same here SSP red speed, and they'll last me a lifetime. Most shop grinders that I refurbished had badly worn burrs (aside from being caked with horrible dark roast gunk), as if most shops never ever look after their grinders.
This confuses me. I did not get my espresso flavor locked in until I got the puck right. The reason seemed obvious -- water under pressure finds its own path, and if you have a puck in which there's a large area of resistance, and a small area of little resistance, then what you'll get is a pull mostly consisting of brewing the small area, and wasting the rest. So you have to make it uniform.
there is no lesseon other than that there are many ways to skin a cat ;-)
I have the Craig Lynn HG Prime and love it. Part of the reason I selected my setup was noise - the loudest part of my espresso routine is the cracking of the beans during grind. As long as you keep the counter and the rubber pad on the bottom clean it will glue itself to solid stone-type counter and is very solid. I can grind medium to darker roasts one handed. Light roasts at finer settings benefit from using both hands but is still easy and quick. Alignment out of the box was great and I never felt it needed tweaking. I have noticed that as I've broken in the burrs more and more that grind uniformity has increased. I'd definitely suggest blowing through 2-5lbs of instant rice and a lb or so of coffee right at the start to get the burrs decently seasoned.
A hand grinder should be chosen depending on your main application. Espresso requires narrower tolerances and small incremental adjustments. I have a 1zpresso JE with Italmill conical burrs. Its so good I even use it occassionally at home..... and my primary grinder is a Kafatek MC5. Thats quite an endorsement.
I’ve been using the K ultra, while it’s been great I do slightly regret not going for the j ultra for the finer grind adjustments. I haven’t had any issues yet but I could see it being a problem when I start stepping down to medium roasts. How would you compare the MC5 and JE? I hate the design of kafateks grinders, but I love the obvious build quality and I’ve heard nothing but perfection about their burrs. I would buy multiple burr sets in a heart beat if Dennis would sell to non-owners. Haven’t found out WHY he won’t yet, but I’m hoping he will one day, or I’ll just end up with the MC7 when that comes out I guess we’ll see what happens first…
If you’re drinking primarily medium to darker roasts I’d be shocked if the burr set in either of the grinders you’re looking at like would be a limiting factor. They’re both high quality burrs. it’s the light roast bright coffees or those submitted to a modern processing method that can benefit most from the newer advancements in burr geometry. I drink a lot of rather modern / esoteric light roast stuff and have never found my stock burrs to be a limiting factor.
I wouldn’t say even my current grinder is a limiting factor. Been happy with the results given the quality of the feedstock. But my understanding of the shurikones is that they’re supposed to remove most of the bitter finish that can occur. I don’t even know if my tastebuds would notice, but if I chase things like apex ultra as the newest best development for knives I figure doing the same for coffee makes sense
Favorite mediums-medium dark, no ashy or bitterness:
pics please? Ash sould only happen wit drop temps clearly over 209 or so Celsius (408F) or thereabout.
Thank you. I was trying and failing to come up with an explanation of ashy tastes in a City+ roast. That makes a lot of sense.
Oh yup, I miswrote that. Honey process is the one, which I understand is a midway between natural which leaves the fruit on and washed which removes it entirely.
Agreed. I’ve got a behmor and they’ve made some smoke suppression claims which I found to be erm, overstated, after setting off the fire alarms in our apartment while I was roasting at 5 am.
