water filtration

[jimbo]

I am opening a coffee house and I am trying to decide what typre of filter to install for our espresso machine and brewer. Our water is about 20 grains hard, so it is at about the limit of the Everpure Claris capacity. An RO system could work, but I don't know how much water we will go through. So my question is: will a 100 gpd RO system with a 14 gallon tank supply enough water for a basic coffee house?
Thank you in advance for any information provided.

 

[CCafe]

It might. The real concern I would have is the 14 gallon tank. I'd up it to something a little more substantial like a 30 or even a 50 gallon system. 100 gallon RO is going to pump out roughly 4 gallons an hour of treated water. So if somehow you manage to empty your tank and then need more then 4 gallons of water per hour your going to be in a pretty tight space.

I have seen a lot of water filtration failures, even more so from the more complicated RO systems. So having a larger tank will hold you over if your system fails.

The other issue you have is 20 grain water. Most RO systems recommend softening the water if over 10 grains. So adding a water softener before your RO will greatly increase the life of your membranes. Its far easier to remove salt ion's from the water then it is for the membranes to remove mineral content. About the only other thing I might recommend would be to install a prefilter with carbon block before the whole system. RO's really don't get along with chlorine. (Tends to turn the membranes into mud) All RO's have some type of carbon block before the membranes, but if you install a prefilter before the whole system your then your going to have that much more protection.

Now here's where its going to get a tad interesting. There are plenty of units out there but there are not a lot of high efficiency systems. Everpure makes only one as far as I know and that is the MRS-600HE and its not cheap. I've found them for as low as $2400 on the net. List price is about $4500. What sets your HE apart from conventional units is the amount of water discharge. Most systems dump between 3 - 4 gallons of water down the drain to make 1 gallon of RO. The HE dumps 1/2 gallon to make 1 gallon of RO. That is a massive savings especially if your in a drought stricken state with a heavy price on water.

I tell all of my customers that for each shot of espresso you make your machine will consume about 4 ounces of water. So 100 shots will consume around 3 gallons of water. For steam production you may want to add another 1 - 3 gallons of water. Your coffee brewer is even easier. If your brewing into 1 gallon containers and you brew 18 pots a day then your machine uses 18 gallons. Other things to take into consideration is how much people use the hot water tap on both the espresso machine and the coffee brewer. I have witnessed countless stores blow through gallons of water each day on the espresso machine just from washing out the shot pitchers and accessories.

This all adds up. This all needs to be taken into account when sizing. If you go the HE route then running RO to just about anything that uses water is the best route. As for the RO water quality the thing to do is shoot for a nice number around 70 - 150 TDS. This will give you the mineral content you need to make good coffee and espresso while maintaining a solid system that will provide you excellent water quality for years to come.

Just a side thought. Most of my customers who have a properly maintained RO system have very clean machines when it comes time to overhaul their equipment. It blows my mind when I need to use a cup full of acid to descale an espresso machine.

I have a machine right now in my shop that has been acid bathed twice and is currently sitting on day 4 in acid and still has about about 1/16th of an inch of scale concreted to the side wall of the boiler. When this happens I just keep soaking until clean and that really racks up the bill. I'll probably blow through $200 acid before I have the boiler clean. The funny thing about this machine, it was in an environment with about 15 grains on the bar for about 6 years. They were pretty good about maintaining their softener system but it still builds up.

 

[expat]

CCafe, than's for the education. We forget that the most important ingredient in our coffee isn't necessarily the coffee, but the WATER!

 

[jimbo]

Thank you CCafe. I talked with a water filtration guy again and I decided to go with the RO system and added a second tank. It will be the most cost effective route, (as long as we don't run out of water) and we have the room for it. I wish there was something we could do with that waste water, however... We are in a desert here, but the water isn't too expensive yet, maybe due to the natural springs here. But from an environmentally sustainable veiw point, I would like to at least water the vegetation around us with the effluent. Thanks again.

 

[CCafe]

You can. Just run the brine line to an external tank. If your softening the water your want to test the waste water for salt concentration. If its low or non existant then feel free to water what ever with your brine waste water.