Spent 6 months dialing in my espresso shot and it was my water the whole time

I got a new espresso machine last year and could not get a consistent shot to save my life. Changed grind size, adjusted dose, messed with temperature, nothing worked for months. Finally borrowed a TDS meter from a buddy and my tap water was reading 380 ppm which is way too hard. Switched to bottled spring water at 120 ppm and my shots started pulling perfect on the first try. Anyone else ever waste that long chasing a problem that turned out to be something simple like water quality?

2 comments

2 Comments

jakef668d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, that's brutal but I've been there! Spent three months blaming my grinder before realizing my tap water was so hard it was basically clogging everything up.

logan6488d ago

Shoot yeah that tap water thing is a nightmare. So did you actually test the water hardness or did you just notice the buildup one day? I've been putting off getting a water test for my place cuz I know my city has hard water but I keep telling myself it's fine. How bad did your scale buildup actually get before you figured it out? I'm trying to get a sense if I'm just being paranoid or if I should actually do something about it.