folks. Gives very low TDS (total dissolved solids) and removes all odd flavors from the water. The three main large particle filters need to be changed about once year and cost very little. Works very well for my drinking water and coffee here in Vietnam.
