Peak Water Jug Review

The magnificent Peak Water Jug. Aiming to revolutionise the quality of water for home users. Starting as a Kickstarter project in 2018 it's gotten a lot of attention from the industry. Does it live up to the expectations?

I backed the Kickstarter on the 9th of April 2018 with an Early Bird option as backer #181. I received the jug on the 8th of April 2020. In April 2018 backers received an email that at that point the project has already been running for 2 years. That shows how long it takes to create a completely new product and put it on the market. Hats off for that!

During the process, backers were regularly informed about the progress, changes and setbacks. It's been nearly 30 emails. Through them, you can learn a lot about the complexity of R&D. It's been good communication.

First impression and setting

The plastic is smooth and pleasant to touch. Installation of the disc filter is easy and well explained in the user guide. Like every other filter, it has to be flushed with 2.4l of water. However, it's not consistent until after 5l has gone through the filter (setting 4).

Less than perfect fit.

The testing strips attached work well. However, comparing them to titration, the reading is more accurate if you wait for more than recommended 10s. If not, the default setting for my tap water would be 3, whereas it should be closer to 3.6 for best results.

Performance

How does it perform? I'm pleased to say it's terrific. It can compete with expensive commercial filtration systems.

In fact, it can outperform some filters because it doesn't lower the pH even on very high setting. That's especially great if you use an espresso machine. It helps prevent corrosion and extract well - I wrote a whole article about that here.

The biggest feature of this jug is a step-less adjustment. It can produce water in an amazing range of hardness. You can dial in your water to the roast, type of drink or preference. If like me, only drink filtered water or try to get the most of teas and herbal infusions, it's perfect.

No more building your own water, when you get coffee from the US, Asia or Australia before it will taste good. As a roaster, it allows me to QC my water in a wider range of water specifications. As well as experiment with impacts of water on perceived development. It's my favourite thing about the Peak.

Please see the table below for numbers (based off my London tap water):

PPM measured with a conductivity meter and carbonate hardness with BWT titration kit (german hardness degrees).

My preferred setting brews similarly to Volvic but has more flavour clarity. 

When drinking the water from Peak I could taste a hint of plastic. Also, when you open it, you can smell it. I feel like it got more intense recently, although I could have not paid much attention to it initially.

The filter

As for a gravity-based system, the bypass is very reliable. It's not linear, especially between 4 and 5. Given that it's step-less you can pretty much hit any number you want, but I usually blend for that purpose. 

Aside from a bigger range than most commercial filters, it's very consistent. When the performance drops, it happens quickly, prompting you to change the filter. It's not affected by the environment temperature (like some remineralisation cartridges do).

This review wouldn't be honest if I didn't mention my faulty filter. I reckon it was mishandled after production and damaged. It worked fine quality-wise, but a tiny bit of resin escaped the disc. Because that's already in contact with the water, I was not bothered about the quality of water.

However, it's been annoying to get rid of them. Usually, I'd waste 10% of filtered water (the granules sunk to the bottom).

Resin granules

The issue was promptly resolved by the team and I got a new filter as soon as possible.

Overall

It’s probably the best product on the market in that category. It's fantastic for brewing and drinking water, especially if you have hard tap water. The design is modern and would fit between Acaia scales and Fellow kettle. I don't care much about the perfect fit of the parts, even though it could be improved.

It's a shame I was so unlucky with the filter, but that's the nature of manufacturing. As with any new product, it's difficult to test it for any circumstance the home user might come across. I bet the team is hard at work gathering feedback from the first user group to improve the next iterations.

At the end of the day, I was expecting a simple plastic jug doing a better job than mainstream water filters. I got everything that was promised in the Kickstarter campaign. All my expectations were actually exceeded, except for the waiting time.

Good job Maxwell and the Peak Water team!