today we're going to be talking about
the best water to use to make the most
delicious cup of coffee if that's made
you roll your eyes and you're thinking
now I have to worry about the water that
I brew with it was already complicated
enough well know that this topic makes
me kind of angry more frustrated than
anything else
I wish it were easy I wish that any
water would make any coffee taste good
but that isn't the case and using water
that has some problems means that you're
not going to extract the coffee that you
buy or you're gonna make the coffee that
you extract taste much worse so you're
gonna ask what makes water good or bad
surely if it tastes clean and pleasant
then it's good if it tastes kind of
chlorine and disgusting then it's bad
and that is true but it is unfortunately
a bit more complicated than that but if
you do know a little bit about water
chemistry and coffee know that we're not
gonna get super hardcore into the
chemistry today so let me give you a
very quick overview that is so simple
that I might feel like I'm lying to you
there are two aspects to water and it's
its contents that are particularly
important when it comes to brewing
coffee the first are the mineral ions
most commonly we're going to talk about
calcium and magnesium these are really
useful ions if they're in the water they
actually help with the extraction of the
coffee flavors helping them go into
solution to create a delicious cup of
coffee if you have no mineral ions
you'll have very little extraction
compared to having a lot of ions and
then having a lot of extraction but that
doesn't mean that more is necessarily
better now the other thing to really
worry about is what's called the
bicarbonate or alkalinity of the water
this refers to the ability of that water
to sort of buffer its pH to maintain its
pH around about 7 if you have a lot of
bicarbonate if you have a lot of
alkalinity it'll take a lot more acid
added to that to turn the solution
acidic in the case of coffee while
coffee is pretty acidic when you extract
a bunch of stuff in coffee
those are acids it has a low pH when you
brew it so the more buffer that you have
the less acidity
ultimately you're experiencing your cup
of coffee and again more does not equal
better to little bicarbonate is a
problem those acids in the coffee will
run rampant they'll be uncontrolled
unbalanced unpleasant too much buffer
then everything is just kind of boring
dull brown tasting to be avoided with
both of these things there's a middle
ground where things tend to taste pretty
great so what is that what is the
perfect water again I can't give you a
very simple answer for that firstly I
will say if you buy from one roaster
continuously if you buy their coffee all
the time
find out what their water is like
matching your water to theirs as much as
is possible or practical will get you
much closer to those tasting notes that
they're writing on the bag if you're
brewing with water that's a long way
away from theirs you'll just have a very
different taste experience to them which
can be a little bit frustrating as for
what might be a good guideline well
again it's tricky because calcium and
magnesium while they are both mineral
ions well they're a little bit different
they don't do the same job exactly and
having the same amount of calcium in one
water as you have magnesium in another
will produce different tasting cups of
coffee when you brew with those two
waters generally speaking a little bit
more calcium is preferable if that's
your primary ion a little bit less is
preferable if magnesium is your primary
ion there are ways to tell how much
stuff is in your water you can very
cheaply get a TDS kit but that's not
terribly helpful a TDS meter will give
you the total dissolved solids for the
water but it won't tell you what those
solids are could be your calcium could
be your magnesium could be all something
else that happens to conduct electricity
it's not very insightful
aside from tds meters there are really
two ways that you can know about the the
composition of your water firstly if
it's coming out of your tap well in many
parts of the world you can put in your
postcode or your zip code into your
water authorities website and they will
give you an exhaustive breakdown of the
minerals inside that water that is
definitely useful it's usually free in
most parts of the world go and check
that out that's essential if the waters
been treated or softened in some way
then pretty much the best way to assess
it is with a dropper kit they're pretty
cheap well I'm sure there are links
available
and you take a sample of water and you
add drops to it until it changes color
and those droplets give you an
indication of total hardness and
carbonate hardness those can be
converted so you can find out sort of
how much mineral hardness is in there
and how much bicarb is in there two
really useful not incredibly accurate
but will certainly get you to a useful
place so let's take an example let's
take my water let's say it's three
hundred parts calcium it's got a really
high level of bicarbonate what should it
be what should I be aiming for if I'm
trying to treat this water where should
I be going and that's a really difficult
thing to tell you right like just to
give you some numbers we'll give you a
recipe but there is no one answer all of
this exists in a range in a spectrum and
so if I was talking about calcium I
might say 30 to 50 parts calcium is good
but if it was magnesium I might say more
like 15 to 30 parts per million or
milligrams per liter is good
similarly with buffer I might say so
between 5075 maybe ppm so while that's
my recommendation know that there are
other recommendations there are specs
that are used in international coffee
competitions that are available online
the sca the Specialty Coffee Association
they offer a guideline I kind of range
for various things when it comes to
water quality that's free and available
online so check that out too and if you
really want to experiment at the end of
all of this well we'll talk about that
we'll talk about creating your own
custom mineral water and how you might
do that but we'll save that to the end
so let's talk about treating water in
the home right many people have bought
things like Brita water filters and to
some extent for some good reason you
know what I'm talking about these things
and these things are not what you want
them to be they're not a solution and
they're not an easy fix but they're not
entirely bad these things do a little
bit of softening but not too much they
definitely improve the taste of the
water if your water has off tastes like
chlorine or other unpleasant flavors but
they don't really do a great job
softening so I'm not against them but
they don't fix the problem and bear in
mind the problem with hard water is not
just that it doesn't make great tasting
coffee
the problem with hard water is limescale
and when I
two coffee machines espresso machines
filter machines heating that water up
causes limescale to precipitate out and
that can easily damage break clogged
frustrate your coffee machine in case
you're curious how these things work
well we can take out a filter from these
things well cut it open and we'll talk
you through what's going on inside one
because I just think that's interesting
so here's your familiar Brita filter and
if we just open it up like this you can
see that they're not particularly
complicated things inside at the top
here you've got a pretty simple filter
mesh that is just like a tiny sieve to
remove any particulate matter
make sure there's no floaty bits in the
water as it goes into the main
filtration section and below that there
are lots of these little tiny kind of
beads and there's there's two types here
now I'm pretty confident that the darker
ones are active carbon they're
essentially kind of charcoal and what
they do is mop up off tests any kind of
chlorine II flavors will get cleaned up
by active carbon if you see something as
charcoal filtered for flavor that's
what's going on the other little beads
are essentially ion exchange beads that
they're negatively charged and they
attract the calcium and in their place
release a sodium ion now that doesn't
make the water salty typically you're
not releasing sodium chloride which is
table salt you're just releasing the
sodium ion on its own that does not form
lime scale and there's no health
concerns ring like that with your salt
intake don't worry about this stuff it's
just a nice way to essentially switch
out a calcium for sodium it will do an
okay job but it is finite alright at
some point it will release all of the
sodium that it has and so it will not do
any more softening and even brand new
fresh they're not super super effective
with very hard water so what else can we
do well you could add in a commercial
water fill for at home but most of the
time that's just doing what the proto
filter is doing on a much larger scale
and it does make it much more effective
but it also makes it way way more
expensive and then you have options like
reverse osmosis and I'll do my best to
explain it quickly you press your your
mineralized water against a mesh that is
so fine that only water can get through
but the minerals can't it's applied with
pressure and anything else is
who runs off down the side of the filter
and out and becomes waste reverse
osmosis units are incredibly wasteful
what you get out of it though is nearly
pure water which again isn't actually
ideal if you put distilled water into a
coffee machine
well that's typically bad because it can
become quite corrosive and again we know
that we need some minerals in order to
get the best tasting coffee from an
extraction perspective so pure ro is not
desirable and there are some home units
available and I'll be looking at a
couple in the not-too-distant future but
in most cases they produce water there's
actually too soft it'll taste fine and
it won't be so soft that it's actually
corrosive but it won't be their best
possible water you may need to find some
way to remineralize it which can be
complicated so again that's not a great
solution if your water is just a little
bit hard it's not super hard then
something like a Brita is kind of
actually okay and not a terrible
solution it'll get you kind of ballpark
but certainly hard and waters they are a
frustration so what else your options
well there's one option that's pretty
popular but it is one of my least
favorites
it's inelegant frustrating wasteful
environmentally unsound and then of
course is bottled water in Europe and
many parts of the world it's a kind of
requirement in bottled water to put the
mineral content on the label often on
the back and they'll give you the exact
quantity of magnesium and calcium and
your bicarbonate and a bunch of other
stuff in milligrams per liter which is
really useful and you could go out and
find a mineral water that works well for
you I quite like this one even though
it's way low on the mineral content but
it still makes a good tasting coffee but
do remember you're looking for a balance
a balance of those minerals and that
bike up there are plenty of waters out
there that have what seemed like the
right mineral content but have
inadequate bio-cop they producing with
its harsh and acidic in a kind of
unpleasant way so to be avoided but I
just can't recommend this to you I can't
in all good conscience in good faith
recommend something that is ultimately
wasteful and environmentally unsound
it's definitely a solution and if you
are occasionally in need of some special
water or some better brewing water yes
mineral water is an option
I just feel like it's a very stupid
solution to a problem but I can't deny
it's a solution and so I have to talk
about it here so what else have we got
well one option is to get water from a
local cafe or a local roastery that
treats its water not every business is
going to do this for you not every
business is going to be interested in
that but I hope more and more get on
board with the idea of sharing the water
that they're making now I don't think I
could ask a cafe to give that away for
free there is a cost for them in
creating good tasting water for coffee
so I would expect to pay something not
just expect them to give you two three
five liters of water free but talk to
your local cafe they may be open to this
now we've covered a lot of ground here
there's a lot of information and you may
want to do some more reading so I've put
together a kind of reading list on my
website the website that I built with
today's sponsor which is Squarespace if
you need to build a website that is
beautiful elegant personal and robust
that I would recommend Squarespace
they've helped me build multiple
websites now that have showcased the
work that I've done in the form of a
book or the work that I do day to day so
even if it's a portfolio of your art or
you want to showcase your hobby or the
thing that you're passionate about or
you want to showcase your business your
cafe your restaurant it doesn't matter
Squarespace is a great way to start with
your idea and your identity take a
template and turn those two things into
a unique and beautiful website don't
take my word for it go to Squarespace
comm and sign up for a trial build a
website create something and when you're
ready to launch
use code James Hoffman for 10% off your
first domain or website purchase thanks
to Squarespace for sponsoring this video
now we're getting pretty low on options
on solutions to their particular problem
but there is one big one left that I do
need to talk about but there's no way I
can really really get into it without
doubling or tripling the length of this
video so perhaps when we'll talk more
about in depth in the future and that is
about creating your own custom mineral
water if you joined me for the world's
largest coffee tasting which we may do
again soon then you've already been
through that experience of buying pure
demon realized water and adding a sachet
minerals to it in order to create
custom recipe and doing that in that
case let people all around the world
brew with identical water which I
thought was just the coolest thing but
you don't even need a sachet as much as
third wave water is a nice little
solution that is available just off the
shelf if you want to go harder than this
you can you can get a bunch of distilled
water and go and buy your individual
components for the mineral content you
can use magnesium in the form of Epsom
salt that's cheap and easier to get hold
of and for the bicarbonate you can just
use sodium bicarbonate which is baking
soda which is incredibly cheap and easy
to get hold of and you can very simply
put a small amount of those into
distilled water and then carefully
dilute that down again into a much
larger quantity of distilled water to
very accurately very carefully compose
mineral water now I I just can't talk
about this subject without giving an
enormous shout out to barista hustle
many of you are familiar with Bristol
it's Matt Berger's kind of coffee brain
trust that puts out enormous amounts of
information into the world if you are
not aware of it go to Bristol hustle
calm right now and stop watching this
video and go and learn some really cool
stuff they did a ton of work on
composing your own water they really
popularized this they have calculators
to do it yourself to creator and recipes
they have calculators for taking very
soft water from your tap and
mineralizing it a little bit more to get
it into a really good zone for coffee
brewing this is unquestionably extreme
as a solution it's a little bit
expensive to buy demineralized water
it's a little bit of your time and
effort to do this stuff it requires
accuracy and patience and a willingness
to do it but the results are really
really interesting and are definitely
enjoyable when it comes to making
delicious coffee in the morning it's
really nice to just not worry about the
quality of water that you're brewing
with and if you live in a hard water
place that's an almost unimaginable
thought so
go and check out Bristol hustle have a
little look at that there are
recommendations from various people like
Scott Rowe and others on their
recommended water and recipes and you
can begin to understand how wide a range
there is around this and one more shout
out has to go to Maxwell Colonna
Dashwood and Christopher Henderson with
for coffee which really dug into what's
doing what and why
it gives you a great primer on water
chemistry I think it's pretty hard to
get hold of at the moment but I'll stick
some links in the description down below
if you really want to understand this a
little bit more I think it is great
reading and again this is not entirely
new I remember reading great stuff by
Jim Shulman way way way back in the
early 2000s he'd done a bunch of work on
this stuff too it's been a known problem
for a long time water really is the most
frustrating thing it can hold you back
from getting out the value and quality
that is in the bag of beans that you
bought it drives me kind of crazy that
it seems so simple but it's so
complicated and little changes can have
a massive massive impact and you know
what don't believe me think this is all
a nonsense go and go and brew two cups
of coffee get a French press brew two
cups of coffee one with soft water one
with hard it's not difficult to do and
it will ruin your day because the
difference is enormous and it's not just
testable by professional tasters or
coffee geeks or obsessives it's anyone
everyone can taste the difference
between good water and bad but I'd like
to hear your thoughts what are you doing
for water at home you just use the tap
water as it's soft enough or is it hard
do you feel frustrated sometimes that
the coffee you make simply is not as
good as the coffee from the local coffee
shop that certain Sparkle that sends
sweetness that their coffee has you just
can't get no matter how good your gear
and how good your technique and so I
hope this is a useful introduction to
the topic let me know what I missed let
me know if there's another treatment
method that you're using or another
solution that you have share it with us
share it with this community we would
all appreciate anyone's ideas and
innovations on the subject I'm going to
say thank you so much for watching and I
hope you have a great day
the best water to use to make the most
delicious cup of coffee if that's made
you roll your eyes and you're thinking
now I have to worry about the water that
I brew with it was already complicated
enough well know that this topic makes
me kind of angry more frustrated than
anything else
I wish it were easy I wish that any
water would make any coffee taste good
but that isn't the case and using water
that has some problems means that you're
not going to extract the coffee that you
buy or you're gonna make the coffee that
you extract taste much worse so you're
gonna ask what makes water good or bad
surely if it tastes clean and pleasant
then it's good if it tastes kind of
chlorine and disgusting then it's bad
and that is true but it is unfortunately
a bit more complicated than that but if
you do know a little bit about water
chemistry and coffee know that we're not
gonna get super hardcore into the
chemistry today so let me give you a
very quick overview that is so simple
that I might feel like I'm lying to you
there are two aspects to water and it's
its contents that are particularly
important when it comes to brewing
coffee the first are the mineral ions
most commonly we're going to talk about
calcium and magnesium these are really
useful ions if they're in the water they
actually help with the extraction of the
coffee flavors helping them go into
solution to create a delicious cup of
coffee if you have no mineral ions
you'll have very little extraction
compared to having a lot of ions and
then having a lot of extraction but that
doesn't mean that more is necessarily
better now the other thing to really
worry about is what's called the
bicarbonate or alkalinity of the water
this refers to the ability of that water
to sort of buffer its pH to maintain its
pH around about 7 if you have a lot of
bicarbonate if you have a lot of
alkalinity it'll take a lot more acid
added to that to turn the solution
acidic in the case of coffee while
coffee is pretty acidic when you extract
a bunch of stuff in coffee
those are acids it has a low pH when you
brew it so the more buffer that you have
the less acidity
ultimately you're experiencing your cup
of coffee and again more does not equal
better to little bicarbonate is a
problem those acids in the coffee will
run rampant they'll be uncontrolled
unbalanced unpleasant too much buffer
then everything is just kind of boring
dull brown tasting to be avoided with
both of these things there's a middle
ground where things tend to taste pretty
great so what is that what is the
perfect water again I can't give you a
very simple answer for that firstly I
will say if you buy from one roaster
continuously if you buy their coffee all
the time
find out what their water is like
matching your water to theirs as much as
is possible or practical will get you
much closer to those tasting notes that
they're writing on the bag if you're
brewing with water that's a long way
away from theirs you'll just have a very
different taste experience to them which
can be a little bit frustrating as for
what might be a good guideline well
again it's tricky because calcium and
magnesium while they are both mineral
ions well they're a little bit different
they don't do the same job exactly and
having the same amount of calcium in one
water as you have magnesium in another
will produce different tasting cups of
coffee when you brew with those two
waters generally speaking a little bit
more calcium is preferable if that's
your primary ion a little bit less is
preferable if magnesium is your primary
ion there are ways to tell how much
stuff is in your water you can very
cheaply get a TDS kit but that's not
terribly helpful a TDS meter will give
you the total dissolved solids for the
water but it won't tell you what those
solids are could be your calcium could
be your magnesium could be all something
else that happens to conduct electricity
it's not very insightful
aside from tds meters there are really
two ways that you can know about the the
composition of your water firstly if
it's coming out of your tap well in many
parts of the world you can put in your
postcode or your zip code into your
water authorities website and they will
give you an exhaustive breakdown of the
minerals inside that water that is
definitely useful it's usually free in
most parts of the world go and check
that out that's essential if the waters
been treated or softened in some way
then pretty much the best way to assess
it is with a dropper kit they're pretty
cheap well I'm sure there are links
available
and you take a sample of water and you
add drops to it until it changes color
and those droplets give you an
indication of total hardness and
carbonate hardness those can be
converted so you can find out sort of
how much mineral hardness is in there
and how much bicarb is in there two
really useful not incredibly accurate
but will certainly get you to a useful
place so let's take an example let's
take my water let's say it's three
hundred parts calcium it's got a really
high level of bicarbonate what should it
be what should I be aiming for if I'm
trying to treat this water where should
I be going and that's a really difficult
thing to tell you right like just to
give you some numbers we'll give you a
recipe but there is no one answer all of
this exists in a range in a spectrum and
so if I was talking about calcium I
might say 30 to 50 parts calcium is good
but if it was magnesium I might say more
like 15 to 30 parts per million or
milligrams per liter is good
similarly with buffer I might say so
between 5075 maybe ppm so while that's
my recommendation know that there are
other recommendations there are specs
that are used in international coffee
competitions that are available online
the sca the Specialty Coffee Association
they offer a guideline I kind of range
for various things when it comes to
water quality that's free and available
online so check that out too and if you
really want to experiment at the end of
all of this well we'll talk about that
we'll talk about creating your own
custom mineral water and how you might
do that but we'll save that to the end
so let's talk about treating water in
the home right many people have bought
things like Brita water filters and to
some extent for some good reason you
know what I'm talking about these things
and these things are not what you want
them to be they're not a solution and
they're not an easy fix but they're not
entirely bad these things do a little
bit of softening but not too much they
definitely improve the taste of the
water if your water has off tastes like
chlorine or other unpleasant flavors but
they don't really do a great job
softening so I'm not against them but
they don't fix the problem and bear in
mind the problem with hard water is not
just that it doesn't make great tasting
coffee
the problem with hard water is limescale
and when I
two coffee machines espresso machines
filter machines heating that water up
causes limescale to precipitate out and
that can easily damage break clogged
frustrate your coffee machine in case
you're curious how these things work
well we can take out a filter from these
things well cut it open and we'll talk
you through what's going on inside one
because I just think that's interesting
so here's your familiar Brita filter and
if we just open it up like this you can
see that they're not particularly
complicated things inside at the top
here you've got a pretty simple filter
mesh that is just like a tiny sieve to
remove any particulate matter
make sure there's no floaty bits in the
water as it goes into the main
filtration section and below that there
are lots of these little tiny kind of
beads and there's there's two types here
now I'm pretty confident that the darker
ones are active carbon they're
essentially kind of charcoal and what
they do is mop up off tests any kind of
chlorine II flavors will get cleaned up
by active carbon if you see something as
charcoal filtered for flavor that's
what's going on the other little beads
are essentially ion exchange beads that
they're negatively charged and they
attract the calcium and in their place
release a sodium ion now that doesn't
make the water salty typically you're
not releasing sodium chloride which is
table salt you're just releasing the
sodium ion on its own that does not form
lime scale and there's no health
concerns ring like that with your salt
intake don't worry about this stuff it's
just a nice way to essentially switch
out a calcium for sodium it will do an
okay job but it is finite alright at
some point it will release all of the
sodium that it has and so it will not do
any more softening and even brand new
fresh they're not super super effective
with very hard water so what else can we
do well you could add in a commercial
water fill for at home but most of the
time that's just doing what the proto
filter is doing on a much larger scale
and it does make it much more effective
but it also makes it way way more
expensive and then you have options like
reverse osmosis and I'll do my best to
explain it quickly you press your your
mineralized water against a mesh that is
so fine that only water can get through
but the minerals can't it's applied with
pressure and anything else is
who runs off down the side of the filter
and out and becomes waste reverse
osmosis units are incredibly wasteful
what you get out of it though is nearly
pure water which again isn't actually
ideal if you put distilled water into a
coffee machine
well that's typically bad because it can
become quite corrosive and again we know
that we need some minerals in order to
get the best tasting coffee from an
extraction perspective so pure ro is not
desirable and there are some home units
available and I'll be looking at a
couple in the not-too-distant future but
in most cases they produce water there's
actually too soft it'll taste fine and
it won't be so soft that it's actually
corrosive but it won't be their best
possible water you may need to find some
way to remineralize it which can be
complicated so again that's not a great
solution if your water is just a little
bit hard it's not super hard then
something like a Brita is kind of
actually okay and not a terrible
solution it'll get you kind of ballpark
but certainly hard and waters they are a
frustration so what else your options
well there's one option that's pretty
popular but it is one of my least
favorites
it's inelegant frustrating wasteful
environmentally unsound and then of
course is bottled water in Europe and
many parts of the world it's a kind of
requirement in bottled water to put the
mineral content on the label often on
the back and they'll give you the exact
quantity of magnesium and calcium and
your bicarbonate and a bunch of other
stuff in milligrams per liter which is
really useful and you could go out and
find a mineral water that works well for
you I quite like this one even though
it's way low on the mineral content but
it still makes a good tasting coffee but
do remember you're looking for a balance
a balance of those minerals and that
bike up there are plenty of waters out
there that have what seemed like the
right mineral content but have
inadequate bio-cop they producing with
its harsh and acidic in a kind of
unpleasant way so to be avoided but I
just can't recommend this to you I can't
in all good conscience in good faith
recommend something that is ultimately
wasteful and environmentally unsound
it's definitely a solution and if you
are occasionally in need of some special
water or some better brewing water yes
mineral water is an option
I just feel like it's a very stupid
solution to a problem but I can't deny
it's a solution and so I have to talk
about it here so what else have we got
well one option is to get water from a
local cafe or a local roastery that
treats its water not every business is
going to do this for you not every
business is going to be interested in
that but I hope more and more get on
board with the idea of sharing the water
that they're making now I don't think I
could ask a cafe to give that away for
free there is a cost for them in
creating good tasting water for coffee
so I would expect to pay something not
just expect them to give you two three
five liters of water free but talk to
your local cafe they may be open to this
now we've covered a lot of ground here
there's a lot of information and you may
want to do some more reading so I've put
together a kind of reading list on my
website the website that I built with
today's sponsor which is Squarespace if
you need to build a website that is
beautiful elegant personal and robust
that I would recommend Squarespace
they've helped me build multiple
websites now that have showcased the
work that I've done in the form of a
book or the work that I do day to day so
even if it's a portfolio of your art or
you want to showcase your hobby or the
thing that you're passionate about or
you want to showcase your business your
cafe your restaurant it doesn't matter
Squarespace is a great way to start with
your idea and your identity take a
template and turn those two things into
a unique and beautiful website don't
take my word for it go to Squarespace
comm and sign up for a trial build a
website create something and when you're
ready to launch
use code James Hoffman for 10% off your
first domain or website purchase thanks
to Squarespace for sponsoring this video
now we're getting pretty low on options
on solutions to their particular problem
but there is one big one left that I do
need to talk about but there's no way I
can really really get into it without
doubling or tripling the length of this
video so perhaps when we'll talk more
about in depth in the future and that is
about creating your own custom mineral
water if you joined me for the world's
largest coffee tasting which we may do
again soon then you've already been
through that experience of buying pure
demon realized water and adding a sachet
minerals to it in order to create
custom recipe and doing that in that
case let people all around the world
brew with identical water which I
thought was just the coolest thing but
you don't even need a sachet as much as
third wave water is a nice little
solution that is available just off the
shelf if you want to go harder than this
you can you can get a bunch of distilled
water and go and buy your individual
components for the mineral content you
can use magnesium in the form of Epsom
salt that's cheap and easier to get hold
of and for the bicarbonate you can just
use sodium bicarbonate which is baking
soda which is incredibly cheap and easy
to get hold of and you can very simply
put a small amount of those into
distilled water and then carefully
dilute that down again into a much
larger quantity of distilled water to
very accurately very carefully compose
mineral water now I I just can't talk
about this subject without giving an
enormous shout out to barista hustle
many of you are familiar with Bristol
it's Matt Berger's kind of coffee brain
trust that puts out enormous amounts of
information into the world if you are
not aware of it go to Bristol hustle
calm right now and stop watching this
video and go and learn some really cool
stuff they did a ton of work on
composing your own water they really
popularized this they have calculators
to do it yourself to creator and recipes
they have calculators for taking very
soft water from your tap and
mineralizing it a little bit more to get
it into a really good zone for coffee
brewing this is unquestionably extreme
as a solution it's a little bit
expensive to buy demineralized water
it's a little bit of your time and
effort to do this stuff it requires
accuracy and patience and a willingness
to do it but the results are really
really interesting and are definitely
enjoyable when it comes to making
delicious coffee in the morning it's
really nice to just not worry about the
quality of water that you're brewing
with and if you live in a hard water
place that's an almost unimaginable
thought so
go and check out Bristol hustle have a
little look at that there are
recommendations from various people like
Scott Rowe and others on their
recommended water and recipes and you
can begin to understand how wide a range
there is around this and one more shout
out has to go to Maxwell Colonna
Dashwood and Christopher Henderson with
for coffee which really dug into what's
doing what and why
it gives you a great primer on water
chemistry I think it's pretty hard to
get hold of at the moment but I'll stick
some links in the description down below
if you really want to understand this a
little bit more I think it is great
reading and again this is not entirely
new I remember reading great stuff by
Jim Shulman way way way back in the
early 2000s he'd done a bunch of work on
this stuff too it's been a known problem
for a long time water really is the most
frustrating thing it can hold you back
from getting out the value and quality
that is in the bag of beans that you
bought it drives me kind of crazy that
it seems so simple but it's so
complicated and little changes can have
a massive massive impact and you know
what don't believe me think this is all
a nonsense go and go and brew two cups
of coffee get a French press brew two
cups of coffee one with soft water one
with hard it's not difficult to do and
it will ruin your day because the
difference is enormous and it's not just
testable by professional tasters or
coffee geeks or obsessives it's anyone
everyone can taste the difference
between good water and bad but I'd like
to hear your thoughts what are you doing
for water at home you just use the tap
water as it's soft enough or is it hard
do you feel frustrated sometimes that
the coffee you make simply is not as
good as the coffee from the local coffee
shop that certain Sparkle that sends
sweetness that their coffee has you just
can't get no matter how good your gear
and how good your technique and so I
hope this is a useful introduction to
the topic let me know what I missed let
me know if there's another treatment
method that you're using or another
solution that you have share it with us
share it with this community we would
all appreciate anyone's ideas and
innovations on the subject I'm going to
say thank you so much for watching and I
hope you have a great day