Soft Water!

Broadsider

Hi all
I've just spent the evening changing out the element in my Rancilio Silvia. It's only a year old but apparently they are noticing problems with the newly designed bolt on elements. Hopefully the new and improved bolt on will last longer than the original!
Anyway, after much cursing and skinning of knuckles, the old , very limescaled element was pulled, and I realised I need to either descale more or use a softer bottled water.
I'm lazy by nature so I'm opting for the latter!
Do you coffee gurus recommend any particular low calcium bottled water I can rely on?
P.S. Bar the breakdown I totally love the coffee the Silvia produces and would still highly recommend it. Can't wait for the early morning extraction!

Doodee

Broadsider wrote: »

Hi all
I've just spent the evening changing out the element in my Rancilio Silvia. It's only a year old but apparently they are noticing problems with the newly designed bolt on elements. Hopefully the new and improved bolt on will last longer than the original!
Anyway, after much cursing and skinning of knuckles, the old , very limescaled element was pulled, and I realised I need to either descale more or use a softer bottled water.
I'm lazy by nature so I'm opting for the latter!
Do you coffee gurus recommend any particular low calcium bottled water I can rely on?
P.S. Bar the breakdown I totally love the coffee the Silvia produces and would still highly recommend it. Can't wait for the early morning extraction!

Would a filter in the water tank not be an option?
Regular descaling is of course the best option. If you know anyone with a sandblaster you can remove the scale from the element on boiler.

Prenderb

Wouldn't a drop of vinegar run through the machine every so often help to prevent limescale buildup?

Broadsider

Thanks for the posts
I'm not anti - descaling, just would like to cut down on the amount of descaling needed.
Prevention better than cure and all that.

keith_d99

I don't know if makes any difference, but I fill my coffee machine with a Brita jug

Senecio

keith_d99 wrote: »

I don't know if makes any difference, but I fill my coffee machine with a Brita jug

I use a Brita also on my Silvia. It doesn't remove all minerals but it does enough to reduce the effect of lime scale.

Quote from the Brita Website

Does the BRITA water filter cartridge remove all minerals from drinking water?

The BRITA water filter cartridge only partially removes the hardness from drinking water. This part is temporary hardness, which causes scale deposits during cooking. It does not remove all of the minerals from the water. It reduces the concentration of calcium and magnesium with cation ion exchange resins, but theses substances are not completely removed as in desalination systems or industrial plants that use reverse osmosis or distillation processes, for example.

Broadsider

Thanks for that, I assumed you'd need to heat water to remove lime scale. Sounds like brita is the way to go ...