I live in a hard water area. Until now, I’ve been using a standard water filter like Brita, which has worked fine, but I could never achieve the clarity I was looking for in my coffee.
So last week, I dipped my toe in the world of water recipes. I got myself a zero water filter, read up about remineralisation and made a few litres of coffee brewing water.
I wasn’t sure what to expect or if it would make a difference, but man was I surprised! The difference is insane. It was the missing piece to tasty coffee that I had been searching for for so long. Needless to say, I’m sold now and theres no going back for me.
What concerns me us how much of a pain in the ass it is. I have to have a bottle for the mineral water concentrate, a filter jug for the distillation and another jug for the remineralised water. I don’t know if I want all that hassle every day for the rest of my life.
So the question now is how can I streamline this?
I live in a rented city apartment, so space is limited and I can’t make any big changes like under-sink ro installations. I have looked at countertop ro units, but they’re very pricey
Is there anyone else here who makes their own water? How do you manage this? Any advice for someone who is just starting out?
Does that live under your sink?
Honestly, that seems like the best solution, if you own your own home. I’m renting, so I’m unsure about modifying the kitchen
There are small simple 3 stage systems. I have one that gets ppm down to 0-4. I don’t think most people need a big elaborate one.
Probably not, but in my area I have to worry about pfas.
I rent and have a 3 stage water drop RO that lives under the sink. The tap is screw on and can be removed when I leave, and the drain is similarly attached between the dishwasher drain and sink connection with hose clamps also easily removable. At my last place there was no hole for the spout so I just 3D printed a bracket to attach it to under the sink. My new place has an unused sink hole that I plan on putting it on here.
That sounds really interesting. Could you share the system you are using?
It’s the waterdrop g3p800. I actually got it for free because the company accidentally refunded me when they sent me the wrong one at first lol. Most under sink systems I’ve seen are easy to attach and remove because the water supply is just a splitter that you screw on in between where your cold tap connects to the pipe from the wall. The drain fitting wasn’t included for mine but I found the “Watts universal drain line to garbage disposal” adapter on Amazon which lets you connect a push fitting tube to where the dishwasher already connects to a garbage disposal. Typically the system I got includes a “drain saddle” where you are expected to drill a hole in the drain pipe and clamp a thing in that lets you connect the drain from the filter to the drain pipe and I wanted to avoid that (RO systems flush their filters periodically so the flush water needs a place to go). Beyond that, the only challenge is where to put the filtered tap if you don’t have an existing hole up through the sink deck, but like I did in my old place, just having the filtered tap underneath the sink works fine if you don’t mind your guests seeing under your sink.
Thank you, I’ll take a look at that unit.
Did I understand correctly that your system isn’t connected to the drains? Could you elaborate on how you dispose of the waste water?
Like I mentioned I used a drain line adapter for garbage disposal for the drain on mine. As long as you have a dishwasher, there should be a spot you can disconnect it and connect an adapter in between for the RO drain line to also drain.
Sorry, you replied while I was editing, I had accedently clicked post before I was done. See above.
Thank you!
Yes, it sounds like quite a big piece of work for a rented space…
That is the dream setup, though.
What do you do with the waste water for the ro process?
I did a quick search and found there are countertop versions
https://bluevua.com/products/ropot-countertop-reverse-osmosis-water-system
For the waste, it goes to the septic, but I’m going to start collecting it since it is already been through all of the other filter stages before the RO,planing on useing it for water changes in the fishtank.
Thats right, I have seen those units, but I dont know how reliable they are and they are not cheap!
fwiw I’ve had this one for like 3 years now, no complaints. think it’s slightly cheaper on ex amazon tho https://aquatru.com/products/carafe-countertop
What a yucky/scammy/click baitty website vibe, what’s with the “click here to reveal your secret discount” and the forced subscriptions &auto billing on filters?
yeah it’s kinda awful, but I like linking directly to amazon even less lol
It also just appears that you can’t change the RO membrane? Can’t tell because it’s purposely vague, but looks like if you don’t get the subcription you don’t get any filter to start with and have to pay an additional $90?
Edit: its is RO but I don’t see the RO membrane as one of the replaceable filters.
Edit 2: found the RO membrane, it’s $60 every 2 years so yearly cost will be $120 ($90 for filter + $60/2 for RO Membrane)
That’s actually the unit I’ve been looking it. It’s pretty expensive, so I’m glad to hear you are getting good use out of it.
Would you recommend it? Is there anything about it you would change?
nothing major.
we have pretty hard water here, it was killing one of the generic charcoal pitcher filters within a month. the filters in this one haven’t had any problems by the time they are scheduled to be replaced.
a couple possibly annoying things:
Yeah that one cost more than I paid for my set up with 3 years of filters
Plenty of reasonably priced countertop RO systems. Pick one with final stage remineralization.