u/DoshForGold

We moved about 18 months ago to a house on well water and I have played around with using straight up tap water, bottled water, and water from a reverse osmosis machine I bought at Costco. After finally burning out the element in my 13 year old Rancilio Silvia (probably due to the poor water choices), I started looking into what the ideal water/mineral composition would be. My understanding is that bottle water is pretty decent but very annoying, wasteful, and expensive. Using straight well water was obviously stupid. Using RO water is much better but also not ideal because it removes almost all the minerals, contributing is a flat tasting espresso and potentially damaging the machine components by leaching minerals from the metal.

I saw you can buy little tablets on Amazon to remineralize water for espresso but they cost about $2/gallon of water, which seems absurd to me. Then I learned it is fairly easy to mix the minerals and just dissolve a small amount into the water reservoir when refilling. This option makes the most sense to me.

I have a big jug of scent-free epson salt that I thought I might be able to mix with baking soda as a very simple and inexpensive solution. The epson salt is actually intended for bathing but according to the label it is just pure magnesium sulfate, so should be fine??? I wanted to ask the experts on here what is the best/most convenient recipe is for remineralizing RO water.

I’ve been brewing espresso with my Rancilio Silva and Rocky grinder for almost 15 years. My Silvia is currently being rebuilt (waiting for parts) so I decided I might benefit from an upgraded grinder. The Rocky works but it does produce clumps, is difficult to fine tune, pretty noisy and basic. I am too lazy to weigh my coffee so normally just eyeball it, which can cause occasional disappointment. I will likely upgrade my old Silvia to a proper dual boiler, maybe an ECM Synchronika, at some point after I get it functioning again but not in a huge rush.

Hence, I am looking for a gbw grinder to assist my laziness. I have no intention to single dose, as I roast my own beans and go through them pretty quickly. The best option from my research looks like the w Libra 65 AP (priced around $1300 CAD). Curious what the experts think about this choice. Should I be spending more to get something more premium and is this machine a big enough step up from my old Rocky to make it worth my while?

The Mahlkonig e64 looks interesting but I was turned off by the made in China and qc issue reports. That would probably be around the top of my budget. Are there other models I should be considering here?

Edit - prices in Canadian Peso.