Making Ice with Hard Water

[dluna11w]

We make our ice using buckets for our swan shavers. There’s quite a bit of calcium in our water source. I’ve contemplated adding a water softener, but I’m concerned it will change the taste of our shave ice. Anyone use a water softener for making ice? If I don’t do that, anyone have a compact (space saving) ideas to remove the calcium without changing taste?

[Mahatnmacoat]

This might be a longish reply. Hard water means lots of minerals dissolved or held in suspension in the water. Soft water has all that 'hard stuff' removed. The hard stuff is negative charged It's removed by running the hard water through a bed of positive charged medium, usually resin (plastic) pellets. Positive attracts negative and the hard stuff sticks to the resin. When the resin is fully loaded with as much hard stuff as it can attract the resin bed is flushed with a pretty strong saltwater solution. All the hard stuff goes down the drain with the saltwater and the bed is ready to accept another load of minerals. No salt is left, no chemicals are used. Soft water is WAY, WAY WAY better. Better taste, better cleaning, WAY less detergent, every thing WAY cleaner.

I've never needed to soften my ice water so I can only speak to my direct experience. If I had a hard water problem I'd definitely incorporate a water softener in my equipment list. Softeners come in many sizes, capacitys and accessories. If you'd like to yak about it more just let me know.

Best regards