The Best Water for Coffee - An Introduction
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2024
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Notes & Corrections: I made an embarrassing mistake in this video. Brita filters exchange hydrogen ions, not sodium ions. Lots of commercial filters use sodium and lots use hydrogen. This was a silly mistake I deeply regret.
Also - I didn’t clarify that the home made, custom water is as bad as bottled water if you buy your deionised water in plastic bottles. It is just more flexible and able to produce more precise results.
I’ll update this comment with other corrections and notes as necessary.
I started buying my de-ionised water in 2.5l bottles from Tesco, they cost 1 quid. When we lived in Poland, you could get demineralized water in 5l bottles for 40p, but it seems impossible in the UK. Most websites ask an arm and a leg for their lab made demineralized/deionised/distilled water. Do you have any recommendations for getting water in the UK that's packaged in a less wasteful way?
Do you sell water James.
the place where I buy my deionised water has an option of you buying a big 20 liter jerry can that you can then refill for just as much as buying a single 10 liter jerry can that you can't refill
With the plastic bottle issue, distilled water is available in 5 gallon/15L re-usable water cooler style bottles, which is more affordable and better for the environment, but too much of a faff for most people, hence the 1 gallon guys that are widely available at pharmacies and grocery shops (used for baby formula).
Having gone down this rabbit hole a bit myself, I genuinely believe the best solution for most people is TWW and jugs of distilled water, but would love to know if there’s something better.
Obviously it would depend on the conditions the water is kept but, I was wondering if you could give some insight into how long the quality of water would last if you did collect it from a local cafe? Something I’ve always wondered
Minerals dissolved in water is, definitely a solution
I'm mad 😑
stephend50 🤣🤣🤣 NICE!!!
Hahaha. Love it! ❤️
Hahahaah
Well done!
How James Hoffmann has spoiled my coffee experience for ever:
1st Video: all you need is good coffee beans
2nd Video: ohh, coffee machine. anything less than $500 is cheap stuff
3rd Video: Buy burrrrr grinder
4th Video: get rid of that crap tamper
5th Video: Introduction to distribution tool.
5th Video: c'mon you using tap water?
..
2021: You can't make a really good cup of coffee under gravity.
Still it's interesting stuff!
2069: Excuse me you are trying to brew coffee outside of a quantum reality? Pleb.
Honestly, good water should be #1. Even crap coffee will be improved by changing from tap water to "good" water.
You would get the tools as you develop the taste really. You don't have to get all at once or get the best of the best.
I still do french press and my dream is to buy a good espresso machine. But a good grinder and buying freshly roasted grounds has helped a lot.
That's because you don't understand why each of those things is important. Garbage in, garbage out.
Last year, I was happy drinking instant. Since discovering your channel, I’ve purchased a moka pot, an aeropress, a grinder and a shitload of coffee and now you’ve presented yet another rabbit hole to jump into. My wallet is not going to be impressed.
Matthew Joseph absolutely the same as me! 😂
Next topic is what kind of electricity do you use for your coffeemaker, because it DOES make a difference.Now there are fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum), nuclear energy, and renewable energy sources. Most electricity is generated with steam turbines using fossil fuels, nuclear, biomass, geothermal, and solar thermal energy. Also up for consideration are the 4 types of electricity:Static Electricity. Static Electricity is nothing but the contact between equal amount of protons and electrons (positively and negatively charged subatomic particles). ...
Current Electricity. Current Electricity is a flow of electric charge across an electrical field. ...Hydro Electricity. ...Solar Electricity. And before you go out and buy your coffeemaker there is a recommended reading, Study Shows Natural Gas, Wind & Solar to be Cheapest Technologies for Generating Electricity. So in your area, I would recommend calling your public utility company first, then determine which coffeemaker to buy, water to use, beans to consider, and the ever more important coffee grinder because even watts of power matter to large degree.
@@lostinmyspace4910 THIS WAS HILLARIOUSSS!!!!
The caffeine will make you more productive so it'll balance out, right? Right? This is what I tell myself.
@@lostinmyspace4910 the distance from the Equator is key. Don’t forget that bissextile years aren’t recommended for brewing coffee.
As a brewer of beer, I've long since pondered whether baristas consider water science in the same way as we do when brewing beer. As I delve deeper into brewing coffee, its great to see that this is 'a thing'. As a basic for water treatment, you can gas off chlorine from water overnight but chloramine is tougher - the easiest way is using campden tablets. In beer, the two minerals responsible for balancing the perception of malt sweetness to hop bitterness are chloride and sulphate, respectively. For less bitter styles, we tend to use a higher ratio of chloride to sulphate - this also gives a perception of a softer, more 'pillowy' mouthfeel. Interestingly (for coffee), in dark beers with highly roasted malts, the pH is driven downwards by these malts and we look to offset this astringency with a higher ratio of chloride to sulphate. The opposite is true of more traditionally bitter styles where we want a bitter twang. Not sure how many people will find this as interesting as me, or at all :D
Love it! This is the kind of information that could mean a breakthrough for someone.
Absolutely love it as well !
As a craft beer amateur and someone would like to brew my own one day, this was very interesting and insightful, thank you!
I don't drink coffee, never have, and yet somehow a random UA-cam recommendation on "Why Modern Expresso Looks Ugly" lead to months of regular check-ins on a subject that I have never researched prior. I'm thoroughly invested. Great job as usual, James
Have u already spent tons o money on coffee gear yet? : D
@@dsm828 i know i have
I'm in the same boat, James' videos are still very interesting to me.
I could not imagine higher praise than this
@@dsm828 I have gotten an Hario v60 and a kettle based on this channel. Never enjoyed using a French press due to the sludge it left at the bottom of the cup. But it did make my favorite cup of coffee. Something about not paper filtering brings out the most flavor
Brewing coffee 2 years ago: Coffee, water, start.
Brewing coffee after binge watching James: I now speak Chinese.
If you're planning to source single origins from Yunnan, China you would.
Man I'd love to try it!
😂
You are so right! Ha!
@@nulnoh219 I’ve never had a coffee from yunnan that hasn’t made me want to spit it out.
Next years video, "The best elevation above the sealevel for Coffee - An introduction"
And it's going to be 45 minutes long ;)
and you will need to go to this spesific village in southern Holland between 13 and 17 of november.
@@SrGroszek only if you are a black Jewish ginger albino with one leg and heterochromatic eyes, and you bring the pick of destiny with you!
I hate to say it but living in the mountains of CO, elevation is something i have to take into account- my boiling point is 91C!! Going from 10k to 5k ft, EVERYTHING is different and requires readjustment.
@@plannine6542 My oxo kettle says they have a link to calculate every user's elevation. And it effects fill levels also?
As a beer brewer this is an interesting one for me. We're largely concerned with calcium, chloride, and sulfate ions, in addition to pH.
I've found magnesium ions give a nice twang for darker beers, and sodium ions work greatly with chloride to enhance maltiness and sort of richness in malt-heavy beers, specially fuller-body ones. I also measure carbonates, but only for pH, so if your hitting your desired pH I wouldn't worry about it.
Coffee is at a stage where homebrew beer was 20+ years ago. They'll get there eventually - once they give up on the snake-oil.
Me: Tap Water
JH: Hexagonally structured, deuterium free, hydrogen gas rich, infra-red bathed, 4C chilled, golden ratio mineralized, monk blessed dihydrogen monoxide.
As if there’s any other kind...
Bwhaaaaa! thank you..
is O2 take a part.?
So Holy Water?
@@marvinadn popy jopy stuff......
James Hoffmann - ruining days since 2014 💙
I am a barista who is training a new employee and it is so much fun to show them the difference between brewing water with our filtered/softened water vs brewing it with what comes out of the tap as well as all the other complexities of coffee
We have extremely hard water here in eastern Denmark, so I boil it, cool it and filter it with a paper (coffee) filter.
Filter catches a lot of white calcium residue and the water tastes soft and like bottled mineral water afterwards.
Used it for 20 years in my La Pavoni, which has never needed descaling.
I am of course aware of the extra energy usage of heating coffee water twice, but I only boil the amount I need to fill the espresso machine water tank. And even with high Kwh prices it's a lot cheaper than bottled water, and you are not contributing to plastic waste.
Here In west Slovakia we also have very hard water , sience I bought goose neck kettle , I started using botled water and the difference in acidity was stunning .
Ahh, det derfor min kaffe smager af urin
@@kagefisk hahaha
Interesting, have you measured the TDS or hardness before and after boiling and filtering the water? I Wouldn't think that would be effective in reducing the hardness very much!
If you're making a filter coffe it's already going through the coffee filter
This is art . One never complains how complicated art is .
Preference is art, this is science.
My propensity for a complicated brew depends entirely on whether I have already consumed coffee that day.
John Spencer who said it can’t be both ?
True art is science taken to the next level
"After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well." -- Albert Einstein
I remember following this dude with 10k subs, and I was like...give it a bit this guy is gonna be UA-cam's premier coffee snob. Well on his way.
IDK, the old lady from Seattle Coffee Gear is pretty spunky!
@@tylerwright6006 Gotta love Gail! "Just sayin'!"
The OG
The water in my area is *insanely* hard, so for the longest time, I bought tons and tons of bottled water. A few years ago, I got tired of this and bought a Brita Purity C150 Quell ST, which I then connected directly to my espresso machine. To get full use of it, I also bought a faucet that had the normal cold/hot water but also a separate lever for purified water - I cannot remember the last time I descaled my kettle. I used to do it every month! Also not worrying about having water, was a HUGE weight off my shoulders :) When I did that, I also connected my drip tray to my drain - it was so amazing :)
With the right "head" on the filter, you can let some regular water back in the flow to increase minerals.
I finally understand what Jordan Schlansky was talking about...
haha OMG thanks for this comment haha you made my day
James Hoffmann has made us all more Jordan Schlansky than we will ever admit.
14:21 This madman is humble and honest enough to actually tell people to stop watching the video without begging his viewers to come back afterwards or anything normal like that. What has the world come to? Selflessness is surely not the solution!
I used to run a coffee shop and we would make custom mineralized water for both our espressos and batch brews. It sounds complicated at start, but once you get some guidelines (Barista Hustle or CAE offer you these) things are getting much easier. We had reversed osmosis, filtered water in a 19L food-grade multi-use plastic barrel and then added the salts. We used to use MgSo4 (which is Epsom salt, can be easily found in a pharmacy), CaSo4 (which is plaster or gypsum, can be also found in a pharmacy) and balanced these with NaHCO3 (which is standard table sodium that can be found everywhere for pennies). At first, we measured the amount of each salt with a TDS metre (bought for 20 pounds in the internet). We measure filtered water, it had around 5 ppm, added MgSo4 to get 20-25 overall ppm, then added CaSo4 to get 45-55 overall ppm and after that finished it with NaHCO3 in the range of 80 to 120 ppm. Later we would weight right amounts of salts on scales without checking water's TDS and added them to the water. That's it.
Where are all these amazing and knowledgeable cafes. The ones I go to can’t even tamp properly
This just sounds like incomprehensible alchemy to me 😂. That's some real dedication to good coffee 😮
Reading your comment made me realize I still remember the names of all those compounds. Weirdly nostalgic for my chemistry class haha
Why did you stop running the shop?
@@Omnilatent I realized it was a mistake to turn my love to coffee into a business. I feel better as a customer
What a coincidence, two weeks ago I did a tasting at home between 3 different waters at home. Pulled 3 espressos, bc I think its easier to get'em right three time in a row, same grind, same coffee, same everything. I live in México and here, most households buy 20L jugs of water, and there are many brands, from locally filtered companies, to Pepsi and Coke sub-brands. I brewed with a EPura (Pepsi), Bonafont (the biggest independent water company in Mex) and a locally owned, locally filtered company. I chose EPura because my wife ran an experiment at her university between the big waters and that brand had the "cleanest" water, the other two I had at my house already.
There was SUCH A BIG DIFFERENCE between the three waters, the locally filtered one being the better tasting. I presume because it's the "freshest" water and the other two had been going around for weeks in delivery trucks all over the city. Also because their factory is right below the volcanoes, so the raw water is probably in a more pure state, compared to what Pepsi or Coca Cola might use.
In conclusion, if you do a water test, you will ruin the way you look at coffee (once again) and you'll go into a pursuit for the best water possible. But it becomes another thing that you take into consideration when brewing, but once you find something you like, you enjoy your coffee much more.
Thanks James for making us care for the drink we love so much.
Hola, yo también soy de México, y desde que me compre mi Breville Barista express, ando buscando por todos lados cuidados, y todo lo relacionado con el café, y precisamente estaba buscando algún comentario sobre el agua que utilizamos aquí en México, yo me comunique con una empresa que hace Café y me comentaron que la mejor es la "Santa Maria" pero me di cuenta que esta agua esa alta en minerales y no sé que tal, no quiero que me dañe mi maquina, a tu parecer entonces la mejor es la Epura? Voy a intentar con esa agua. Tu cual utilizas?
Lightbulb moment. I have a beautiful espresso machine that I've been struggling to get a good shot out of for a while now. I didn't have this problem at the beginning... and I just realized that I moved house. It could be about the water!!
It's 4am here. I HAVE to sleep.
*James upload a video
Me: proceed to watch
Hopefully it doesn't put you to sleep - it's a tricky topic to talk about, and be helpful with. Also - get some sleep! (this is what the Watch Later button is for!)
@@jameshoffmann guess you're the watch later exception, James. Especially about this exact topic. I read barista hustle long ago. And here, sadly none of your solution was existed so I have to jump to the hardcore one. And I can't wait to do that! Thanks for the reminder. Keep inspiring!
I did exactly the same thing.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Made my day as always! Loved watching this between chapters of The Atlas that I got for Christmas this year. Have a very happy new year, JH-we really appreciate you.
I really feel this is a secret weapon people don’t account for when making a great tasting cup. Thank you for divining into this.
A great way to do this relativity environmentally friendly, cheaply and without too much faff is to buy a 5 gallon jug and fill at an RO dispenser. Here in the US there are Primo or other brand's stations in many grocery stores where you can buy RO water for $0.35 a gallon. once you have your 5 gallons you only need to measure your additives once. I have bought and adjusted water this way for beer brewing for years.
MrSwmn - we did this for years too. It has preserved all my coffee makers to be in near perfect condition after years of use and makes very good, very reliable coffee. We live in area with TERRIBLE water (hard, with sulfur and iron). It has been well worth it and not that expensive for drinking and cooking water.
Been buying and using the same water for years for drinking and coffee/espresso making. However...I've never adjusted the water which I'm now seeing is a mistake. Now I need to figure out what I need to use to adjust my water to make it better for brewing and drinking.
@@chadashton7029 Check out 'Trace Minerals Concentrace Trace Mineral Drops' on Amazon. Add them to your RO water and you'll have the "good water" that James is referring to. I know this is an old comment lol sorry
thank you, i don't know why i didn't think of this sooner. this'll be cheaper and waste less plastic.
@@homerun217 do you have a recommended dose for 5 gallons of RO water? I already have the drops, and local publix grocery has an RO dispenser!
I was carefully brewing coffee thinking I finally made the perfect cup, turns out this pursuit never ends!
It's one of the best things about coffee!
@@jameshoffmannremembering it can lead to ua-cam.com/video/tU1y7hBSgiY/v-deo.html
@@chrisswallow3734 this is exactly what I thought. I came back to that video and you suddenly commented this
Good point (your point, not my point)
"A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for."
Ah, I tweeted you about this a while back, I can only suppose this is a direct response! Thanks for the vid
I live in Oslo and we have excellent tap water - especially the part of the city where I live. It's soft and delicious - I crave this water whenever I'm traveling. I'm pretty sure that's what the cafes around here use too.
This is one of the best ways to close 2019!
That's the last good year you will have buddy.
I recently traded my Brita pitcher for a Berkey set up, and I experienced a pretty noticeable upgrade to the taste of my pourovers when using water from the Berkey rather than the Brita pitcher. I have never measured the mineral content or pH, but my tastebuds approved.
My attempt at a budget- and environmentally friendly solution:
1. Bought a water distiller off of amazon.
2. Mix tap and distilled water at a 1/10 ratio (I have really really hard water so obviously adjust for your local waters mineral contents ).
Thats it. Of course if you wanted more control and weren't as lazy as I am, you could add in the exact minerals the way James describes with deionised water as distilled water is (as far as I know, with a very limited understanding of it) pretty much the same as deionised water.
You can get the really expensive water distillers for coffee and the really cheap ones which as far as I can tell do the same - only they are marketed at preppers and such. I bought the cheap one (50 EUR) and it works perfectly and distills 4 liters of water at a time.
If your water has chlorine or other unpleasantries added to it you would probably be wise to include some active charcoal somewhere in the process.
Also my tap water happens to have a mineral ratio which lands me somewhere in the ballpark of good water with this method. If your water is really high in certain minerals and really low in others, you might have to mix your custom water with each individual mineral as James explains in the video.
As always your video was a great pleasure to watch James.
Our family has been bringing spring water home in reusable canisters for the last 20 years. When I became interested in coffee, I tried water from a couple of the springs and selected the one with which the coffee tastes best. When we were hikking in South Tyrol, we'd used to bring water from small mountain rivers, and it was interesting to find that the water from different streams would produce different tasting coffee. I am aware of building mineral water yourself, but it seems like a cumbersome exercise at this point in my coffee trip. Spring water from nearby is the best option in my situation. In terms of bottled waters, I like the results I get with Aqua Panna, but I have no interest supporting Nestle by buying it any more.
I just started thinking about this this week. PErfect timing!
I brew my own beer.. And I'm here watching a video about Coffee and Water trying to learn about ways to improve my own DIY Beer Brewing experience.
Very informative Mr Hoffmann, you've given me much to consider in my endeavours.
Copenhagen water is really hard. Coffee Collective recommended using a slight amount (a knife tip, I know it's not accurate) of citric acid. Helped tremendously in increasing the quality/taste of my brewed coffee, especially if you don't have access to relatively cheap distilled water like in the US, or if you don't want to use bottled water.
Edit: this should be a knife tip of citric acid per liter
yes 'knife tip' sounds a lot like one of those inaccurate volumetric measurements James is often ranting on about :-o
Having jhoff speaking of water, water is also important for the sport especially Curling (you Scots and Canadians all know what it is, oh the States’ people as well).
The water does not so matter as long as it ices for the other icy sports like hockey, skating, etc because the thin blades takes the weights of the player to the ice. In short the thin surface takes the weight of the player, who would be at least 35kg (in the figure skating), so it really does not matter if the ice is hard enough.
When it comes to Curling, the player does not move, but the stone does. Of course one stone is around 18kg, quite heavy, but when you think about the weight of the stone is spread out all across the stone’s surface, the pressure the ice takes is much less so the damage of the ice is relatively severe.
The curling ice water takes pure pure water almost like the evaporated water. Otherwise the ice damages so easily. So the ice technicians are so much concerned with the water that they use. The first thing they always request is the water composition.
Anyhow in short I tasted coffee with the curling ice water, and it was quite good. 😸
I would imagine the process & rate of freezing is also important here
That was a long way for a drink of water 😂
Thank you, you confirmed something that I've experienced in my own home and have argued about. I live in south Texas and our water is VERY hard (calcium) so we have a household water softener. I typically use water right from the tap (post softener) and the coffee is excellent, my wife though yells at me as I don't use the water from our fridge which is additionally filtered and softened. I actually prefer the water from the tap, and you explained why today. The water from the tap still contains quite a bit of minerals and is better than the VERY soft water she was pushing me to use.
I get frustrated when my coffee tastes better than any cafes
Agreed, I moved to a smaller town about two years ago and I don't like going to cafes anymore because the coffee is always disappointing... Tough life, I know 😅
But the savings of never drinking coffee out is how I justify home brewing [to my family].
I have a dedicated water faucet for drinking water that runs through a filter located under the sink. I replace the cartridge every 6 months. It works real well for making coffee. Great video.
thumbs up for sharing your knowledge with us. been following your channel for a few months now and find your videos incredibly helpful. Keep doing the great work, James!
I live in an extremely hard water area and I've always wondered what that does to my coffee, watching this video with interest :)
I really really really would like to Drink a cup of coffee that is perfect to James Hoffmann, just to have an idea, what the pursued ideal actually is.
Maybe every coffee I ever drank has been a piece of crap?
No coffee is bad coffee. Coffee is an art. You can critique art, but you cannot rate art. Good, bad, its all relative to what you prefer. Albeit, most people tend to not like it when their coffee attacks their taste buds lol.
If you go to a good roaster or cafe with professional baristas, you should be able to get some really good coffee that nobody would complain about.
@@SpaghettiToaster those are harder to find than you’d think
@@boygenius538_8 Depends where you live I guess. I got some 5 or 6 within 30 minutes driving.
James Hoffman is no doubt still chasing that dream himself. And just as in ‘The Last Samurai’ upon his dying day and last tasted coffee still on his tongue he says ‘Perfect, they were all perfect’....... ,fleeting glimpse passes by ‘except that one...that one was sh*t’.
A rabbit hole I gladly entered. Been trying different recipes now using epsom salt and baking soda and i have just made the best cups of coffee with my store bought distilled water. I do have sachet minerals from TWW/Aquacode coming soon and I’m just geeking out with water more than the my stash of coffee beans lately. Love all your content sir! Cheers from the Philippines ☕️
I just brewed three V60s back to back with three different kinds of water after this video peaked my curiosity. Exact same volumes, recipes, timing, everything. As close to a controlled experiment that the laymen could muster. I grabbed a jug of Arrowhead from the local grocery store to brew with for the first time, brewed one with the water from my Brita filter (that I've been brewing from exclusively for 3+ years), and brewed one with my local tap, straight from my kitchen sink (which I've never thought to try). To my surprise, in tasting, the brew from my tap absolutely extracted so many more of the flavor notes present on the bag (a bag from a local roaster that's 10 minutes down the road from me, and could indeed be brewing with that exact water as well). Upon Googling, I found that my town's water sits at around a 7.75pH average, with a "hard" 7-10 grains per gallon. I'm shocked and don't know what to do with myself now after this polarizing taste test. The Arrowhead felt so hollow, nearly flavorless (also was a 20 second longer draw-down), and now in comparison to the tap water, my Brita brew (again, my "norm" for 3+ years) tasted extremely acidic and sour with just too much bite to the tongue... This experimenting will now continue until the day I'm on my death bed... thanks James.
I've always found that Arrowhead is the worst tasting of the big brand bottled waters.
James, have a good New Year!
So close! Of course it should be: James, I hope you have a great New Year!
Looks like UA-cam's algorithm has taken a liking to you this month. I and my brother (and his boss apparently) have all found your channel within the last 24 hours and SocialBlade is showing a huuuuge spike in your numbers. Congrats man, your content is as high quality as the coffee you make and you certainly deserve the boost.
I think the biggest change we have noticed is changing the waterlines in our house. It was a 50+ year old house and the pipes were original copper and not in the best shape. Since changing them the taste of our water has improved immensely. We run a water filter to take our the chemical tastes as well. I only recently learned that some people don't realize they should only use their cold tap for drinking (at least in NA), that hot water is running through whatever tank full of sentiment that heats your water is full of very unpleasant things that should not be consumed. Thanks for the video and the references, I am working on a creative project revolving around coffee and this is really helpful to my research. Cheers, love your content.
That's basically not true in NA. There shouldn't be any unpleasant things in your closed hot water tank system not any more than in the pipes. You may be thinking of the UK style system which is an open system where the tank is vented to the air and also the heater doesn't run continuously.
I can’t wait for James to get hardcore on the chemistry of water and coffee !
Thank you ever so much for all the input!
On behalf of traditionalism, may I add a thought:
In Ethiopia, where coffee has been brewed the longest (I am sure and would love to show you proof), there is a method to "filter" water.
The technique is called preboiling. In the clay Jebena (the ethiopian coffee pot) or even in a Moca I recommend preboiling the water.
It is a traditional method from times before reverse osmosis machines.
This is pretty interesting, because in tea circles people _avoid_ preboiled water, because boiling the water removes dissolved oxygen which supposedly makes for better tea. Not entirely sure how true this is though, I haven't noticed a difference myself.
This explains why mum said the coffee from Italy just never tasted the same when brewed in London.
I knew a little about this as a home beer brewer, but I didn’t think about the implications to brewing coffee. I MUST experiment!
For several reasons, I went the reverse osmosis route and could not be happier. I have an RO unit, that basically makes demineralized water and from that I have a double spout. One is straight demineralized for more technical uses (car, ironing, watering flowers etc) and the other has an inline remineralizer. It is incredibly convinient for drinking/cooking and luckily is in the range that works great for coffee as well. Of course I could use the demineralized water and "build" my own recipe (which I do sometimes as a benchmark) but it is not needed on the regular basis...
First of all: thank you for the very detailed video!
I started coffee brewing using bottled water but it was just baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Limescale all over and the plastic bottles... I switched to tap water. It smells like chlorine, I really don't like that. But now I looked up the water quality in my area and it is "medium" (CaO avg. 148 mg/l). I might try the Brita filters, maybe they are "good enough" for me.
But the topic of custom made water is also interesting! I really feel motivated to do it! I would really like to see a video about it from you James! (no pressure though)
After the coffee tasting I wanted to order from Third Wave Water but I really don't want to have this stuff shipped literally through the world (from the US to Europe) - also very wasteful. But I haven't really found any alternatives in Europe.
My local grocer has a mineral water dispenser, with re-usable 1 or 5 gallon jugs, costs about $.60 per gallon, and is pretty environmentally sound as far as waste goes. I haven't looked at the exact contents, but it definitely improved my pour-over quality vs my brita filtered tap water.
Ooh we have a "loose" shop, that might be worth asking at. Thanks!
i've been having this conversation with my wife based on a previous video of yours. I stopped using tap water and used Brita and then moved to filtered water from my fridge. I really need to do a taste test. thanks for another great video - I do know it's about 2 years old at this point but still! ty!
Fascinating topic. A few months ago I began using a Zero Water filter pitcher. It, with a fresh filter, removes all dissolved solids (per their included meter). I think I'll try adding some Third Wave Water minerals to that to see what difference it makes.
Thanks James. Happy New Year.
I just know before watching this that this video will make my coffee routine more time consuming...
I use a Brita filter for... everything. My espresso maker, kettle for tea, and also for the countertop ice maker. With teas you can also taste the difference between water. Depending on what tea you drink and how you make it, that can really bring out the difference in water quality too. I'm currently looking into whole-house filtration, with the aim to buy sometime in the next couple months.
I really need to buy a new one but they really fleece your Wallet dry when buying replacement Filters. -.- Thankfully my Water here in Germany is more in the Middle Already not too Hard or too Soft witch i am Grateful for a friend of mine lives 20-25 kilometers away and his Water is hard af.
My tap water is extremly hard, so I have to buy bottled. But now I'm so exited to make my own custom water with distilled one. Thanks James for an idea and Happy New Year!!!
As someone who brews beer I'm used to figuring out water chemistry every time I brew. It just dawned on me that I could do that with the water I use for coffee. This was the first video I found on the topic. I just made the buffer and MG solution from the baristahustle and I'm going to try out some of the recipes they have posted. I might also mess around with adding stuff like calcium chloride and gypsum that I use when brewing beer. Thanks for this video.
"...way, way, way back in the early 2000's..."
I feel old.
Peace.. Shalom.. Salam.. Namaste and Thank You Everybody for All that you are doing to Heal our Mother Earth 🙏🏻 😊 🌈 ✌ 🌷 ☮️❤️
Another great video. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on custom water recipe building. I fill 5 gallon jugs of RO water and add third wave water sticks to it. Works for espresso and filter setup quite well
Finally been waiting for this
James...
I considered myself to be a coffee enthusiast.
However when I listen to you, I realise that I know nothing. NOTHING!😌
You know nothing John S... Reli Arras
Some numbers "out of a spectrum":
- Calcium 30-50 mg/L (mineral water: 5)
- Magnesium 15-30 ml/L (mineral water: 2)
- Buffer 50-75 ppm (mineral water: ?)
It's all mg/L to simplify ;). One way he didn't spoke of is the dilution of the tap water with pure water. Depending of the ratios of course
Greetings from the bay area.
I normally brew my coffee in distilled water (abomination.. I know..); I've been doing that for years and years, chiefly for the reason that I don't want any limescale on my boilerplates. I didn't know it could cause corrosion in my electric kettle. Good thing to look out for, thanks for the info.
I visited a roastery here in Emeryville, CA for a coffee tasting. Counter Culture is the name of the coffee producer, and I spoke to them about using distilled water. They said that, first and foremost, if your brewing method is working for you, keep doing it, there's no reason to change something that's working well. They did mention that distilled water might over-extract the coffee and make it overly bitter.
I normally mix evaporated milk with my coffee so bitterness is never an issue.
Thanks for the in-depth and informative video.
I live in Chicago and use Brita filtered tap water to make my coffee. The tap water just tastes funny in the coffee without the filtration. Love you and your channel! I use my Moka pot all the time now because of you. Happy New Year!
I'm actually so fortunate as to have exceptionally good tasting water which brews really good coffee, so I've not had to get down this particular rabbit hole!
Do you life in the Netherlands?
@@erwins5012 No, in southern Sweden, as a matter of fact.
@@Dark0000Jester Nice, I can imagine good quality water there as well :D
I work at a bagel and coffee shop, we have giant water softener and each faucet gets its own filter. It makes a huge difference when the softener breaks down. We have a giant kettle to boil the dough, and just a day or two of hard water makes it much, MUCH more difficult to clean at the end of the day. If the hard water splashes on the ground from one of the soup warmers, it dries in giant, white splotches. I would certainly expect to taste the difference.
Glad you're getting this information out in an approachable way. 👍
James this info was SO helpful. Really appreciate you.
During long backpacking trips, I often use the rainwater I collected to make coffee.
It tastes surprisingly different compared to the average tapwater, in a good way.
Should be softer I think? Or maybe more acidic if you are unlucky (acid rain)
"...let me give you a quick overview"
I check on the video length... 17:25
This better be worth it
... it was!
I once had a cup of coffee brewed with water so hard it had a skin on top, almost like pudding when it cools. Water, as the majority ingredient in a cup of coffee, is way more important than people think.
Thanks for the episode!
Many people have talked about this topic before, and even though you didn't offer a "the end solution" you did an excellent job explaining something that it can be very tricky to explain. I did many experiments with water and read some books on this topic, as you I know it can be very tricky to get the best out of the water one is currently using; you mentioned Maxwell Colona-Dashwood, I bought the Peak Water he invented hoping to find in it a "permanent" solution to this problem, the concept is great, I'm just waiting for it to arrive, hopefully this will bring the solution we all are looking for. I gave up using distilled and de-ionized water not only because it contributes to generate more contamination (the vessels they come in) but because it can be very expensive, at least in Ireland, 4 liters of de-ionized water cost around €8, distilled water is around €16 I think for two liters, plus here you don't find it in the closest store, I used it for at least 6 months before I gave up, too expensive and sometimes not available either. At the moment I'm using tap water that I put through a Brita water jug, It is consistent when reading the TDS and the taste of the coffee is excellent, I tried also Third Wave Water but in this part of the world it can be a bit expensive to use in a daily basis considering the prices of the water quality is recommended (distilled, de-ionized) to use for this product, it was great to experiment with it though!
As an introduction this video will help new coffee lovers to better understand why we see coffee as an art and not just as another "hot drink". Great job putting together all this info. Happy new year @James Hoffmann
Last time I was this early, the beans weren’t even roasted yet
😅
James... JAMES.... James!!
Please stop making me do so much chemistry at home, I only have so many hours in a day.
I've got my morning coffee routine down to only 2 hours
As a Belgian, I always love using Spa Reine for coffee, or just drinking... Glad you agree!
Anyway, Happy New Year, to many new great future content!
Ok, so I have well water that I filter sediment out of- then RO filter. I then take baking soda and Mg citrate mix that I put in my grounds or mix in my brew until it tastes "best" All after watching you!! Thanks for the challenge to try something new to exact a better brew after a lifetime of OK coffee.
The "it will ruin your day" line cracked me up
As someone who has lived in areas with very hard water and areas with soft water, it confuses me that it wouldn't be obvious the water matters a great deal to the hypothetical eye-rollers.
What your water is like even makes a huge difference for what shampoo/conditioner products work, and whether or not tap water actually is pleasant or unpleasant to drink, and how difficult it is for your washing machine to clean your clothes...
In the category of things I didn't expect but had a massive impact on my life after moving from NZ to Europe.
I love my water softener! I wonder if 50/50 softened/tap water would be good. Going to try it!
hello, what a pleasure to finally be able to enjoy your channel thanks to the automatic translation. gosh, i didn't imagine that it was so complicated for water. in France, Volvic mineral water is famous for coffee and tea. personally, i use tap water that is not chlorinated, naturally filtered (TH of 11.7°f, pH of 6.9)
good continuation and be well
This is exactly what I was looking for. I have been experimenting with water for my coffee. Water makes a big difference when I brew my coffee.
i already knew that i didn’t know anything about coffee. you didn’t have to rub it in
listening you talk is so soothing. it's like david atenborough talking about koala bears.
I just discovered him. He is soothing in a stressful time
Honestly, I would listen to James just doing _commercials_ for an hour or so. The interesting and entertaining content is icing on the cake. And watching James suffer for our sins, that's the cherry on top. ;)
Posting my little experiment here:
I recently bought a Peak water filter. I live a couple hours south of Denver, CO and my water company describes the water as 'hard to very hard' but does not give specific ppm or breakdown the specific components, except for contaminates. On the whole, our water is excellent and tasty, but hard.
I used the test kit in the Peak starter kit and the result was roughly 140 (the manual doesn't give a scale of what that means, and the resolution is pretty poor, but something like 140 ppm of calcium and magnesium combined). This is in fact harder than generally considered desirable.
I then primed the filter per the instructions and set the dial to 3.2 as directed, and retested. The result was obviously different- the test strip put the hardness pretty squarely at 80 ppm.
Tasting my tap water vs the filtered water, the difference was subtle but present- the filtered water had a noticeably different texture and felt a little more silky in the mouth. Both filtered and unfiltered water tasted great, but subtly different. I won't try to describe how- just to say it was perceivable when I was paying attention.
I then brewed two single cup v60s with tap vs filtered water, as scientifically as I could. Corvus Coffee, Dead Reckoning (medium-light roast, blend). 14g in, 220 ml out in almost exactly the same 3 min. I then tasted both coffees side by side with only 1° C difference in temperature at ~55°C.
The difference was much more noticeable than just drinking water, but still subtle. The filtered water brew (~80ppm) was clearly more balanced and sweetness forward. The tap water brew (~140ppm) was good but noticeably flat in comparison and the bitterness was more noticeable. But to put it in some perspective, I would subjectively rate the tap water brew an arbitrary 7 and the filtered brew an 8 in comparison.
Conclusions: the peak water pitcher works as advertised. I do agree subjectively that softer water makes better coffee.
I think I want to dial the Peak Water pitcher in a notch higher (so a little more water passes through the filter and the water is a touch softer). I consider the whole ordeal worthwhile and, while I already found my coffee very good, using the Peak water pitcher is easy and I look forward to using it from now on.
I’m super lucky and fussy...
I work in a coffee factory so I am able to take water home from there and it is amazing. We recently got the BWT filter installed and I like it a lot.
I look forward to comments and critiques! My current strategy is this on water: I start with “zero water” it is a simple to use pitcher style water filter than removes 100% of dissolved solids in my water. Starting from a consistent easy to obtain baseline I can then add magnesium and other needed solids in Precise amounts to obtain the perfect water for coffee after experimenting. First I’m working on the perfect roast sequence before I start on the mineral balance of my water. I’m brewing with a Technovorm drip brewer, an OXO burr grinder and have an aero roaster on the way. The Technovorm and Burr grinder with base zero water has made better coffee than I’ve ever had! I’m looking forward to refining things with self roasting and water balancing. Thanks for all the videos that I’ve learned so much from! Educational comments are much appreciated!
That seems like a good approach, though I'm not sure I would actually try brewing with the 0 TDS water. Once you add minerals, I think you will find that the extraction is much higher and will need to dial in again.
I've been using the Zero filter then one of the recipes form BaristaHustle. I think it works fine but I need to test the water to see what I'm really getting
@@marcmakes1725 did you do the test and maybe using this flow of Zero Water Filter -> BaristaHustle recipe now? I'm about to do the same thing as I don't want to buy distilled water jugs
Shout-out to Third Wave Water, changed everything for me
James. I am a professional beer brewer. This is a topic I have covered with beer extensively.
This is also a topic I have wondered about with coffee.
Thank you for this jumping off point.
I enjoy vacuum pots and French press and have been home roasting beans for close to 20 years now.
This is the next important topic I need to address to improve my coffee experience.
James I truly enjoy and benefit from your and others experience with coffee. Thank you...
I have especially benefited from this video on water. I now use distilled water and add 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/8 teaspoon of epsom salt per liter which has dramatically improved my coffee experience.
This is a nerd paradise 😍😍😍
I’ve tried tap, fridge filter, and distilled. Distilled with a splash of filtered seems to be fair but I look forward to more accurately composing it.
Water is frustrating, especially because of chlorine.
I use one of those jug filters with cartridges designed for very hard water areas (our tap water is basically liquid limescale). Can definitely taste when it needs changing both in coffee and tea, even before it starts to leave water marks in the kettle.
we do to but the Brita cartridges start to degrade quickly and we could easily change a cartridge every week- but this becomes a £250 a year outlay so we try and get 3-4 weeks out of them - the kettle starts scaling after a week of charging the cartridge - Lincolnshire UK
first video of 2020: the ultimate aeropress technique????
Lime scela: *exists
An espresso machine: *frustrated sounds*
Happy New Year, James! We use captured rainwater run through a Big Berkey water filtration system. I haven't analyzed it to find out the mineral content, but it tastes good and it makes great coffee, as long as I purchase great beans! Thanks for sharing. :-)
I’ve recently been using bottled water, but have been wondering about distilled. This video has educated me. I will mineralize my own and try on my most recent obsession; the moka pot, then my French press, then my percolator....... I love coffee 😊
Next video: the influence of magnetic field on your coffee beans!
Couldn't someone make a tablet that when added to distilled water would represent a good combination?
Third Wave water sells minerals in little packets