Kens Espresso Fueled Ramblings

Many people use the Brita water softener jugs for thier espresso machines but they are not adequate. After only a couple days use the abillity to remove most of the calcium from the water drops to 1/3. it’s easy to test using test strips or if you purchase a pH meter.

Another clear sign that the Brita brand is not al they are hyped up to be is that they are not allowed to advertize in the US where the strict FDA rules applies, because they just don’t work as advertized.

Get yourself something like the DVA-LT4 or DVA-LT8 ion exchange water softener instead. They are cheap and can be recharged easily for the price of a kilo of salt.

I have the DVA-LT8 and have been using it for about a year now. It’s very easy to recharge and one charge using a kilo of salt allows me to decalcify about 500 liters of water before a recharge. I check once a month using a TDS/PPM/PH Hanna meter. If you get a meter make sure it can measure pH as you can’t use TDM/PPS meters on an ion exchanger as TDM/PPM measures dissolved solids and ion exchangers works by simply swapping calcium ions for natrium ions so using TDS it looks like the filter isnt doing anything. Using a pH meter reveals the true story.