Espresso Machines and Grinders

[thewestfield 59]

@mr.me I did actually go on a barista course at a coffee shop- didn’t cost a lot and gave a bit of hands on training from someone who knew what they were doing. 
 

Otherwise it is trial and error. I did get through a lot of beans at first! 

[Ron Hilditch 636]

On 06/02/2021 at 12:37, awkwardbydesign said:

Try James Hoffman. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMb0O2CdPBNi-QqPk5T3gsQ

Looked at two videos, one on grinders around $3k and the other on grinders less than $100.  Not too sure?  Can understand why €3k coffee grinders are better made.  With the cheaper grinders, when he brewed the coffee the cups were so far below, it's no wonder the coffee went everywhere.  I'be got a Sboly grinder, identical to the cheap Cusinart grinder.  He had trouble with coffee sticking to the grinder due to static. Used mine many times and it's ever been a problem.  The Sboly grinder has 29 different setting from very fine (expresso) to coarse (French.). If the beans are ground to the way you want, why are ones ground using an expensive grinder better?  The other thing I noticed was how heavily he compressed the ground coffee into the holder.  Far more force than is recommended?  

Edited February 7 by Ron Hilditch
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[reg 19]

On 07/02/2021 at 14:14, Ron Hilditch said:

Looked at two videos, one on grinders around $3k and the other on grinders less than $100.  Not too sure?  Can understand why €3k coffee grinders are better made.  With the cheaper grinders, when he brewed the coffee the cups were so far below, it's no wonder the coffee went everywhere.  I'be got a Sboly grinder, identical to the cheap Cusinart grinder.  He had trouble with coffee sticking to the grinder due to static. Used mine many times and it's ever been a problem.  The Sboly grinder has 29 different setting from very fine (expresso) to coarse (French.). If the beans are ground to the way you want, why are ones ground using an expensive grinder better?  The other thing I noticed was how heavily he compressed the ground coffee into the holder.  Far more force than is recommended?  

My understanding is uniformity of grind.

Think James Hoffman has a separate video showing dispersion of grind with some having part fines and part "rocks" mixed in. These fines and rocks result in a non uniform extraction.

However the differences are pretty small. Hoffman reviewed a load of sub £100 manual grinders and concluded that they all managed a decent coffee.

So side by side you could probably tell the difference and the high end grinder will produce the nicer coffee but for a lot of people it's not important.

Bit like hifi to be honest.

[Phobic 2,622]

2 hours ago, reg said:

My understanding is uniformity of grind.

Think James Hoffman has a separate video showing dispersion of grind with some having part fines and part "rocks" mixed in. These fines and rocks result in a non uniform extraction.

However the differences are pretty small. Hoffman reviewed a load of sub £100 manual grinders and concluded that they all managed a decent coffee.

So side by side you could probably tell the difference and the high end grinder will produce the nicer coffee but for a lot of people it's not important.

Bit like hifi to be honest.

this is pretty much it, well said.

I own and EK43 grinder - 1of the ~£3k daddies, I've even gone to big lengths to make sure that the grinding surface is very well aligned as well to get things as good as possible, as with hifi I find every little tweak adds up....

I think uniformity is much more important for making espresso, filter & immersion (especially immersion) coffee is much less sensitive to uniformity but it does help there as well.

you can achieve something similar though with a cheaper grinder and sieves https://www.kruveinc.com/pages/kruve-sifter

I own these and never use them though, mainly because the added benefit on an EK43 isn't worth the time for me given the improvement. I certainly would think about using them with other grinders though, but I'd sieve a bit coarser than Kruve recommend to make the process faster, and just accept it won't taste quite as good.

As an aside I also own a manual grinder which I take on holiday with me, it makes a great brew, not as good as the EK43 but still very enjoyable.

[thewestfield 59]

Yes I think espresso making is much much like hifi, particularly in that upgraditus can strike at any time and there are great number of tweaks that can be applied to try and get that extra bit of flavour from the beans.  

My grinder was an ex-shop unit costing £150 and I have put off going to the next level as I really wonder whether I will be able to taste the difference. That and it means I have more cash to invest in hifi.