What type of water should I use?

Water is the essential part of the steam sterilization. The quality of the water can impact the performance and lifespan of a sterilizer in the long run. Here is the break down of few commonly asked questions about what water to use and ways to help address the issue you may be facing with your Wabi steam sterilizer.

Can’t I just use my tap water?
Technically, Yes, you can, but the quality of the water plays a big part. While many steam sterilizers use tap water, this practice can lead to more cleaning effort of the sterilizer, if the quality of the water is not adequate.

What is the issue with tap water?
There commonly used water are tap water, bottled water, filtered water from your fridge or other filtered systems. Depending on your geographic location and the type of filter systems, these types of water contain a variety of dissolved minerals and salts, and the amount of the dissolved content can vary greatly. 

Water that contains a higher amount of minerals usually referred to as hard water. When hard water is boiled into pressurized steam, it leaves behind salt and mineral deposit build-up, which over time looks like layers of light cream color paint or sand. These build-ups are completely harmless to human health, and just required a removal process called descaling. Regular descaling as necessary can avoid decreasing in efficiency and functionality of your Wabi steam sterilizer.

How do I know if I have hard water?
1. If all your feeding gears or dishes have white drying water spots.
2. If the steam sterilizer heating plate always ended up with white sandy residues.

Then what water should I use?
We recommend using distilled water or sometimes called pure water. This type of water has the majority of dissolved minerals removed. It helps to slow down the build-ups or decreases the frequency of descaling depending on the purity of the water.

So, where can I get distilled water?
Distilled water can be easily obtained from your RO filter system or purchase from your local supermarket in baby formula aisle under the name pure water.

Beside white build-up, I also see dark or brown spots in my heating plate?
Mineral deposits are general in white cream color if you see anything looks like dark brown color, it is possible that some other substance got burned onto the heating plate. Please see this link on what are the causes of the brown spots.