[vilding]

Water ??

with all the great coffee's and recipes for brewing what are everyones preferences for water ? tap, bottled, natural spring........

We are lucky to have soft, clean and delicious water in Stockholm, so I take mine from the tap. When I'm at my parents who have their own well, I use any soft, bottled water.

[twitch54]

We are lucky to have soft, clean and delicious water in Stockholm, so I take mine from the tap. When I'm at my parents who have their own well, I use any soft, bottled water.

interesting, here in the states our tap(municipal) water is chlorinated which I think would need to be dealt with ?

[vilding]

Yeah, they do that here too, but in very, very tiny doses. It varies throughout the country, but it's almost never as much as to give any taste or smell to the water. If you need to get rid of it, you can just add a very small amount of ascorbic acid. Don't know if that will affect the coffee, though. I don't taste any difference between our tap water and bottled. But I know this is something most people have to think about when making coffee, beer etc. I know the aforementioned James Hoffman has some videos about water purifiers.

[WGH]

I suspect coffee made in different regions have their own unique terroir that compliment the air and food from the same region.

The Statistics & Standards Committee of the Specialty Coffee Association has determined the following standards for the water used to brew specialty coffee. For a superior quality extraction of coffee solids, the brewing water should have these characteristics:

Chlorine - None    
Calcium Hardness - 50-175 ppm CaCO3    
Alkalinity - At or near 40-70 ppm CaCO3
pH - 7.0    6 - 8
https://sca.coffee/research/coffee-standards

It is very hard to find water statistics, your city or county should have a water quality website.

Tucson, AZ water has a blend of groundwater and CAP water. The Central Arizona Project (CAP) is a 336 mi diversion canal in Arizona in the United States. The aqueduct diverts water from the Colorado River from the Bill Williams Wildlife Refuge south portion of Lake Havasu near Parker into central and southern Arizona. An estimate of the TDS (total dissolved solids) and mineral composition of a 50:50 blend of Tucson groundwater and CAP water is about 470 mg/L. The combined hardness of this blend is classified as moderately hard to hard.

I use Culligan Premium Drinking water delivered in 5 gallon bottles for all my cooking and drinking. Tucson tap water will destroy a tea kettle in a few years with solids buildup. The Culligan website has zero info on the mineral or pH content. Culligan bought out Nestle Pure Life which has been tested. The Nestle Pure Life Purified Water with Minerals has a CaCO3 of 32-48 and a pH of 6.6-7.6, within the guidelines for good coffee.

Consumer Reports has water quality reports from more than 120 brands:

Find Out What's in Your Bottled Water
https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/find-out-whats-in-your-bottled-water-water-quality-reports/

[WGH]

interesting, here in the states our tap(municipal) water is chlorinated which I think would need to be dealt with ?

Let the water sit for a few days and the chlorine will dissipate, do the same before filling a fish tank. Boiling for 20 minutes will drive out the chlorine but kill the fish.

[S Clark]

Let the water sit for a few days and the chlorine will dissipate, do the same before filling a fish tank. Boiling for 20 minutes will drive out the chlorine but kill the fish.

Is that a problem if you add onion, garlic, and herbs?

[WGH]

Is that a problem if you add onion, garlic, and herbs?

Bouillabaisse!

[FullRangeMan]

Other prob are Fluoridated water, even in mineral water they add fluorine.

[WGH]

Other prob are Fluoridated water, even in mineral water they add fluorine.

I did a quick check of over a half dozen bottled water reports in the Consumer Reports list and only Perrier Sparking had fluorine. Best to check the list beforehand.

[FullRangeMan]

I did a quick check of over a half dozen bottled water reports in the Consumer Reports list and only Perrier Sparking had fluorine. Best to check the list beforehand.

I suppose this is valid for your country, here bottled water are mandatory to have fluor.

Along this from time to time there is mass media advertising suggesting spring water are ''dirty'' and and tap water are better due to chlorine and fluorine.

[Letitroll98]

We have natural spring water coming out of our tap, right from the free flowing spring on our property.  I also run that through a Zero Water filter.  I don't remember the exact pH from the last test, but it was in the normal range.  One of the benefits of living in a forest.






My back yard.

[S Clark]

Wow.  That's really nice, Leti.   I'm also out by myself, but West Texas isn't quite as lush.  My favorite water for coffee is 1/4 well water (with lots of CaCO3) mixed with deionized water.  I find the calcium adds brightness to the flavor, but is hard on the machine. 

[Rusty Jefferson]

We have well water at our house.  Softened, ph balanced, filtered, uv light sanitized for the whole house, and reverse osmosis filtered for the drinking water at the kitchen sink. Really annoying to deal with, but the best tasting water I've had in anyplace I've lived.

[mresseguie]

Let the water sit for a few days and the chlorine will dissipate, do the same before filling a fish tank. Boiling for 20 minutes will drive out the chlorine but kill the fish.

 

We have city water. However, for all but the summer months, our water comes from the Mary's River watershed which is spring fed water that is quite delicious. I further filter it with a charcoal-based filter.

[Jon L]

Trying the drip coffee system.  I've read that one should do this slowly: prime the coffee with small amount of water, then pour small amounts of water each time to extract the coffee essence (like 3 times), then add water later to preferred concentration. 

I tried this and then tried the usual method of pouring a good amount of water at once.  Not sure if there is a whole lot of difference in flavor or bitterness

0715200907_HDR by drjlo2, on Flickr

[mick wolfe]

Trying the drip coffee system.  I've read that one should do this slowly: prime the coffee with small amount of water, then pour small amounts of water each time to extract the coffee essence (like 3 times), then add water later to preferred concentration. 

I tried this and then tried the usual method of pouring a good amount of water at once.  Not sure if there is a whole lot of difference in flavor or bitterness

0715200907_HDR by drjlo2, on Flickr

I've tried just about every drip system imageable. All very decent, but none have beat an Aeropress. As always though... YMMV.

[FullRangeMan]

Not sure if there is a whole lot of difference in flavor or bitterness
In my experience what made a significant difference is the water temperature, until today I did not notice a difference in little/much water but I will observe this detail better.

[vilding]

Pour twice the weight of the coffee in water, swirl and let bloom for 40 sec. Pour until 60% of the water for 30 sec and swirl thoroughly. Pour the rest of the water for 30 sec, stir gently above the coffee bed with a small spoon and let it rin down. I use 55-60 grams of coffee per 1000 grams (1 litre) of water.

This is James Hoffmans recipe and one of the better ones I've tried. He uses as hot as possible water, but I get really good results at a bit lower temps as well, around 86 celsius is nice with smooth, chocolaty slightly darker than light roasted coffees.


I love aeropress too, but I probably prefer drip coffee when done well.

[Jon L]

Pour until 60% of the water for 30 sec and swirl thoroughly.

Swirl with spoon?  Thoroughly as in try to really move around the coffee grind in the water?

[vilding]

Swirl with spoon?  Thoroughly as in try to really move around the coffee grind in the water?

No, swirl it it in your hand, so that you move the grounds into a somewhat flat bed, and rinse the them of the sides of the filter. I usually grip the container with one hand and the dripper with the other. The gentle stir with the spoon after the second (or third if you count the bloom) helps this further. At this point you can give it one more slight swirl to flatten the coffee bed, but not agitate the grounds.

Hoffman has a great video going through this recipe, and there are lots more recipes on Youtube if you wanna nerd around...