First Night With My Niche Girlfriend (and a couple of questions)

DavecUK The grind seems a tad slow, usually it’s around 20 - 25s for 18g of Espresso grind, if memory serves me right

Hi Dave. Thanks for offering to help.

The 16.5g frozen decaf bean grind ran 30 seconds to empty the hopper and then another 15 seconds (total 45) until the last of the grounds flowed out (with no remaining retention). It was a medium dark decaf of unknown origin, that was frozen after 2 weeks rest. The grind setting was 4.75. Here is a link to the grind video: NZ Grind. It should become active in 1 hour.

My shot was 16.5 in, 24.3 out. 10 BAR. 95C. 8 seconds bloom pre-infusion. I didn’t see the shot time, but the flow seemed neither slow or fast. I am guessing that it ran about 30 seconds. I accidentally deleted the shot video, and its a pain to recover. The shot was balanced but didn’t have significant body/mouthfeel, strength, flavour or length. As per my recent post, I think the coffee is stale.

Irrespectively the grind should not take so long.

Thoughts? Possible solutions?

Thanks Dave!

ken0062 ust food for thought, are niche sending out a batch of NFC discs with smaller holes than original, my niche is one of the originals without NFC disc, I had been using my own 3d printed one, about 6 months ago I decided to buy an original one and was not that impressed, found the flow was much slower than my printed one and grinding times and grind consistency would vary from shot to shot, in the end went back to my 3d printed one.

Thanks for sharing that experience, ken0062. And yes, aside from s l o w grind speed, I’ve also been experiencing unexplainable shot time variation, from shot to shot with the same bean, recipe, etc. Ofcourse, this could be the operator 🤪 (me).

Might you email me the 3D printing file, the 3D printer model name/# and whatever else I’d need to send this to my local 3D printing shop. Email address is Julian Colman with a dot in between at gmail dot com.

My disk is brand new (came with my brand new NZ). It’s worth a test, just for the heck if it.

ken0062 I am using the “NFC_Disk_alternate.stl” found on Thingverse Here I believe that one has a larger hole than standard but found it to be a ideal compromise between not using a NFC disc at all and the genuine NFC disc that i bought

Hi Ken. Thanks for the 3D Printing file. I am entirely new to 3D Printing and do not own a printer. So I will either go to my local public library to print it, or have the UPS Store or Staples (an office supply and services store) print it. Question: What filament, resin, etc could/should I specify? Or do I just upload the file and set the machine to work? I am not asking for a primer on this (I wouldn’t trouble you with that); just need to know whether there are any 3D materials preferences that I should specify. Thanks again for your help with this.

And everyone: I’m confident that the NZ will work out to be a great grinder for me (after a break-in period, for both the machine and me). However, I do tend to drink medium-dark roasts more than light or medium-light roasts, and all of my coffee must unfortunately be decaf, so I do need a little help with grinding speed/time. I know that it will take longer to grind these beans even if I use a 3D disk with a slightly larger hole, but if we can get the beans into the burrs just a tad faster, especially at the beginning when the beans just don’t seem to be feeding through that small disk hole, that would be great. Additionally, the final grinds still take another 15 seconds to come out (after the grinding stops, based upon my view of the hopper and the sounds that I hear). So anything is worth a try.

Just curious. Is everyone using a flow control disk? Why or why not? When and when not?