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Decent Espresso grinder

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  • #16
    Originally posted by TampIt View Post
    When you said that you had only tried Chinese made grinders, perhaps you should widen your scope? AFAIAC, I would need major convincing to go beyond Ditting or Malkonig (same company these days).
    I did approach Mazzer and Mahlkonig. Mazzer never replied, but Mahlkonig USA was very friendly. However, when I met with them they said they were developing their own grind-by-weight, and thus were not interested in working with us.

    FYI, the grinder manufacturer we ended up using is a subsidiary of Mahlkonig.

    I also like the Mazzer Major, and recently bought a nicely reconditioned Major from Home-Barista admin Tom Chips. It's very low tech and makes good shots. It was Tom's primary grinder too, but he had too many and like you, had to clear out.

    If we manage to be a successful espresso machine manufacturer, we're definitely going to put a lot of R&D into our own grinder. Scott Rao has told me about his off-the-charts 24% extraction using a roller mill, so IMHO there's a lot of room for innovation in this field.

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    • #17
      Originally posted by decentespresso View Post
      If we manage to be a successful espresso machine manufacturer, we're definitely going to put a lot of R&D into our own grinder. Scott Rao has told me about his off-the-charts 24% extraction using a roller mill, so IMHO there's a lot of room for innovation in this field.
      Can I suggest you explore splined auger technology (perhaps Scott Rao is calling it a roller mill - similar concept). An overseas friend of mine has an ancient hand one (from the 1920's or 30's if I recall correctly) and it will equal or better any other grinder I know of at any grind from Turkish (the Vario is one of the few electric grinders that can do Turkish as well as dedicated Turkish hand grinders) right out to boulders (i.e. way too coarse for drip or plunger, probably even too coarse for cold steep). It has an incredibly even particle spread at any grind you set. I always had an idea to make one and see how it went. I know it is (at the very least) close to the EK43 and Vario for espresso, although I have never managed to do a side by side comparison (overseas, damn it). I am pretty sure I saw an old Ditting once using the same technology in an electric format in Sydney.

      TampIt

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      • #18
        I liked this idea so much I did this:

        Step 1 - remove pf holder from mini and get electronic scale from cupboard:


        Step 2 - put pf holder on scale:


        Step 3 - put pf on pf holder:


        Step 4 - put plastic cup funnel into pf, turn on the scale and ...grind:


        Works for me.....

        Next, I really need a scale with 0.1g gradations


        Gonzo

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        • #19
          Decent Espresso grinder

          Great DIY gonzo! Grab the Brewista II scales and you'll have flexible scales for brew and espresso. Time and weight in one. Auto Tare options.

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          • #20
            Originally posted by gonzob View Post
            I liked this idea so much I did this:
            Originally posted by matth3wh View Post
            Great DIY gonzo! Grab the Brewista II scales and you'll have flexible scales for brew and espresso. Time and weight in one. Auto Tare options.
            I agree: the Brewista II (in manual model) is what I use (and we sell) for weighing portafilter doses, and I designed a low-profile portafilter stand that is the right size for the Brewista's scale platform. You'll want a bit of double sided sticky tape to connect the two.

            This is the bottomless pf version of the stand:

            Click image for larger version

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            https://decentespresso.com/portafilter_stand

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            • #21
              Originally posted by decentespresso View Post
              - yes, our grinder is a hotrodded HC-600 On Demand grinders : HC-600 ODG

              - Hey Cafe (the grinder make) is now a subsidiary of Mahlkonig. If you can find a new $250 HC-600, I recommend you buy one, as that's cheaper than we can buy them, even at a by-the-pallet quantity. My search on ebay for a new HC-600 found this at $999 Elan HC-600 Commercial Coffee Grinder | eBay
              Bought mine less than 4 years ago, at cost, from a (the?) local importer for exactly $250. Was being offered to me at this price to provide to my customers. For $250 it really is a fantastic grinder. At $1000 I'm not so sure. Had to forgo pursuing the trade relationship as none of my customers were willing to place a Chinese built grinder front and centre in their cafes and/or restaurants. A rather unfortunate Italo-centric bias exists that is hard to get around.

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              • #22
                Understandable. The machine and grinders are used as marketing tools. Unknown brands arent giving the right image.

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                • #23
                  Most cafe coffee drinkers, and likely half the "baristas" and cafe owners ,...wouldnt know a decent quality grinder if it fell on their foot !...they wont insist on having "Brand X" grinder just because they think it sells more coffee.
                  most will rely on their coffee supplier providing suitable kit, and it is obviously in the suppliers (roasters) interest to provide a grinder that will produce a grind that does justice to their coffee. Roasters/suppliers may well have their own commercial deals with primary equipment dealers, but i am sure they would not entertain equipment that performs badly, is unreliable , or is unsuitable in any way.

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                  • #24
                    When your livelihood depends on it you want equipment with a track record, not the latest clone straight out of china.
                    Doesnt matter how good it is. Its too risky

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                    • #25
                      @John, as highlighted in your Portland video above, my concern is that your goal for the grinder is weight consistency over extraction consistency. Eg your example of rain starting and the grind loosened, hitting that same 18.0 g again.

                      Even if the barista was experienced in loosening the grind to accurately cater for the humidity change, 18.0 g might not necessarily be the ideal weight giving optimum extraction anymore.

                      I feel you're in a good position to use the phone's barometer and rate-of-change of weight to determine a map of variations to a base dosage weight to encourage optimal extraction - even without relying on feedback from the DE1+.
                      Last edited by simonko; 19 March 2017, 04:35 PM.

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                      • #26
                        Hi,

                        Cut and pasted from DE 1 espresso machine thread.

                        Originally Posted by bigdaddy
                        A couple of questions about your grinder... When will it be available to buy? and In one of your videos you mentioned it has conical burrs...I'm just wondering...Does this machine have conical burrs or flat burrs?



                        I assume you're referring to https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder which is in this photo below.

                        These have been available for pre-order for a while, and I have a pallet of 50 grinders in stock. However, these grinders are then hand modified by us to have a X/Y/Z adjustable portafilter stand, as my focus with this grinder is getting the mound centered and also weighed. The scale stands were the last design for us to really nail down. In the photo, if you look carefully, you'll see that the left hand side grinder is missing the thumb-screws that the right hand model has. We previously had height adjustment holes at set intervals, but I decided to move to thumb screws and continuous adjustment.

                        The sheet metal company suddenly wants an additional USD$680 to deliver these, which wasn't agreed to. I suspect this is a "get it before chinese new year" negotiating tactic (sigh) so we might have to wait until they come back from their 2 week holiday to start assembling our grinders.


                        BURRS

                        I also wanted to sort out an upgrade (and replacement) path for the burrs. They are 64mm flat burrs, as the web page mentions. I need to totally redo the video as soon as we start shipping the grinders, which will be immediately after Chinese new year (about 2 weeks). You are correct that in the video I incorrectly state that they're conical.

                        We've been working Hansung@SSP burrs https://www.instagram.com/SSP_grinding/ to use his burrs as an upgrade/replacement burr. The burr upgrade effectively increases the quality of the grinder from a Mazzer Super-Jolly level to a Mahlkonig K30 level, and this is guaranteed to be the case by SSP. The SSP burrs are much admired also by Socratic https://www.instagram.com/Socraticcoffee/ and their testing has yielded some nice results.

                        We're also going to be selling the SSP burrs to people who want to upgrade their existing grinders, as I'm not sure there are any sources besides SSP in Korea at the moment, for them.

                        On Home Barista they've been talking about the SSP burr upgrade recently:
                        https://www.home-barista.com/grinder...od-t48458.html
                        with what appears to be good results.



                        Cheers

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                        • #27
                          Hi John,

                          With your future bluetooth interfacing... Could it be made modular so as to add to an already bought Decent grinder.

                          The reason I say that is if in the near future I was to purchase a say DE1 plus and the grinder package, I would like to be able to add the bluetooth technology to it, when developed and if possible rather than buying a complete new grinder set up...

                          Cheers.

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by bigdaddy View Post
                            With your future bluetooth interfacing... Could it be made modular so as to add to an already bought Decent grinder. The reason I say that is if in the near future I was to purchase a say DE1 plus and the grinder package, I would like to be able to add the bluetooth technology to it, when developed and if possible rather than buying a complete new grinder set up...
                            Yes, probably, I could work with you to upgrade your grinder, but
                            a) you'd need to be comfortable working with 220V wires
                            b) you'd need to sign something saying you're a competent technician and do this as your own risk.

                            The bluetooth-grinder modification involves two steps:
                            a) wiring in a bluetooth solenoid, like the LazyBone inside the grinder, enabling remote on/off control of the grinder (this is a bit scary). This is the mainstream product we've used to do this, but we also have OEM versions of this that are less expensive:
                            SmartPhone Controlled Switch - LazyBone V3 (Bluetooth)
                            b) replacing the scale with a bluetooth scale (not so scary a step)

                            However, given that Intertek at the moment doesn't like us having bluetooth control over hot water, I'm not sure that they'll be ok with a bluetooth controlled grinder either, so I'm not even sure now if such a product will ever be made by us.

                            What we might have to do, is make it so that the scale is what turns the grinder on, not the tablet. You put your portafilter on the scale, and it grinds a dose. The tablet then turns the grinder off at the right weight.

                            Click image for larger version

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by simonko View Post
                              @John, as highlighted in your Portland video above, my concern is that your goal for the grinder is weight consistency over extraction consistency. Eg your example of rain starting and the grind loosened, hitting that same 18.0 g again. Even if the barista was experienced in loosening the grind to accurately cater for the humidity change, 18.0 g might not necessarily be the ideal weight giving optimum extraction anymore. I feel you're in a good position to use the phone's barometer and rate-of-change of weight to determine a map of variations to a base dosage weight to encourage optimal extraction - even without relying on feedback from the DE1+.
                              I completely agree with you that we, the coffee community, and me in particular, do not know what the relevant variables are to make consistently great coffee, let alone how to control all the variables.

                              As you indicate, it might be that barometry, gravimetric flow rate, and even ambient temperature could provide important insights into changing grind, dose, or extraction parameters.

                              Let's start collecting more data and get to work collectively figuring this out.

                              Let's rid the world of bad coffee.

                              -john

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                              • #30
                                Just backing the bus back...Some time ago, when you were checking out a heap of different grinders, I heard you mention you wouldn't get Robur grinder, but I heard no reasons for this comment. Could you elaborate please?

                                Cheers.

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