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Cheers man. Just out of interest is a battery powered drill powerful enough?
I thought of those security skewers, but couldn't see a decent way of adapting them to the drill. Well not a way that would last/be worth it. That metal option is perfect. Fuck knows why they don't make them hex. Maybe to stop people using a drill?
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Ah good, thanks both.
I'm opening my own shop, all being well- the lease is being sorted out at the moment. I want to install a RO system so that I get consistent water quality, plus it'll be my little secret weapon - none of the other shops in the town understand the need for it.
So there are 6 stage systems with remineralisation ranging from £110 on ebay up to £2.5k for systems like the BWT and La Marzocco which look like they have been designed by Apple.
So I reckon if I sell 100 drinks in a day and that is 60 espresso shots at approx 70ml a time (including rinse flush and water retention in the ground coffee), 20 Americanos at 250ml and 20 filter coffees at 500ml per time.
The glasswasher is stated at 2.2l per cycle and I would expect to run it about 5 times per day.
That's roughly 35l per day.
The cheap ebay systems are rated at 340l/day but I'm told realistically you should expect less than half of that - so if I had a 40l tank which would fill overnight, plus the system will still be generating at least 6l/hour during service, I should be right, right?
I don't expect that this conclusion is correct, but I want to know what £2.5k gets you over the £110 system.
Cheers
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What's your water like? Ro will get rid of all scale forming compounds, but these are also valuable minerals that extract acids and sugars.
You could just use a cartridge filter, we do, on 100-200 cups per day.
Always start with accurate water content measurements and then go from there.
Get your self a good TDS meter and the Red Sea reef water measurement kit. This will allow you to determine Ca, Mg and Kh, levels
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Also, ro isn't always consistent. You'll have to mix in native water to the ro water to have any mineral content. As this is not stable, your brewing water will vary. Plus, efficiency is an issue, RO wastes water, increasing your bill, I certainly wouldn't use it for a dishwasher, a std salt softener recharged weekly is more than good enough.
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In Northampton town centre hopefully. Fingers crossed.
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Lastly, unless you build in accumulator tanks to meet your peak demand, almost all ro systems revert to just tap is demand exceeds the production rate. If you think your going to use 35l per day, I'd allow at least 33% buffer and probably look to have enough tanks to meet 25% of this at any one time. You never have even custom, there are always massive spikes and it's at these times that ro systems can be an issue if not set up correctly. Imo, it's cheaper and more efficient to get a good cartridge system right now.
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Thanks for the reply. The remineralisation systems use a cartridge which adds (I think) bicarb and magnesium to the near 0 TDS RO water to get it close to the 90TDS specified by the SCAA so it is stable, even tunable. The minerals come from the cartridge rather than mixing untreated water in.
I've always used cartridge filter systems and found that they reduce the bad tastes and aromas seemingly by a percentage, so if the water board have fixed a leaking main upstream and done a chlorine purge, it tastes chloriney, just less so than the tap water. This is not the case with RO. I have also torn down espresso machines which have always used cartridge filters and they still get destroyed, just takes a bit longer.
The other thing is I will gain an advantage in flavour over other shops not using RO. I'm going to be roasting in the shop and building a brand so the coffee quality needs to be an order of magnitude above the rest. I'm using Marco SP9s for consistent pourovers because everyone else pours them by hand, gets distracted and fucks them up. Every time. The competition are using decent roasteries and have well trained staff but they don't have deep technical knowledge of tasting so they don't tend to get the fine attention to detail stuff like water and absolute consistency in methods.
So the long and the short is that i want the water to taste consistent, it's the biggest problem i have with brewing coffee here.
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I get it, I've been an engineer for a while now and seen plenty of machines that have been ruined by both ro and cartridge systems.
If you are going to go ro, then spend the money. The cheaper units are made for aquariums so are not designed for commercial cafe use, but it's not a panacea, ro won't be scared give you an advantage, knowledge of your water and its sources is the key here, call your supplier, find out about what sources it uses, what the pumping stations are like etc. We never have issues with chlorine taste, the taint filter on the bestmax premium takes care of if, even at a higher bypass level.
In my opinion, and I'm a Q grader so have done extensive sensory work, I've never known ro make coffee tastes definitely better than a cartridge based system. In both cases it's the care and knowledge of the owner that makes the difference. You are thinking about water as a key part of your offer already, and this puts you in a very small percentage of the cafe owners. This is the difference, not the ro. I'd spend the money elsewhere, or save it for a contingency fund.
If you like I can send you my water analysis sheets as well as my P&L from the first 3 years of the business, give you an idea of what to expect.
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Oh wow that would be awesome, thanks. I definitely need to give this more thought, i am certainly a long way from fully understanding water. I am in touch with a company in merseyside who have the technical knowledge, i'm having a phone call with them on Friday - I'll see what they have to say about RO v Cartridge system.
Out of interest what TDS do your filters output for brewing generally?
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Thanks Matisse I'll email you tomorrow or Friday.
BWT is reassurting, they make the La Marzocco branded system.
Water for coffee - that's Colonic-Posh's book right?
It's the TDS of the water as it leaves the filter i'm interested in, and whether that varies depending on the TDS of the water coming in from the street.
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Cool. I'll be in touch, cheers.
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Nice one, you'll definitely hear about it on here if and when I'm all set up!
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And it works a treat. Yeah I can't imagine one of those lasting as long as something that's purpose built. It's a bit pricey for what it is, but for something not mass-produced it's not surprising.
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@justMouse
New page appeal for any reverse osmosis coffee shop systems advice. Cheers.