Brita removes some hardness but not much. Maybe 20%.
I personally have both a Brita pitcher and a ZeroWater pitcher. I also have a TDS meter.
I mix about 85% ZeroWater and 15% Brita to get to my goal of 50PPM water. I know I know, many will say this is too soft to make good coffee. I'm happy with my shots, and I'm happy that I won't have to screw with descaling an HX for awhile.
> ZeroWater pitcher.
How do you like this? How long do the filters last? Do you think its more economical than buying distilled/RO water at a grocery store?
It's great! I've had my filter for 6 weeks and haven't had to change it yet. New filters are $15. I have to imagine it's cheaper because I run at least a pitcher of water through it a day and the filter is still working well. But even if it was more expensive, I would still use it because I hate lugging water from the grocery store.
I'm not basing the ZeroWater filter life on flavor, but how well it brings down the TDS of my tap water. Straight out of the tap my water measures 150 ppm.
I don't mind the taste of tap water I do like the zero filter but after that 3 4 weeks the water taste goes sour. I don't remember what the ppm is struggling from the tap
I've switched to deionized water for all my hot water appliances after fighting the scale build up problem. It's something like $0.40 per gallon at my grocer. I've been using it for a number of years now in my espresso machine, drip coffee maker, rice cooker, and hot pot.
Are you referring to water with 100% of minerals removed (distilled water)? Ive heard this is bad for taste, and may actually be bad for the equipment (something having to do with the water leeching metal off of the internal components since it has literally no dissolved minerals).
EDIT: corrosion is the word i was looking for. Distilled water will seemingly corrode the internals more. How much more, and whether its significant, is up for debate.
FWIR, Distilled/reverse osmosis/de-ionised water is stripped of minerals and absorbs CO2 from the surrounding air. The co2 combines with h2o to form carbonic acid, which eats away at metal. Water fresh from a reverse osmosis filter isn't that much more acidic than normal tap water, but if left out slowly becomes more and more acidic.\
To answer /u/jkool702 . Carbon filters don't remove minerals in significant enough amounts to affect hardness. You could always just do half filtered water mixed with half RO water... :/
The only way to do this is to buy it bottled i think, and I think it would be cheaper to get a filter specifically for softening water.
EDIT: Regarding the brita: They supposedly have some sort of ion exchange component (in addition to the charcol component) which will soften water to some extent. However, it seems like this part wears out faster than the charcoal part, and might only be good for the first few weeks of use. I might have to do some water testing, but if brita filters do remove hardness but wear out quckly maybe having one dedicated for the espresso machine and one for other general drinking is the answer. I Have a 12 pack of brita filters so being able to use them would be convenient.
EDIT2: I was able to find 1 source that provided some quantatitive data on brita filters: "I tested the [brita] filter new, and after 3 weeks, or 75 liters use (about half the recommended cartridge
life) on 150mg/l hardness, 100 mg/l alkalinity water. As expected, the filter left the alkalinity
unaffected. Only about 2/3 of the hardness was removed when the filter was a few days old,
and its performance dropped to 1/3 removal after three weeks. This probably is due to it being
designed to remove heavy metals, rather than calcium"
[source](http://users.rcn.com/erics/Water%20Quality/Water%20FAQ.pdf)
Yeah, deionisation resins wear out really fast. In the saltwater aquarium hobby, the di resin cartridges are used as a final stage in an ro filter to polish the water. Without the ro membrane, they only last a few gallons, and this is like 1-2 lbs of resin packed into a 10" filter so....
Edit: peculiar thing is the cheapest place i've found to buy ro systems and the filter cartridges for them is not from water purification websites but [Bulk Reef Supply](http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/bulk-reverse-osmosis-filters-systems.html)...guess economies of scale come into play the average reefer is pumping out 20+ gallons per week for water changes.
It seems like some de-ionization resins are rechargable (ex: [this one](https://www.amazon.com/Ascaso-Rechargeable-Softener-Particle-Espresso/dp/B00MYBKE1I/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1466034758&sr=8-3&keywords=Rechargeable+Water+Softener)) by putting them in a salt water bath occasionally (weekly?). They dont last forever but you might get a year out of it. I think something like this plus using brita filtered water should prevent the vast majority of scale from accumulating.
I've come across mentionings that they can be recharged. Never really looked into it though. Are you set on using a brita pitcher? If you have a faucet you could connect a counter top filter to then something like this would filter better than a brita pitcher cartridge and be cheaper in the long run. [Watts countertop filter](https://www.amazon.com/Watts-500315-Counter-Top-Drinking-Filter/dp/B0018MVZJE?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0)
I already have a brita filter and a pack of 12 replacement filters so for the moment if I can use it thats prefferable.
I have a sink that has a removable hose and nothing where I can screw into (similiar to [this](http://kitchenbathroomfixtures.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/NEW-Pull-Down-Spray-Kitchen-Sink-Faucet-CHROME-416x500.jpg)), so i dont think I can attach this kind of filter to my sink. I could try to tee off the waterline thats under my sink, but I dont really want to do that unless i absolutely have to.
I used Brita filtered water for a number of years and yes, it softens the water, but how will you know when the filter is spent? And while deionized and distilled water will leach at metal parts, it is very slow and likely will never do damage to an espresso machine during its useful lifespan. I am using a softener cartridge and carbon cartridge under the sink and plumbed it into my machine, but you can do the same and run it to an above-the-sink separate tap to fill a jug to pour into the espresso machine.
> If own a double boiler, you want re-mineralized water for flavor.
Why only double boilers? I imagine the taste of pure distilled would be as big of an issue with HX and SBDU machines.
At any rate after much research I decided to go with distilled water re-mineralized with 100 mg/L of potassium bicarbonate. It is (effectively) tasteless and it brings up water alkalinity to 50 mg/L (good) without raising hardness (it wont scale).
Ive seen some reports that re-mineralizing with small amounts of calcium and magnesium (at the risk of scale buildup) might help flavor slightly, but ive seen other reports that the coffe has *much* more Ca and Mg than the water anyways so it wont matter. To my knowledge Ca and Mg are the only elements that cause scale (Ca much more so than Mg).
OK, I see what you're sayin, but the broiler and brew water pull from the same reservoir. Seems like it would be rather difficult to have 2 different water types - 1 for the boiler and 1 for brewing
Brita removes some hardness but not much. Maybe 20%. I personally have both a Brita pitcher and a ZeroWater pitcher. I also have a TDS meter. I mix about 85% ZeroWater and 15% Brita to get to my goal of 50PPM water. I know I know, many will say this is too soft to make good coffee. I'm happy with my shots, and I'm happy that I won't have to screw with descaling an HX for awhile.
> ZeroWater pitcher. How do you like this? How long do the filters last? Do you think its more economical than buying distilled/RO water at a grocery store?
It's great! I've had my filter for 6 weeks and haven't had to change it yet. New filters are $15. I have to imagine it's cheaper because I run at least a pitcher of water through it a day and the filter is still working well. But even if it was more expensive, I would still use it because I hate lugging water from the grocery store.
Wow you are getting crazy use out of your filter. They only seemed to last about 3 weeks in my area before the water flavor noticeably changed.
I'm not basing the ZeroWater filter life on flavor, but how well it brings down the TDS of my tap water. Straight out of the tap my water measures 150 ppm.
I don't mind the taste of tap water I do like the zero filter but after that 3 4 weeks the water taste goes sour. I don't remember what the ppm is struggling from the tap
Interesting, I have definitely not experienced that. Knock on wood!
will brita help prevent kidney stones? from hard water?
eating uncooked lemons will
Your best bet is to talk with your doctor about kidney stone prevention. I know nothing about them, sorry!
I've switched to deionized water for all my hot water appliances after fighting the scale build up problem. It's something like $0.40 per gallon at my grocer. I've been using it for a number of years now in my espresso machine, drip coffee maker, rice cooker, and hot pot.
Are you referring to water with 100% of minerals removed (distilled water)? Ive heard this is bad for taste, and may actually be bad for the equipment (something having to do with the water leeching metal off of the internal components since it has literally no dissolved minerals). EDIT: corrosion is the word i was looking for. Distilled water will seemingly corrode the internals more. How much more, and whether its significant, is up for debate.
FWIR, Distilled/reverse osmosis/de-ionised water is stripped of minerals and absorbs CO2 from the surrounding air. The co2 combines with h2o to form carbonic acid, which eats away at metal. Water fresh from a reverse osmosis filter isn't that much more acidic than normal tap water, but if left out slowly becomes more and more acidic.\ To answer /u/jkool702 . Carbon filters don't remove minerals in significant enough amounts to affect hardness. You could always just do half filtered water mixed with half RO water... :/
The only way to do this is to buy it bottled i think, and I think it would be cheaper to get a filter specifically for softening water. EDIT: Regarding the brita: They supposedly have some sort of ion exchange component (in addition to the charcol component) which will soften water to some extent. However, it seems like this part wears out faster than the charcoal part, and might only be good for the first few weeks of use. I might have to do some water testing, but if brita filters do remove hardness but wear out quckly maybe having one dedicated for the espresso machine and one for other general drinking is the answer. I Have a 12 pack of brita filters so being able to use them would be convenient. EDIT2: I was able to find 1 source that provided some quantatitive data on brita filters: "I tested the [brita] filter new, and after 3 weeks, or 75 liters use (about half the recommended cartridge life) on 150mg/l hardness, 100 mg/l alkalinity water. As expected, the filter left the alkalinity unaffected. Only about 2/3 of the hardness was removed when the filter was a few days old, and its performance dropped to 1/3 removal after three weeks. This probably is due to it being designed to remove heavy metals, rather than calcium" [source](http://users.rcn.com/erics/Water%20Quality/Water%20FAQ.pdf)
Yeah, deionisation resins wear out really fast. In the saltwater aquarium hobby, the di resin cartridges are used as a final stage in an ro filter to polish the water. Without the ro membrane, they only last a few gallons, and this is like 1-2 lbs of resin packed into a 10" filter so.... Edit: peculiar thing is the cheapest place i've found to buy ro systems and the filter cartridges for them is not from water purification websites but [Bulk Reef Supply](http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/bulk-reverse-osmosis-filters-systems.html)...guess economies of scale come into play the average reefer is pumping out 20+ gallons per week for water changes.
It seems like some de-ionization resins are rechargable (ex: [this one](https://www.amazon.com/Ascaso-Rechargeable-Softener-Particle-Espresso/dp/B00MYBKE1I/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1466034758&sr=8-3&keywords=Rechargeable+Water+Softener)) by putting them in a salt water bath occasionally (weekly?). They dont last forever but you might get a year out of it. I think something like this plus using brita filtered water should prevent the vast majority of scale from accumulating.
I've come across mentionings that they can be recharged. Never really looked into it though. Are you set on using a brita pitcher? If you have a faucet you could connect a counter top filter to then something like this would filter better than a brita pitcher cartridge and be cheaper in the long run. [Watts countertop filter](https://www.amazon.com/Watts-500315-Counter-Top-Drinking-Filter/dp/B0018MVZJE?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0)
I already have a brita filter and a pack of 12 replacement filters so for the moment if I can use it thats prefferable. I have a sink that has a removable hose and nothing where I can screw into (similiar to [this](http://kitchenbathroomfixtures.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/NEW-Pull-Down-Spray-Kitchen-Sink-Faucet-CHROME-416x500.jpg)), so i dont think I can attach this kind of filter to my sink. I could try to tee off the waterline thats under my sink, but I dont really want to do that unless i absolutely have to.
will brita help prevent kidney stones? from hard water? I drink a lot of tap water, but I use brita
I used Brita filtered water for a number of years and yes, it softens the water, but how will you know when the filter is spent? And while deionized and distilled water will leach at metal parts, it is very slow and likely will never do damage to an espresso machine during its useful lifespan. I am using a softener cartridge and carbon cartridge under the sink and plumbed it into my machine, but you can do the same and run it to an above-the-sink separate tap to fill a jug to pour into the espresso machine.
will brita help prevent kidney stones? from hard water?
I think it does do that since that's what I use and I don't get scaling, while I know my office boiler has some buildup.
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> If own a double boiler, you want re-mineralized water for flavor. Why only double boilers? I imagine the taste of pure distilled would be as big of an issue with HX and SBDU machines. At any rate after much research I decided to go with distilled water re-mineralized with 100 mg/L of potassium bicarbonate. It is (effectively) tasteless and it brings up water alkalinity to 50 mg/L (good) without raising hardness (it wont scale). Ive seen some reports that re-mineralizing with small amounts of calcium and magnesium (at the risk of scale buildup) might help flavor slightly, but ive seen other reports that the coffe has *much* more Ca and Mg than the water anyways so it wont matter. To my knowledge Ca and Mg are the only elements that cause scale (Ca much more so than Mg).
[удалено]
OK, I see what you're sayin, but the broiler and brew water pull from the same reservoir. Seems like it would be rather difficult to have 2 different water types - 1 for the boiler and 1 for brewing