Reverse Osmosis
October 17th, 2010
By DomTRON
Foreword:
If my memory serves me correctly the first time i encountered something that was not a standard espresso machine water filter (5 micron or 0.5 micron) was when i visited Seattle in 2005, i recall elaborate multi filter systems and thought little of it other than it looked great.
During that time i was an employee not an employer and i vowed that one day i would research the RO (reverse osmosis) units when i had my own espresso bar operating.
This type of water filtration was said to be the forefront of water filtration for espresso machines, so why five years on is there little to no cafe operators using the systems?
Day 0 - Installation
We decided to go with an upgraded twin RO unit with a massive 35 Litre static tank, from green pastures Australia. Click Here to check out their systems.
Installation was easy, its a pleasure to work with Damien from GPA.
Day 1 - Frist day of trade
Our excitement to get to work and start making shots was indeed warranted as the coffee was tasting superb, however our enjoyment of the pure, clean espresso due to our prized Ro unit was soon wrenched from our grasp…
It seems that our math was incorrect and that we draw more water than we initially thought.
The pump was starved of water at 930 am mid morning, we had no choice but to shut the shop, apologize and i guess we had “egg on our faces”, we made an executive decision to uninstall the RO unit and re install the 0.5 micron, Matt sped off to reece to get some fittings and the rest of us cleaned up, screwed around, and craved another espresso that sadly we couldn’t make.
In record time we installed our old system and we were only closed for under one hour, ill take this opportunity to apologize to those people we did not serve during this period - SORRY 
We finished the day of trade and discussed our options with Damien.
Day 2 - back to the oldskool
We decided to persist with the culligan 0.5 micron until Wednessday night, we had our tails between our legs during this time as we had allot of explaining to do to industry friends and customers.
I’ll take this opportunity to give a breif explanation of why the RO unit failed, well the filtration process takes time, for every 1000 ml the system uses 500 ml becomes pure RO useable water the other 500 ml becomes waste, it can produce 35 litres of water per hour but this was not enough.
Day 3 - repairs and upgrades
Damien was gracious and sourced everything we needed to improve the rate of water production of our RO unit, we decided to install a pump to force the water pressure into the RO membrane, it only becomes active when pressure drops so its good with power, but it was promised to us that this would be our white knight.
We also added some funky check valves and taps so in the event of the RO being drained again we can just flip a tap and use our 0.5 micron water filter, a wise choice, and really something we should have done from day 0, live and learn i guess.
Day 4 - The Return of the RO
We had an absolute corker of a day and tbh i was shocked that the RO kept up, we had our busiest day in a long time and there was no sign of the RO falling short in water supply.
Final thoughts
We had another crazy day on saturday and the RO was fine, sadly it seems many cafe owners dont see the benefit of using these elaborate systems, im guessing the price scares people off as they are 8 times the cost of regular filtration, some units are evevn 40 times the cost of a 5 micron water filter.
More time will show the true benefits of the RO, but for now our coffee is simply tasting cleaner and sweeter than ever, we are happy with the unit and we are proud to be one of a handful of cafes in Australia using RO water.
