My buddy said to use distilled water for my espresso machine, laughed it off for 6 months

So my friend Mike who roasts his own beans kept telling me to stop using tap water in my Gaggia. I figured it was pretentious nonsense. 6 months later I descale the boiler and it looks like a cave formation in there. Had to run 4 descale cycles to get it clean. Now I buy gallon jugs of distilled for $1.50 each. Who else ignored good advice for way too long just because it sounded like overkill?

2 comments

2 Comments

fiona_johnson827d ago

Wait hold on, FOUR descaler cycles? That's insane. I thought I was bad when I let mine go 2 years on Brita filtered tap water and found a few white flakes in the first backflush. But you're saying it looked like a literal cave in there? I just bought my first jug of distilled yesterday after reading a thread like this, gonna check my boiler tonight out of pure panic.

terry_walker7d ago

Hold on, I mean maybe it's just me but distilled water can actually strip minerals out of your boiler over time and cause more wear than a little bit of mild scale. @fiona_johnson82 I'd maybe test the water with a cheap TDS meter before going all in on distilled.