The Coffee Water Fix That Changes Everything — Transcript

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1. 0:00for years outdated science has shaped
2. 0:02how we think about water for coffee and
3. 0:04here's the catch even though we know
4. 0:05better now it might still be holding
5. 0:07back both your filter coffee and
6. 0:09espresso and no matter how much you
7. 0:11spend on your gear this overlooked
8. 0:12Factor could be the difference between a
9. 0:14worldclass coffee or a flat
10. 0:20boring and nasty Brew in this video I'll
11. 0:23break down the myths around ideal water
12. 0:25recipes and give you a much simpler and
13. 0:28more realistic way to understand the Cor
14. 0:30water and once this really clicks inside
15. 0:32your head you'll see coffee water in a
16. 0:35completely different light forever for a
17. 0:37long long time the specialty coffee
18. 0:39Association has recommended that coffee
19. 0:41water should have 40 PPM of bicarbonate
20. 0:44when you dive into the water guidelines
21. 0:46this recommendation stands out because
22. 0:48it's quite a bit more rigid than the
23. 0:50ranges they typically provide for other
24. 0:52water parameters bicarbonate is what
25. 0:55balances how you perceive acidity from
26. 0:57your coffee so it's a pretty big deal to
27. 1:00much gives you a flat and boring cup and
28. 1:02if you have too little then you can get
29. 1:04a sharp and Hollow cup for magnesium and
30. 1:06calcium for example the sca suggest a
31. 1:09pretty wide range of acceptable values
32. 1:12but when it comes to bicarbonates the
33. 1:13stance is pretty clear 40 PBM is the
34. 1:16best if you search around online for
35. 1:18water recommendations you'll probably
36. 1:19find a table like this and then you'll
37. 1:22probably find some other boxes that kind
38. 1:23of built on this recommendation but the
39. 1:26problem is that this info is outdated
40. 1:29and actually SCA knows it's outdated but
41. 1:32they don't do anything about it now I
42. 1:34know this might sound a little bit
43. 1:35controversial but just let me show you
44. 1:37the proof let's first move on to exibit
45. 1:40a and it will become pretty clear why
46. 1:42that 40 PPM recommendation is quite
47. 1:45unreasonable when you say I use 40 PPM
48. 1:48in my coffee water then it might sound
49. 1:50very precise but 40 PPM actually means
50. 1:5240 parts per million which can also be
51. 1:55translated to 40 mg per liter so it's
52. 1:58actually a unit of concentration
53. 2:00think of it like speed if you're driving
54. 2:0260 MPH for 30 minutes then you're only
55. 2:05driving 30 m not 60 it's the same way 40
56. 2:08PPM in different volumes of water means
57. 2:11different total amounts of bicarbonate
58. 2:13now let's look at these two glasses here
59. 2:16and see why this might be problematic in
60. 2:18this one big car here I have my PO oil
61. 2:20coffee I use 20 G of coffee here and 300
62. 2:24mL of water in the other smaller cup I
63. 2:27have my espresso so again I use 20 G of
64. 2:30coffee but this time I only use 60 G of
65. 2:33water to make it easy let's say I have a
66. 2:36standard 20% extraction of each so I'm
67. 2:38going to take 4 G of instant coffee and
68. 2:41that will represent the total extracted
69. 2:43coffee next I'll add my water which
70. 2:45contains the bicarbonates but remember
71. 2:47that 40 PPM is actually 40 Mig per liter
72. 2:50and I'm only using 300 mL of water so
73. 2:54that's less than a third so my 40 mg per
74. 2:57lit becomes 12 mg of B carbonate so I'll
75. 3:01add 12 Mig of bicarbonate to the
76. 3:03extracted coffee and I will do it here
77. 3:06with jelly beans to symbolize
78. 3:09[Music]
79. 3:14bicarbonate now for my 60 mL of espresso
80. 3:17I have a lot less water so I'll do the
81. 3:19math again there are 40 mg of
82. 3:21bicarbonate in 1 liter of water my
83. 3:24espresso shot is only 60 ml which is a
84. 3:27tiny part out of a liter so I'll do the
85. 3:30again and that gives me 2.4 mg of
86. 3:32bicarbonate in the espro so I add around
87. 3:35two and a
88. 3:38half other one goes in here so even
89. 3:41though both of these drings are brewed
90. 3:43with water containing 40 PBM of
91. 3:45bicarbonates they very clearly don't
92. 3:47contain the same amount of bicarbonates
93. 3:50and now the question is which one of
94. 3:51these two will taste more acidic the one
95. 3:54with 12 jelly beans versus the one with
96. 3:562.4 I think the answer is pretty clear
97. 3:59remember remember we have the same
98. 4:00amount of coffee in each cup and Cara
99. 4:03and coffee makes water more acidic it
100. 4:05makes the pH level go down but the
101. 4:08bicarbonate can fight against that I'll
102. 4:10put my money on the 12 beans worth of
103. 4:13bicarbonate so if you ever had espresso
104. 4:16that was tasting too sour or acidic or
105. 4:18filter coffee that was tasting flat and
106. 4:20boring the chances are that this right
107. 4:23here is a good explanation now you might
108. 4:26be thinking if this is so important then
109. 4:27what are the professionals and the
110. 4:29industry doing well I'm glad you asked
111. 4:31because if you look at the bicarbonate
112. 4:33levels and more recent commercial
113. 4:35products especially aimed at poo coffee
114. 4:38for example Apex lab and aqua coat they
115. 4:41have extremely low bicarbonate levels
116. 4:44they are so low that they can't be
117. 4:45measured with a standard titration test
118. 4:47kit so probably under 15 or even 10 PPM
119. 4:51then there's third wave water
120. 4:53interestingly the recipe doesn't include
121. 4:55any bicarbonate at all instead they use
122. 4:58calcium citate which has a buffing
123. 5:00effect similar to bicarbonate if you
124. 5:02translate the effect chemically it's
125. 5:04equivalent to about 40 PPM of
126. 5:06bicarbonate but many lios drinkers
127. 5:08actually cut third water in half meaning
128. 5:10they use half the powder for the same
129. 5:12amount of water and that effectively
130. 5:15brings the bicarbonate level down to
131. 5:17around 20 PPM and I was actually curious
132. 5:19about this so I ran a poll here on
133. 5:21YouTube and 49% of people who watch this
134. 5:24channel use third wave water when it's
135. 5:27watered down to around half strength or
136. 5:30even less when we look at the most
137. 5:32popular DIY Home recipes over the recent
138. 5:34years holy water has probably emerged as
139. 5:37the most recommended one and that recipe
140. 5:40also has a low bicarbonate level of 22.5
141. 5:43PBM there are also many well-known
142. 5:45Coffee Roasters for instance coffee
143. 5:47Collective gelli April lepra and they
144. 5:50are all pretty open about recommending a
145. 5:52very very soft water for the filter
146. 5:55coffee SE coffee the famous roaster from
147. 5:57New York actually has their own mineral
148. 5:58recipe and they recommend 15 PPM of
149. 6:01carbonet hardness in that recipe so
150. 6:03again a lot less than 40 PPM and an
151. 6:05important disclaimer here I'm not saying
152. 6:07that ultra low bicarbonates is always
153. 6:10the best for filter coffee it really
154. 6:11depends on the rooster and the Brewing
155. 6:14method so you'll have to do some
156. 6:16experimentation and found out what works
157. 6:18for you but if the roster is open with
158. 6:21this information then you can just ask
159. 6:23them now let's get back to the jelly
160. 6:24beans again there's another side of the
161. 6:26coin that I think deserves just as much
162. 6:28attention because one thing is just
163. 6:30talking about a certain bicarbonate
164. 6:32level but I think you can and should go
165. 6:35much deeper because bicarbonates never
166. 6:37just Exist by itself it always comes
167. 6:40with something else in regular tap order
168. 6:42a lot of it mainly comes from calcium
169. 6:44carbonate so that means whether you have
170. 6:47a high or low level of bicarbonates by
171. 6:50default you'll also have some calcium as
172. 6:52part of that package which is a
173. 6:54completely different discussion but what
174. 6:56if you make your own customized water at
175. 6:57home in that case it's very popular to
176. 7:00use something like sodium bicarbonate
177. 7:02AKA baking soda then your bicarbonate
178. 7:05would come with sodium instead of
179. 7:07calcium so let's take a look at how that
180. 7:09could look in jelly
181. 7:11beans or another common solution could
182. 7:13be to use potassium bicarbonate and for
183. 7:16that I would add some of these blue
184. 7:18jelly beans here instead to represent
185. 7:20the potassium so is it a coincidence
186. 7:22that I have blue jelly beans for
187. 7:24potassium bicarbonate and red jelly
188. 7:25beans for sodium bicarbonate not quite
189. 7:28I've been doing a bunch of taste tests
190. 7:30recently since I started working on my
191. 7:32water call and I've come to realize that
192. 7:35these two types of bicarbonate really
193. 7:37add something different to the cup if
194. 7:39you want to go really deep with all this
195. 7:41then I'll put a link to my water course
196. 7:43down below that course is 28 video so of
197. 7:45course I can go into a lot more details
198. 7:47than I can here on YouTube and I discuss
199. 7:49all the minerals tools special
200. 7:51techniques that you need to optimize
201. 7:53your water and I'm running a 20%
202. 7:55discount for a short time if you use the
203. 7:57link down below but if you just want the
204. 7:59ldr then I find that potassium
205. 8:01bicarbonate is more neutral and cool at
206. 8:04smaller doses before it becomes more and
207. 8:06more bitter almost like tonic water
208. 8:08whereas sodium bicarbonate on the other
209. 8:10hand it adds more sweetness more depth
210. 8:12and it's more warm so to speak in small
211. 8:15doses when you use too much it becomes
212. 8:17astringent and kind of Muddy and
213. 8:20overpowering so that's why this is the
214. 8:23red Jelly Bean and potassium bicarbonate
215. 8:26is the blue Jelly Bean so it's kind of
216. 8:28like cold versus warm
217. 8:30so let's say I want to make a water of
218. 8:32espresso in that case I'll probably
219. 8:34increase the bicarbonate to balance the
220. 8:36acidity and instead of just relying on
221. 8:39other sodium or pottassium I'll probably
222. 8:41combine them so I don't get too much of
223. 8:43one of them and instead I get the
224. 8:45balance with the positives of each for
225. 8:48example if I'm making a powerless water
226. 8:50which is a famous recipe for espresso
227. 8:53then I change the original recipe a bit
228. 8:55and get 1/3 of my bicarbonate from
229. 8:57baking soda so I can red reduce the
230. 9:00bitterness and enhance the sweetness so
231. 9:02to get back to the official
232. 9:04recommendations 40 PBM of bicarbonate
233. 9:06where does this idea really come from
234. 9:08I've been looking through a lot of old
235. 9:10papers and while I can't find any
236. 9:12definitive proof I think somewhere
237. 9:14around 15 years ago the specialty coffee
238. 9:16Association decided that it was a decent
239. 9:18compromise that works okay for Fila okay
240. 9:22for espresso and best of all it also
241. 9:24protects the espresso machine against
242. 9:26corrosion and reduces scale so it's kind
243. 9:29of compromise value but is it also the
244. 9:31best for any Brewing methods no I'm not
245. 9:34really so sure and the crazy thing is
246. 9:36that the specialty C Association
247. 9:38actually agrees here in 2018 they
248. 9:41released a water handbook where they
249. 9:43actually say outright that different
250. 9:45Brewing methods and different roasting
251. 9:47Styles call for different levels of
252. 9:49alkalinity but you have to buy that PDF
253. 9:52for $45 and on the website they don't
254. 9:55have any new tables that show an updated
255. 9:57range of values that can work for
256. 9:59different types of Cory and actually
257. 10:01it's really hard to find any mentions of
258. 10:03water specs on sca's website in general
259. 10:06in the cing guidelines they do have some
260. 10:08recommendations but here they suggest a
261. 10:10range between 40 to 75 PPM of alkalina
262. 10:14for coping and if what we've been
263. 10:16discussing today is accurate then the
264. 10:18range for that type of coffee brewing
265. 10:20should be lower rather than higher I'm
266. 10:22not saying all this to point fingers at
267. 10:25the sca but when they previously had a
268. 10:27guideline that so much was spilled on in
269. 10:30terms of recipes and graphic material
270. 10:32and really everything out in the public
271. 10:35domain then I think they should do a bit
272. 10:37more to guide the community back in the
273. 10:40right direction imagine that the World
274. 10:42Health Organization knew that the daily
275. 10:45recommended intake of protein had been
276. 10:47wrong for years then you'd want them to
277. 10:49do something about it maybe publish a
278. 10:51new infographic maybe put on a press
279. 10:54conference or something like that so
280. 10:56that's it for today I'll see you in
281. 10:57another coffee video very soon soon or
282. 10:59perhaps in a coffeee course so check out
283. 11:01that link below for more information if
284. 11:03you really want to take your coffee
285. 11:05water to the next level