Hello! I'm Lance Hedrick and I'd like to address some things!

lancehedrick absolutely! I genuinely do try my best to be the in between of, say, Dave and Hoffmann. Meaning, quirky entertainment and deep dives. I don’t feign to have the knowledge or experience of Dave, nor the affability of Hoffmann, but I have helped a lot of people and that makes me happy.

One of the best things about Youtube is the diversity of both opinion and presentation. Personally, I’ve viewed quite a few videos from all three of you (and others) and I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t enjoy watching, and find them useful. The difference in style and approach only helps that.

It’s good to see you here. If nothing else, it means I can say thanks, for some excellent and very helpful material. Keep it up. ;)

If you grind a bean on a conical that is more suited to a conical (probably medium and above) then would you be surprised if it tasted better than if ground on a flat……and vice versa! I always respect those who have a palate that works properly (unlike mine) but I also respect my pal @DavecUK who drinks mediumish beans yet chose a Ceado E92 before his Niche and both are conical. I wonder if those who are lucky enough to have both……if they really really tried hard to tinker with their grinders, could not actually achieve neigh on the same results with both

dfk41 adding milk changes things a lot.

tompoland

I probably should’ve added that my taste tests were with milk…!

My palate isn’t good enough without milk to accurately distinguish differences and I really don’t enjoy light roasts as espresso.

dfk41 just realized I didn’t answer your last query. It is certainly possible to have some flat and some conical burrs producing a similar taste and viscosity. But there are others where it would be close to impossible e.g. a Niche Zero conical burrs versus flat burrs from a Moca. The 80mm burrs on the EG-1 however could produce similar flavor to an 83mm Mazzer Robur conical, given the right pressure/temperature profile.. Not the same but close enough.

Ernie1 Sprometheus did a video a while back comparing flats and conicals - his findings are similar to yours but not completely. He’s comparing a Mazzer Mini to a Niche with a medium roast coffee.

I was always under the impression the difference between flats and conicals are the way the grind beans, so flats produce more even slices whilst conicals produce more flakes and taste is the result of the geometry. - I could be totally wrong though 😅

whinmoor85

Good to know I’m not the only one who thinks flats create the choc/caramel richness and muted acidity.

Now there’s two of us!

Ernie1 Whilst a previous study by the SCAE was carried out on brewed coffee only, they found the same (but, only after participants were aware of what the difference in samples was, prior to that no one was able to tell the difference blind).

MWJB Do you happen to have a link to that study, would be interesting to see the methodology and maybe repeat it

InfamousTuba

Problem is if they did it today and got the same result it would render £4k grinders pointless 😂😂😂

InfamousTuba So, it’s not conicals vs flats that’s the question, it’s conicals & most flats vs a very, very tiny sample of esoteric grinders that have only appeared in the last few years (subsequently, rendering the question at the time of asking as moot?).

I tend to think as people seek to ascertain a solid & repeatable difference between flat & conical, the goalposts for testing will just continue to move until the test has no real world value.

EK had been in use for over 25years, at least for 4 of those (prior to this study) by Scott Rao, who has since said he reckons his EK was not typical and 90% of them don’t give similar results. He has also reported high extractions from conical hand & electric grinders (not that I have been able to replicate these).

I just want more robust testing on the hypothesis, a very small sample size of tests on flats versus conicals is not enough data for me. I also think that people who are spending thousands on these esoteric grinders would like some more data on what separates these grinders from others even if the data shows their isn’t a difference.

I don’t think the test has to change much at all I just think it needs repeating by others, like with other scientific research it should be repeated under the same and different conditions.

Scott Rao did say that 90% of EKs don’t come aligned well out of the box, but he went on to say that baristas have been aligning their own EKs to produce the same results he achieved. They are used in the vast majority of speciality cafes and a large number of roasteries it would be strange to completely overlook them

lancehedrick does grind speed make that much difference. Surely a burr set has an optimal rotation speed or a sweet spot?

Not sure on the new grinder, don’t like the fafing. Do you have a pic of the power supply for it

Cuprajake The charger is like a laptop brick