Beginner's Guide to the Peak Water Filter

April 30, 2021

Thinking about getting a Peak Water Filter to improve the quality of your brews? Or maybe you’ve seen them pop up on your Instagram feed and you’re wondering what the fuss is about?

In this blog, we’ll reveal why we recommend using the Peak Water Starter Kit and how drastically it can improve the taste of your coffee.

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Why filter your water?

Water makes up 98% of most black coffees. The taste of tap water varies drastically depending on where you’re living - not just from country to country, but also from city to city.

In Ireland, our tap water is typically ‘hard’ water which means that it is alkaline and contains a high number of dissolved calcium and magnesium mineral salts. These extra dissolved mineral salts impact the taste of our coffee, steering it away from the neutral taste that is ideal for brewing.

As water is such a key component in coffee, it’s important to note that your coffee will only ever taste as good as the water you use to brew it. It can literally make or break your brew!

For example, have you ever tried to replicate a cafe’s coffee recipe but haven’t quite managed to get it to taste the same?

The issue could be that you aren’t filtering your water! Most coffee shops use complex filtration systems connected to their water supply and espresso machines to remove excess dissolved mineral salts that impact the taste of their coffee, as well as damage their equipment.

Feeling sceptical? Try this experiment!

1. Brew a coffee as you normally would using your tap water

2. Brew another coffee in the exact same way but swap out the tap water for some bottled Volvic water

3. Taste the results and see what a big difference high quality water can make to the taste of your brew!

What does the Peak Water Filter actually do?

This sophisticated (but surprisingly easy to use!) filter allows YOU to decide how many of the minerals in your water are filtered out or retained. In other words, you get to decide exactly how your water tastes.

Most domestic water filters such as the Brita Filter have a ‘One Size Fits All’ approach to lower the content of chemicals such as mercury, cholorine, zinc and copper using active carbon and ion-exchange beads (check out James Hoffman's video for more detail on this). This lessens some of the water's hardness and causes it to taste slightly better.

But what’s unique about the Peak Water filter is that you get to see exactly how hard your water is and have complete control of the mineral balance (and taste) of your water.

Why use the Peak Water Filter?

Quite simply, we’ve yet to find a way of filtering water that is quite as effective and accessible as the Peak Water Kit.

Before we discovered this unique filter, we believed that the best way to adjust the balance of chemicals in your water was to manually add them yourself in the same way that many competition brewers do. But with the Peak Water Kit, it’s as simple as turning a dial!

Plus, this kit was made especially for coffee lovers by coffee lovers as it was created by Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, a three-time UK Barista Champion, founder of Colonna Coffee and co-author of Water for Coffee.

How do I test my water?

The Peak Water Starter Kit makes it super easy to test the chemical balance of your water - it comes fully equipped with 2x test strips (pictured below).

To find out how hard your water is, simply:

1. Take a 200ml sample of water from your tap.

2. Submerge a test strip in your tap water. Remove it after 5 seconds.

3. Hold the tab for 10 seconds - it should change colour at this stage.

4. Compare your results with the chart provided.

5. Move the dial on your Peak Water Filter to the recommended setting in the User Guide.

Source: Peak Water User Guide.