Watering Hole: A collection of water recipes

This is just water that I find works for coffees that appear to reward tryharding, but I also find it works well for most "clean washed" coffees within my window of roast preferences. Hydrangea, Moonwake, Sey, Norml, Datura, Shoebox, Big Sur, Memli, Robert Asami, Tanat, Clarimento, Lazy Schnauzer etc.

15/04, (35ppm reported via EC) but I will dial up from there as I get familiar with this revision. I'm going to leave out the more in depth math for the component contributions because I still struggle with it myself, and IMHO better for me to stick to what I taste vs making up a story that gives a misleading idea that I know what I'm doing. I'm not a water scientist, and it is not a priority for me to become one. But I do prioritize figuring out what makes for more fun cups. In any case, the water and my workflow are heavily based off of the work of timas.jpg and terebat, with further curiosity driven by Robert and kimoi but dialed to what's fun for me right now.

This profile was designed to maximize clarity while maintaining balanced extraction. The equal split between calcium and magnesium provides (30GH). Magnesium provides extraction efficiency and brightness; Calcium provides structure, sweetness, and mouthfeel. The low alkalinity (10 KH) prevents acidity from being muted, allowing coffees to express vibrant fruit, floral aromatics, complex acidity without becoming harsh or sour.

Designed for expressive, high-clarity filter coffee. Overall Profile: 30 GH / 10 KH (ppm as CaCO3). Balanced hardness with low alkalinity to highlight acidity, sweetness, and flavor separation.

No sodium at all — the buffer is entirely potassium bicarbonate. Hardness is 118 ppm and all of it arrives as chloride, which is a lot of chloride for anything with a metal boiler.

Supposedly designed for longer espresso ratios.

It highlights acidity and brings forth a level of complexity that's very enjoyable in light/extra-light coffees and longer ratios. It has a very low buffer so that the acidity can shine, but it can also be overwhelming. You'll find a lot of juicy and tart, and malic acidity. It's punchy but rounded with a smooth finish and a long linger. Not for clinically dissecting coffee notes or heavily processed beans (gets really cursed).

Note: This is an approximation of Melbourne's water, which has plenty more mineral variety.

81/3.6

This is the same as Holy Water but with sodium bicarbonate instead of potassium bicarbonate. Uses Montcalm mineral water with added sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) & magnesium sulfate (epsom salt).

I’m using this recipe to make soup on the Meticulous and Oxo Rapid Brewer around 1:8-12; a wide range.

My soup approach doesn’t prioritize body or texture, it’s closer to pourover.

Noob-friendly, non-scaling water recipe for espresso machines with boilers. By design, there is no hardness. Consider replacing potassium bicarbonate with sodium bicarbonate.

The SCA guideline water for their tasting protocols.

"We use very soft water in the roastery for our filter - double filtered. For the water nerds: 45-60ppm and 1-2 dGH (=~36GH) and 1dKH (=~18KH). London inbound tap water is very high in calcium but low in magnesium - that ratio is preserved via the filtering, and we do no post remineralisation."

Note - Assumed MgSO4 (epsom salt) as the magnesium source, CaCl2 as the calcium source, NaHCO3 (baking soda) as the KH source

This recipe is a great baseline recipe with few components that someone can easily build upon and adjust to their liking. It's designed for light roasts like Sey in mind, but can work with Ultralight roasts as well, especially with adjustments to preference. It's also designed for washed coffees and cleaner naturals/honeys. For funk, may not work great.

Flavor presentation: When brewing roasts of washed coffees with acidic characteristics, I get a lot of citrus, stonefruit, malic. Presentation typically leans acidic and is dynamic with different acidities and layers. There's usually some effervescence and a linger which alters based on dial/burr. Roasts: Use for light to ultralight. For ultralight, bumping tds of the whole thing can help (just 1.5x or double comp), though this varies on the roaster.

Note - Since this is a natural source, these value and mineral selections are a proxy. The shop runs this through a charcoal filter.

Dosed as Lotus drops, so the grams here are this database's conversion of Vibrant's stated ppm, not weights Vibrant published. Their drop calibration is internally consistent: 1 drop per gallon = 1.2 ppm = 4.54 ppm·L, which is the 20 ppm per drop they quote for a 225 ml cup.

From Vibrant Coffee Roasters — How Water Affects Your Coffee Brew (https://www.vibrantcoffeeroasters.com/blog/waterandcoffee)