Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: SZRitter on September 15, 2015, 10:17:41 am
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I think this is fitting for the coffee corner, so here it goes. I am looking for a new coffee grinder, as I am sick of the inconsistent grind from my current blade grinder. The budget is "stay as close to $100" as possible. The requirement is conical burr grinders and more for drip/pour over coffee than anything else. Current front runners are the Bodum Bistro and the Baratza Encore.
Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions otherwise?
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2 x yr budget but less $$ may not be worthwhile - Breville
http://www.brevilleusa.com/the-smart-grinder.html (http://www.brevilleusa.com/the-smart-grinder.html) - good replacement for my ancient Faema mill
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2 x yr budget but less $$ may not be worthwhile - Breville
http://www.brevilleusa.com/the-smart-grinder.html (http://www.brevilleusa.com/the-smart-grinder.html) - good replacement for my ancient Faema mill
Not completely unreasonable. Wonder how it goes against the Baratza. Has yours been fairly consistent?
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Very consistent, very controlable - but I have only had it for about 9 mths.
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I have had a Baratza Virtuoso (http://www.baratza.com/conical-burr-grinders/virtuoso-grinder/ (http://www.baratza.com/conical-burr-grinders/virtuoso-grinder/)) for over a year now, and its everything i wanted- consistent grind! I also have a Hario slim Mill - for travel. Works great! you cannot go wrong with $21 (http://www.amazon.com/Hario-Coffee-Mill-Slim-Grinder/dp/B001804CLY/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=1T31W69JSKP3MKNZ9ESB)
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According to Cooks Illustrated (they've never let me down):
RECOMMENDED - WINNER
Capresso Cool Grind, Model 501
Has large capacity and a deep cup, the features we value most in a blade grinder. Some large pieces of bean were left after grinding, however.
DESIGN
★★★
CAPACITY
★★★
CLEANING
★★
$19.99
As to burr
The burr grinders produced a more even grind, but tasters didn’t find that more evenly ground coffee translated into improved flavor. Tasters did prefer the rich body of burr-ground coffee, but they also noticed the tendency of this coffee to taste slightly bitter, owing in part, no doubt, to the more fine and even grind, which made for the coffee’s greater exposure to and prolonged contact with the water in the coffee maker. These combined forces caused what coffee experts call overextraction, which occurs when too much flavor is extracted from the beans. In our tests, we were less likely to encounter this problem if the coffee was ground coarse, more so than even the coarsest setting on the burr grinders could accomplish.
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I have used a Cuisinart burr grinder for almost 10 years. Still grinding for a Bialetti stove top maker, also for a French press and lately for a Breville espresso machine. I think under $50 at Amazon?
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I've got the Cuisinart Burr Grinder and it works fine. I got it on sale two or three years ago. I can't remember how much it was, but significantly less than the ones discussed above.
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Digital Dog - Sounds like they were just doing their tests in a standard drip machine, right? I find those to be more tolerant than most other methods on grind inconsistency. Not sure, but the filters I use for pour overs seem to clog quicker and easier than the filters in a drip maker. I only expect marginally better taste, but a lot better ease of use. Taste, by my understanding, is largely controlled by your brewing procedure.
I ended up with the Barataza as the wife wouldn't budge on moving up to the suggested Breville.
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I have the Baratza Encore and like it a lot. Consistent grinds, wide range of sizes (espresso thru filter thru French press) and not as loud as some other grinders. My only beef is that it has no timer, just on/off/pulse.
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Digital Dog - Sounds like they were just doing their tests in a standard drip machine, right?
Here's the details:
Coffee tastes best if the beans are ground fresh before they are brewed. With a wide variety of countertop coffee grinders on the market, it is no problem for home cooks to grind beans on demand. Most of the reasonably priced grinders, which generally cost around $20, employ propeller-type blades that work like a blender, literally chopping the beans as they spin. But our self-imposed price cap of $50 did allow us to include several low-end burr grinders (a fancier type of machine that works like a motorized pepper mill). We bought 10 popular models from seven manufacturers and 30 pounds of coffee beans. We tested each unit by grinding 2 ounces of coffee beans (about 8 tablespoons) and using those grounds to brew full, 40-ounce pots of coffee. Because most everyone we know uses an automatic drip machine, we did, too.
The first issue we addressed was the evenness of the grind. Blade grinders actually chop the beans with their furiously spinning blades. In a burr grinder, on the other hand, beans are truly ground a few at a time between two grooved disks, one stationary and the other rotating just above it. The grounds are fed out through a chute into a sealed container. The disks operate at roughly 7,000 to 9,000 revolutions per minute (RPM), while the motors in most blade grinders spin at 14,000 to 20,000 RPM.
We observed that the blade grinders’ rough treatment of the beans did often result in unevenly ground coffee, with particles ranging from dust to large chunks in the same batch, but we found we could improve the evenness of the blade grind either by grinding in short, quick bursts, with stops in between to shake the grinder to redistribute the grounds, or by shaking the grinder as it ground, much as you would a martini in a cocktail shaker.
The burr grinders produced a more even grind, but tasters didn’t find that more evenly ground coffee translated into improved flavor. Tasters did prefer the rich body of burr-ground coffee, but they also noticed the tendency of this coffee to taste slightly bitter, owing in part, no doubt, to the more fine and even grind, which made for the coffee’s greater exposure to and prolonged contact with the water in the coffee maker. These combined forces caused what coffee experts call overextraction, which occurs when too much flavor is extracted from the beans. In our tests, we were less likely to encounter this problem if the coffee was ground coarse, more so than even the coarsest setting on the burr grinders could accomplish.
We were surprised to discover that the coffee brewed with blade-ground beans was less likely to turn out bitter. The tasters did note that coffee from blade-ground beans had less body than coffee from burr-ground beans, but we were happy to sacrifice a little body for the reduced risk of brewing bitter coffee. We also learned that we could improve the body of the coffee somewhat by defying the blade grinders’ instructions and grinding the beans for a little longer, 20 to 25 seconds, rather than the recommended 10 to 15, without overheating the beans or jeopardizing smooth flavor in the coffee.
Overprocessing the beans into superfine coffee dust was another concern. Experts agree that the best grinders produce minimal dust, which can block waterflow through the filter in many coffee-brewing devices. None of the grinders we tested, however, produced enough dust to clog the filter.
The temperature of the coffee grounds was another factor we considered. Ideally, the beans should not heat up too much as they are ground because heat causes the evaporation of flavorful oils and results in a loss of flavor. Most experts claim that cheap blade grinders overheat the coffee beans. According to the infrared thermometer we used to measure the temperature of the grounds, this isn’t true. The burr grinders actually caused a greater increase in temperature, albeit a slight one. Our tasters, however, were not able to correlate a greater increase in temperature with poorer coffee flavor. The temperature increases we measured seemed to make very little difference.
METHODOLOGY:
We rated 10 coffee grinders, none priced higher than $50, and evaluated them according to the following criteria.
CAPACITY
Number of tablespoons of coffee beans accommodated in the hopper.
DESIGN
Our most important test. Grinders with lids deep enough to accommodate all of the ground coffee without spills were preferred. Lids that were shallow or shaped to allow spills were downgraded. In addition, grinders with on-board cord storage were preferred, but this feature was not essential to earn a rating of good in this category. Design considerations for the burr grinders in the group were different. Since the hoppers on all of them accommodated the ground coffee amply, we judged them on the design of their on/off mechanism. We preferred a manual switch, with no automatic timer.
CLEANING
Grinders that could be cleaned with a few wipes of a damp cloth were preferred. Grinders with hard-to-reach crevices into which a brush had to be maneuvered for cleaning were downgraded.
TEMPERATURE INCREASE
The temperature of the coffee was measured three times immediately after grinding with an infrared thermometer (in degrees Fahrenheit). The results were then averaged to determine the average temperature increase for that mill. According to coffee industry experts, the lower the temperature increase, the better.
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Permit me to point out that your price cap of $50 excluded all but the cheapest burr grinders. Not really a valid comparison, is it?
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The burr grinders produced a more even grind, but tasters didn’t find that more evenly ground coffee translated into improved flavor. Tasters did prefer the rich body of burr-ground coffee, but they also noticed the tendency of this coffee to taste slightly bitter, owing in part, no doubt, to the more fine and even grind, which made for the coffee’s greater exposure to and prolonged contact with the water in the coffee maker. These combined forces caused what coffee experts call overextraction, which occurs when too much flavor is extracted from the beans. In our tests, we were less likely to encounter this problem if the coffee was ground coarse, more so than even the coarsest setting on the burr grinders could accomplish.
This is the one spot that seems to bug me. It seems to be acknowledging that their methodology was slightly flawed, and that the grinders they tested weren't up to the task. I also am curious on how coarse they needed for good drip.
I'm going to spend a while figuring out grind size for my different brewing methods. If you can get it right, maybe I can convince my wife that it isn't nearly as bad as she thinks it is.... (as evidenced by the times she has stolen my cup from a good pour over done at a particular local coffee shop).
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Permit me to point out that your price cap of $50 excluded all but the cheapest burr grinders. Not really a valid comparison, is it?
Only IF you are sure you should spend more and believe a burr grinder is necessary which Cooks questions based on tastings of actual testers.
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Only IF you are sure you should spend more and believe a burr grinder is necessary which Cooks questions based on tastings of actual testers.
I don't need Cooks to tell me what tastes good. The only "tester" I need is behind my teeth.
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I don't need Cooks to tell me what tastes good. The only "tester" I need is behind my teeth.
Right, you're in no need of outside advise or reference...
Go ahead and like Cooks, buy a dozen products, run tests and let us know YOUR findings, I'm sure hopeful we'll find those data points useful.
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Something to keep in mind is that the more coffee you grind at once like say to fill a large Bunn drip coffeemaker carafe, the less coffee in tablespoons per 6 ounce yield should be used due to the fact there's more dust and weight from both the grind combined with increased water and surface area within the drip filter. Gravity is constant, filter blockage rate due to dust isn't. There's no way to avoid coffee dust and to know how much is too much.
For at least a decade I've been using a simple Melitta filter single serving (12 oz. yield) drip setup with a Krups blade grinder (15 seconds/intermittent shaking). 3 level tablespoons of 100% Columbian Supreme beans to 11 oz. of water brought to a boil and left to cool down for 15 seconds, pour a bit only to wet the grounds, wait 30 seconds to pour the rest. No bitter coffee.
If I went for filling a 16 oz. mug I had to use less coffee beans per 6 oz yield or else it would be quite bitter.
The grinder used made no difference at least in my experience.
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http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2015/02/open-mike-upping-your-game-coffee-and-desktop-music.html
From a coffee loving photographer.
Personally i prefer Nespresso machines as the coffee is ground and sealed and convenient for me. However, for American sized cups you would need 2 or 3 shots
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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The grinder used made no difference at least in my experience.
I've got a few (one Burr built into a Super Automatic, two manual units) and that's my experience too. Or to put it this way, the grinding technology itself is small issue compared to the beans themselves, the ratio of water to bean, the temperature of the water (that's massively important), the 'quality' of the water etc. I suspect that's why Cooks Illustrated didn't feel the need to go above the $50 price range for something as 'simple' as a device to grind beans.
But heck, if you want to spend more money than necessary, go for it guys.
Nespresso machines do make a decent cup of coffee for that type of unit/technology. Much better IMHO than Keurig's.
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Something to keep in mind is that the more coffee you grind at once like say to fill a large Bunn drip coffeemaker carafe, the less coffee in tablespoons per 6 ounce yield should be used due to the fact there's more dust and weight from both the grind combined with increased water and surface area within the drip filter. Gravity is constant, filter blockage rate due to dust isn't. There's no way to avoid coffee dust and to know how much is too much.
For at least a decade I've been using a simple Melitta filter single serving (12 oz. yield) drip setup with a Krups blade grinder (15 seconds/intermittent shaking). 3 level tablespoons of 100% Columbian Supreme beans to 11 oz. of water brought to a boil and left to cool down for 15 seconds, pour a bit only to wet the grounds, wait 30 seconds to pour the rest. No bitter coffee.
If I went for filling a 16 oz. mug I had to use less coffee beans per 6 oz yield or else it would be quite bitter.
The grinder used made no difference at least in my experience.
The grounds out of my blade grinder were clogging a Melitta #2 filter pretty consistently. This morning, was the first morning with the new grinder, and the grounds from it seemed to work flawlessly. I'm not going to say it makes a better tasting cup, just that it helps make a much more consistent cup. For pour over, measure out 1.6g to 2g of beans for every ounce of water, grind the beans (16 worked better than 18 on my new grinder) while warming the water to a slight boil (3 minutes in my microwave). Let water set for about 10 seconds then wet grounds to allow a bloom. Then pour water slowly maintaining consistent moisture in all the grounds. Worked fairly well.
And yes, technique and beans used are a huge factor in the total equation. Today's beans were a fair trade Ethiopian; rich and chocolaty in flavor.
Any good chef will tell you that getting consistent results is one of the biggest parts of cooking. And a better grinder lends itself to more consistent results.
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I've been using this Capresso conical burr grinder for over 6 years. It's very consistent and the taste of the coffee is great. While it is somewhat difficult to clean the machine, I would get the same one again.
http://www.amazon.com/Capresso-560-01-Infinity-Grinder-Black/dp/B0000AR7SY/ref=sr_1_3?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1442690290&sr=1-3&keywords=capresso
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The grounds out of my blade grinder were clogging a Melitta #2 filter pretty consistently.
How could you tell grounds were clogging the filter?
Do you mean there was no coffee coming through that little hole at the bottom of the plastic Melitta cone? If that's what your going by I can tell you that's never happened to me. Are you grinding the beans to a powder consistency?
Just to add, my Krups blade grinder cost me $6 at a thrift store.
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Right, you're in no need of outside advise or reference...
Go ahead and like Cooks, buy a dozen products, run tests and let us know YOUR findings, I'm sure hopeful we'll find those data points useful.
Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for Cooks and subscribe to the web site and magazine, and I greatly value their tests. But if my experience differs from their test conclusions guess which I am going to follow? If you want to slavishly do whatever they say is best, be my guest, but I have enough experience and self-confidence to make my own decisions in matters of taste.
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But if my experience differs from their test conclusions guess which I am going to follow?
As I said in my first post, that's not yet been my experience over many years.
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Tea is the way to go. US$20 will buy you a nice teapot with an infuser. Read the instructions on the tea packet and you will be able to make a great cup of tea. Trying to perfect coffee is the road to ruin.
Cheers,
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Trying to perfect coffee is the road to ruin.
Cheers,
But it's such a fun road once you realize there is no such thing as "perfect" coffee.
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Tea is the way to go. US$20 will buy you a nice teapot with an infuser. Read the instructions on the tea packet and you will be able to make a great cup of tea. Trying to perfect coffee is the road to ruin.
Cheers,
My wife filled our kitchen island yesterday with her tea collection. To say there is already a bit of tea floating around in the house is an understatement. I prefer coffee in the AM and tea in the PM.
As for the road to ruin, I feel like it is the same with camera gear, you can always be chasing that "best camera ever", or you can get a few that are good enough and make you happy.
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Hey, Aldi has just provided me with a very drinkable Pino Grigio for around US$4. Who needs coffee or tea!
Cheers,
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004Y69L/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00004Y69L&linkCode=as2&tag=basheaspe-20&linkId=67CA2II3GSQH5TIL (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004Y69L/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00004Y69L&linkCode=as2&tag=basheaspe-20&linkId=67CA2II3GSQH5TIL)
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004Y69L/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00004Y69L&linkCode=as2&tag=basheaspe-20&linkId=67CA2II3GSQH5TIL (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004Y69L/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00004Y69L&linkCode=as2&tag=basheaspe-20&linkId=67CA2II3GSQH5TIL)
I have a manual crank coffee grinder much like that one that I used for years before getting an electric grinder. It works just fine although you might need safety glasses as they occasionally launch a coffee bean out at a pretty good velocity.
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We got the Kitchen Aid (http://www.amazon.com/KitchenAid-KCG0702OB-Coffee-Grinder-Black/dp/B00XPRQZJ0/) a few years ago, on the recommendation of another coffee lover, my father. It's large and heavy, but the beans have a straight path from the hopper down into the canister. The first thing I did was (accidentally) break the glass canister, which turned out okay -- I can hold my filter underneath (in the filter holder from the coffeemaker) and the grinds go straight in, nothing else to clean.
We only brew filter coffee, not espresso, and this one seems pretty consistent.
Edit: I just checked the link and the price, and we-ooooo, I know we didn't pay that much for it.
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This is the grinder we have been using for the past several years. It has been nothing short of great...for under $30.00 us.
Peter
KitchenAid BCG111OB Blade Coffee Grinder
http://www.amazon.com/KitchenAid-BCG111OB-Blade-Coffee-Grinder/dp/B003WIZ5PC/ref=pd_sim_sbs_79_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0FVT44HJ18QH684FSAEN&dpID=41l41kVyryL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR96%2C160_