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  • avian
    replied
    I'm a Sette 270 owner here, who is potentially considering a Niche. I'm a relative newbie, and really dont have any issues with the sette - but have found my Lido ET seems to get substantially better results (taste wise) when grinding for pour overs. So my setup is basically the Sette for espresso, and Lido for pour overs and the occasional french press. Would be nice to rest the old biceps when making non espresso drinks, and potentially do an upgrade overall. Would the Niche be an option to achieve this?

    Leave a comment:


  • wattgn
    replied
    Originally posted by robusto View Post
    Wattgn, I'm glad it works for you.

    I find that for a given volume of grounds, the weight varies. Factors include freshness of the beans, coarse ir fine grind and variety of coffee beans.

    Sometimes a fluffy but comparatively low mass is produced, other times a dense but higher mass.

    Even the way grounds fall into the portafilter will give a deceptive indication.

    Many years ago I think I recall some very generalised yardstick for freshness which went something like 3 minutes for ground, 3 weeks for roasted and 3 years for green. I can't comment on the merits other to say 3 weeks post roast and I sense weak, dull coffee.

    My beans tend to last about 6 months.

    And my ground coffee is used immediately.
    It may be that conical big burrs are more forgiving. Remember any carry over from one shot to the next is only about 10% of the total and it doesn't have any effect I can detect on pour times or flavour.

    You can hear vast variations in opinions even from professionals so my rule is if I can't detect a problem then there isn't one...for me.

    Your green beans may well be six months old by the time you get them.

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  • robusto
    replied
    Wattgn, I'm glad it works for you.

    I find that for a given volume of grounds, the weight varies. Factors include freshness of the beans, coarse ir fine grind and variety of coffee beans.

    Sometimes a fluffy but comparatively low mass is produced, other times a dense but higher mass.

    Even the way grounds fall into the portafilter will give a deceptive indication.

    Many years ago I think I recall some very generalised yardstick for freshness which went something like 3 minutes for ground, 3 weeks for roasted and 3 years for green. I can't comment on the merits other to say 3 weeks post roast and I sense weak, dull coffee.

    My beans tend to last about 6 months.

    And my ground coffee is used immediately.

    Leave a comment:


  • flashpixx
    replied
    Originally posted by robusto View Post

    Perhaps others may care to give their own thoughts on how long they allow ground coffee, ground in their own grinder, to be used in a proper coffee machine, to stand in their grinder before the next use.
    FWIW weigh out 30g of beans and put in hopper. First 7g ground is thrown into the knock box, this displaces the retained grind from last use. Use the next 20 — 22g depending on which bean to make the shot. When I’m done I empty the grinder by grinding what’s left and disposing into the knock box.

    Rinse and repeat.

    I know max retention in the ECM C54 Manual is 6.5g. I’m wasting another 6g max with this workflow.

    i will likely follow a similar workflow when the Atom arrives, however retention is much less I believe.

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  • CafeLotta
    replied
    Originally posted by robusto View Post
    I don't believe in judging by volume -- it's like trying to judge extracting coffee weight by crema volume.
    That's where the Scottie Callaghan dosing tools come in handy if you don't want to weigh each and every time. They act as a bit of a distribution tool as well if you spin them over the Filter basket before sweeping. Pretty consistent dose once you get the routine down pat.

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  • Yelta
    replied
    I'm a bit like Mal, single dose, brush out chute, along with whatever can be reached at the end of each session then run the grinder briefly to expel loose grinds.
    Seems to work well, on my monthly grinder clean I never get more than about 3 grams total of caked on fines, bugger all.

    FWIW, over the years I've carried out a few tests with freshly ground beans exposed to air, at 3 mins after grinding I can notice a difference, the pour is noticeably thinner and darker, taste nowhere near as good as fresh, at 30 mins, black, thin and undrinkable, as far as I'm concerned, fresh is best.

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  • Dimal
    replied
    When using the Flair, I single dose with the Kony these days, as it's usually just me or maybe one other person having a brew. If there's a likelihood that we'll be having more than one brew, I won't brush out the grind chamber/chute as much as I would finishing up for a session, or the day. Normally, between brews, there will be just the barest amount of coffee fines clinging to the walls of the chute and in the chamber, so nothing to worry about in my opinion. After a session or at the end of a day, the internals will be spotless...

    Mal.

    Leave a comment:


  • wattgn
    replied
    Originally posted by robusto View Post
    Interesting arguments here -- and I do mean argue-ments, haha.

    I don't believe in judging by volume -- it's like trying to judge extracting coffee weight by crema volume.
    It does work for me. I just grind to 'full' or tap a few times first as I have a Doser. I then distribute by moving the grinds with my finger so it is level with the top then tamp. It is easy and quick.

    I get very consistent results anyway.

    ...another 'argument'.

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  • robusto
    replied
    Interesting arguments here -- and I do mean argue-ments, haha.

    For 10 years I had grinders with a dosing chamber. Nonetheless, for 10 years I ground on demand. A single dose worth of beans went into the cavernous hopper...and 18 grams of beans were weighed into the portafilter. No guesswork. Weighed each and every time.

    I don't believe in judging by volume -- it's like trying to judge extracting coffee weight by crema volume.

    There would be some ground coffee stuck in the grinding chamber exit. So I teased as many of those out into the doser with a plastic spoon handle to be used as part of the 18 grams straight away.

    Now that I have the Sette without a doser, the same rule applies -- grind 18 grams on demand.

    In other words, no coffee beans sit in the hopper...and definitely no ground coffee sit in the doser waiting their next use.

    Perhaps others may care to give their own thoughts on how long they allow ground coffee, ground in their own grinder, to be used in a proper coffee machine, to stand in their grinder before the next use.

    Leave a comment:


  • wattgn
    replied
    Originally posted by CafeLotta View Post
    Too true. Learning to work with the idiosyncrasies of your preferred grinder is generally all that's required. If you need to purge retained grinds so be it. If minimal wastage and precise single dosing is your thing, there's a couple of grinders that do that well too.

    For me, I wish Compak would stick the E10s conical burrs in a K3 sized body in a manual push style grinder (no electronics/timed dosing). I don't single dose and would prefer to keep the burrs fully charged with a small head of beans above. Don't mind purging a small amount of grinds as required.
    I think every single design is a compromise and you adapt your workflow to the grinder. I could purge at the start of the day but don't but I do like NO electronics, it is a plus as there is nothing to go wrong. I'm not saying electronics don't have compensating positives but it is one more thing to go wrong and normally it is expensive when they do.

    The attraction of a commercial grinder is you can often get them cheap second hand. I got my Robur for $1100 brand new. The downside is size. I have gotten well and truly used to the doser.

    Mine is truly manual. I count to five then thwack, thwack, distribute and tamp.

    It would be nice to have this in a K3 sized package...of course

    Leave a comment:


  • CafeLotta
    replied
    Originally posted by Dimal View Post
    Grinders don't have to be for a 'fixed' usage scenario as they can, with modified techniques, be used in many scenarios but maybe not ideally in each, other than the one that the engineers/designers specifically intended.
    Too true. Learning to work with the idiosyncrasies of your preferred grinder is generally all that's required. If you need to purge retained grinds so be it. If minimal wastage and precise single dosing is your thing, there's a couple of grinders that do that well too.

    For me, I wish Compak would stick the E10s conical burrs in a K3 sized body in a manual push style grinder (no electronics/timed dosing). I don't single dose and would prefer to keep the burrs fully charged with a small head of beans above. Don't mind purging a small amount of grinds as required.

    Leave a comment:


  • level3ninja
    replied
    Originally posted by Barry O'Speedwagon View Post
    Whatever mate. You haven't offended me but your posts are obscure. Post #37 is a series of non sequiturs. Nothing in sentences 2,3 or 4 explains whether single dosing is good, bad or otherwise. It's a series of (correct) assertions.....that do not have any obvious implications regarding the advantages or disadvantages of grinders that only single dose. BTW....I'm not a single doser.
    Well summed up. I am a single doser but only because my primary grinder is a Niche. I would never advocate single dosing in and of itself, it is a means to an end; and that end is freshly ground coffee.

    Wattgn you've suggested a couple of times that the existence of contradictory information/differing opinions is a legitimate reason to not attempt to figure out what's right or wrong. Sure different people say different things about the length of time after grinding that coffee can still be used, but 12 hours post grinding has got to be a joke (I assume you meant 12 hours post grinding, your comment was again ambiguous. No matter how clear you think you're being multiple people are telling you it's unclear). I hear arguments about the number of minutes it takes ground coffee to go stale but I've never heard, nor could I take seriously, advocacy for it taking hours. In comment #50 say you'd clean your grinder out if you "left it for a time" but even that is ambiguous (are your 4 shots a day spread out so that there's never a 12 hour gap?). If you can't taste the difference in your shots due to the stale grounds perhaps they aren't the weakest link in your coffee making chain.

    Again I see no offended people (including me), only confounded.

    ETA: I am also not trying to offend you or make fun, I'm genuinely trying to understand what you're suggesting, and trying to advocate for good coffee.
    Last edited by level3ninja; 12 October 2019, 03:18 PM. Reason: Autocucumber

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  • snowytec
    replied
    I have two main grinders presently.
    The Profitec T64 and a Monolith flat SSP.

    Both produce beautiful fluffy grinds, (that I can't fault).
    Both produce beautiful tasting coffee, ( but you have to have a coffee extraction device that can take advantage of the improved flavours in the grind).
    My first machine, a Saeco Via Venezia, (god bless it, still packed in a box) is a great example of a machine that masks true coffee taste, you will never be able to appreciate subtle coffee differences from that machine, it imparts it's signature on any coffee you put through it, (bit like pressure cookers).

    (but it's still better than any Cafe coffee you can buy in the Northern Beaches).

    I went the single dosing route when I decided I wanted to change beans a lot, for example Columbia and Guatemala are presently my preferred Cupachino roasts.
    Yemen and Yirg. my favourite long black roasts.

    Swopping beans, purging retained grinds etc. when your trying to compare different coffees / learn the flavour differences is a real pain in the T64, (your never confident of cross contamination).

    If it wasn't for the want to change coffee bean types all the time I wouldn't bother with single dosing.

    But as my coffee taste sense develops further along the path it's presently taking, single dosing and low retention becomes more essential.

    Leave a comment:


  • Lyrebird
    replied
    Originally posted by robusto View Post
    >... retained grounds absorb heat, the heat evaporates moisture from them, so the pour becomes a gusher. The baristas then grind finer for the next order...and the cycle is repeated.
    I don't think that is likely to be the case, ground coffee absorbs moisture from the atmosphere under normal conditions (see for example Illy fig 6.5)

    I think CO2 loss is the more likely cause of the observed effect. Ground coffee loses CO2 relatively quickly, this effect increases with temperature (Q10 about 1.5) and CO2 entrainment is a major contributor to pour viscosity.
    Last edited by Lyrebird; 12 October 2019, 10:23 AM.

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  • robusto
    replied
    Schomer begs to differ. He says it would affect the next extraction by at least 4 seconds duration, and drives his baristas "nuts" because the retained grounds absorb heat, the heat evaporates moisture from them, so the pour becomes a gusher. The baristas then grind finer for the next order...and the cycle is repeated.

    The man, after all, is a coffeesnob perfectionist.

    Leave a comment:

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