I pre-ordered the 63mm conical variant of these from https://gorillagear.coffee/products/gorilla-gear-roblack-burrs-71mm-conical?_pos=1&_sid=de7841d97&_ss=r&variant=40171553259608 which are made to fit the Niche Zero and other grinders that use the Mazzer Kony burrs that the Niche uses. Made by John Gordon in New Zealand and now supplying the likes of high end grinder manufacturer Titus. The burrs arrived late last week and I’ve just had my first three pours after putting a kilo of beans through for seasoning followed by a couple of sinkers while I sorted the grind size out. I’m impressed. From a Kenya AA bean medium/dark I detected more origin flavors than with the original burrs. The difference is more distinct than I dared hope for. The trade off is the very small loss of viscosity. Bear in mind that this is not a side by side comparison because I don’t have two Niche grinders. But when my sons Niche arrives in a few weeks I’ll ask him to bring it with him and run some side by sides with some Medium and Medium Light beans and will report back. The jury is out until then. Interested to know if anyone else has tried GG burrs.

Looking forward to a side by side comparison from you, I think it will be interesting and I’m sure more people will look at buying the burrs when they are more readily available. But for the price I guess people will have to see how well they work so I’m glad someone can do some testing for us

tompoland I’ll be interested in the results Tom.

Appreciate its too early to say, Tom , but interested indeed your experience of these in a niche (which i have) vs olympia moca sd (whch i might buy…) Would be a lot cheaper to buy new burrs! Thanks

Very promising! Look forward to hearing about the results, conscious these will be primarily for espresso but any pour over comparisons would also be appreciated as I know people gave the Niche a hard time for the fines it created especially on lighter roasts.

I also ordered the Gorilla burrs. WEEKS ago! After numerous delays and extremely poor communication from Gorilla I’m expecting delivery tomorrow. So a week or so I’ll have drawn some conclusions. I’m very interested to know your thoughts, @tompoland !

@tompoland Thanks for offering to complete the side by side tests, Tom. And looking forward to learning of your impressions, Grahamsphillips And anyone else.

TomR Tom I have poured a few shots from each grinder over the last two days, simply for when I have an espresso each morning. Bearing in mind that means an hour or two in between each grind so it’s not a side by side comparison which I find is the best method for taste comparisons. So take this with a pinch of salt but at this stage it’s a surprisingly close call to between them. I don’t know what miracles John Gordon has worked with his GG conical burrs, but they are mighty impressive. As you know, I’m still to do side by side comparisons with another Niche so I’ll add side by side comparisons with the Moca SD to the queue. Thanks for the idea, not sure why I didn’t think of it. In the interests of setting a realistic time frame expectation, the Niche GG burrs to Niche Kony burrs comparison is still a few weeks away because I need to wait for my son’s Niche to arrive (ETA two weeks) and then for him to come for a visit. But it will happen. For the Niche GG burrs to Moca SD, I can do that early next week when the beans I have resting are ready to go. I’ll post back here.

FadedFrontiers any pour over comparisons would also be appreciated sorry FF but I can’t help you with that, I have not the faintest idea how to do a pour over or even what it should taste like. I could do something with the Gevi 4-1 that is collecting dust at the moment but to be quite honest, I’m the last person you should listen to on pour over. re pour over: @lancehedrick are you in the building? You gotta gotta gotta try the John Gordon burrs.

Hi @tompoland I believe @lancehedrick is indeed expecting some of the GG burrs so it’ll be interesting to see his take esp as he’s not a fan of the NICHE with the stock burrs

Grahamsphillips good to know thanks GP. From memory (not always a good idea) Lance’s main point in his “one year on” review was that the NZ was not the all rounder be-all-and-end-all grinder that some were making it out to be. The Kony burrs in the NZ are certainly proven performers for medium-dark and dark roasts. And when people add milk to those type of beans, they excell even more. But yes, it will be interesting to see his review. I’m loving the GG burrs but their arrival coincided with a new batch of beans so the beans may be a part of the difference I’m tasting. So I’m looking forward to getting a second NZ to run the side by side comparison with the same beans.

Gorilla Gear burrs in a Niche Zero

Grahamsphillips

Lance’s review:

Grahamsphillips

I’ve had the odd interaction with Lance on insta etc - he implied that he likes the NICHE but not the MAZZER burrs - so it’ll be interesting to see his take on the GG Burrs

tompoland

Grahamsphillips thanks Graham, that clarifies my understanding. I guess that makes sense if he has a preference for light roasts and brew/V60/pour over.

lancehedrick

Grahamsphillips I do think the niche is well built enough. I don’t like the flavor profile of the niche. I have actually done a lot of tests recently in conjunction with Gagne. Some interesting findings I’ll discuss soon that verify my disdain for the coffee the niche provides. And I won’t be testing the GG. The idea for new burrs on the niche was my idea. I reached out to John at GG. We were in talks for months and I gave him some ideas for different geometries. NExt thing I know, he has taken said ideas and started selling them.

dfk41

tompoland You can take anything he says with a pinch of salt. He is only interested in promoting himself! On one of his recent grinder reviews, the one that had a power
brick the size of a suitcase, I asked him why he did not highlight this fact to potential customers and his reply was, it was in the original but the editor guy must have removed it…..I did not argue as he obviously thinks I am stupid enough to believe that. It is definitely not the fact that he was only willing to list positives in the hope that suppliers will add him to their list of ‘friendly’ reviewers

DavecUK

dfk41 You can take anything he says with a pinch of salt. He is only interested in promoting himself! On one of his recent grinder reviews,

Remembering that he is a member of this forum, so at least be factual, don’t attack the man attack the ball. Below might be the sort of thing that’s useful and in line with our way of doing things.

e.g. He should have shown the power brick and it’s surprising he chose not to. Even perhaps suggesting another video should go up or another showing the power brick and espresso grinding/shot production.

This effectively suggests what you (and another commenter) didn’t like and what you would like done about it. Thus benefitting Lances audience.

lancehedrick

dfk41 dude. you’ve gotta take a chill pill. We did 100% film it. Hugo 100% cut it. This silly escapade you have against everyone is really immature. I have been black listed by loads of companies. To save you the trouble, i’ll go ahead and block you from my youtube since I am so misleading. OH! fyi- I pay for the majority of what I have. Decent, EG1, SD40, most hand grinders, bentwood, timemore sculptor, wug 2, etc. Alright, cheers grumpy old man

Grahamsphillips

So my burrs landed today, but I’m away so won’t get them installed till the weekend. @tompoland any hints and tips?

tompoland

Grahamsphillips re the swap?

It was very straightforward even for someone who lives in fear of taking a thing apart and stuffing it up.

Just undo the central locking nut and remove it and the pop stopper.

Then unscrew the collar and remove.

After that everything simply lifts out.

This video is the best I found because it shows the removal of the lower burr too.

tompoland

DavecUK

DavecUK that’s a fair call I reckon. Perhaps Lance’s response wasn’t what was hoped for but

A) he did respond (and not all do) and

B) we simply don’t know why that fact was left out

C) he’s fronted up to meet critics head on and explain his side in the past so hopefully the second coming of @lancehedrick is imminent and he can do so again.

Grahamsphillips

Thanks @tompoland RU a member of the Niche facebook group? There’s been quite a lot of discussion around the GG burrs? No one has really pronounced on them yet, but one member found that he couldn’t grind fine enough for espresso. (When he reinstalled the Mazzers it was fine). According to John Gordon (he of GG fame) its an alignment problem.. the GG burrs are far more sensitive to alignment issues (due to their geometry) than the original Mazzers. I’nm wondering if @DavecUK has any thoughts?

tompoland

Grahamsphillips no not a member of the FB group.

Agree with @Cuprajake that their really is no way to adjust the burr alignment in the Niche, at least not that I can see. DavecUK will know. Maybe a shim on one side? But there should not really be any need for that.

For me, the burr replacement was very straighforward and based on the superb espresso they are producing after 1kg of seasoning, I’d say they were perfectly aligned.

As for not griding fine enough for espresso, all I can say is, that is not my experience and it would suprise me greatly if the likes of Titus were offering GG in their grinders if they could not grind for espresso.

DavecUK

Grahamsphillips According to John Gordon (he of GG fame) its an alignment problem.. the GG burrs are far more sensitive to alignment issues (due to their geometry) than the original Mazzers. I’nm wondering if @DavecUK has any thoughts?

My thoughts are if the Mazzer burrs work, then the GG burrs should as well. I’m always wary of comments like the burrs are perfect so it must be the grinder…just doesn’t make sense, unless of course the Mazzer burrs don’t work either.

I often hear, it’s really difficult to use, but you can get superm results when you use it just right, or it takes considerable skill to perfect, but when you do… I always think, someone hasn’t designed something well!

Cuprajake

You can’t really align a niche, ways it’s made is how it is out of the box

Imo if the mazzer burrs work then it’s an issue with the gorilla burrs,.

tompoland

Cuprajake it could even be that the GG burrs were damaged somehow or that they were somehow installed incorrectly. spring missing, something jammed underneath. Who knows. For my money, the GG burrs are pretty darned impressive.

Grahamsphillips

I’ll get the burrs installed and try the usual trick with a marker pen..

CoyoteOldMan

Grahamsphillips I’m not sure the ‘marker pen’ trick can work in a conical - they haven’t got the flat polishing surfaces of a flat burr. Curious to hear what you find.

Cuprajake

Yeah, having taken my niche to bits 😂 there’s very little one can do to align.

Can you markerpen a conical?

Grahamsphillips

@tompoland I re-read your review of the MOCA SD yesterday. It seems to be coffee’s best kept secret (along with the ACS Vesuvius). If the NICHE plus GG burrs is genuinely competitive with the SD that’s hugely impressive. I must say I’ve had the NICHE for 2+ years and it really hasn’t skipped a beat in daily use..

Cuprajake

@tompoland speaking of the moca, is that the smallest burr set you have? and have you tried that burr size before,

tompoland

Cuprajake Hi Jake no, I have not tried the Ditting 64mm burrs prior to the Moca SD.

I’ve had smaller burr sets amongst this lot (last 2 years worth of grinders that I’ve bought and mostly sold while I was figuring things out):

Sunbeam Café Series EM0480 (38mm conical)
Porlex Tall ll (hand grinder)
Breville Smart Pro 2x (40mm conical)
Ascaso i2 Mini (54mm flat)
Eureka Helios 80 (80mm flat)
ECM V-Titan 64 (64mm flat)
Weber EG-1 (80mm flat)
Orphan Espresso Pharos
Niche Zero - 3x, long story, don’t ask (63mm Mazzer conical)
Kinu M47 Classic (47mm Italmill conical)
Quamar Q50 2x (54mm flat)
Fellow Ode (64mm flat)
Mahlkonig X54 Allrounder (54mm flat)
Mahlkonig EK43
Malwani Livi (fitted with 83mm Mazzer Robur conical)
Hedone Honne (DRM Hybrid 68mm)
Helor 106 (71mm Mazzer Robur conical)
Gevi 4-in-1 pour over (60mm flat)
Olympia Moca SD (64mm flat)
Knob hand grinder (47mm Italmill conical, titanium coated)
And now of course the 63mm Gorilla Gear burrs in the Niche

Current burr sets at the moment are in bold type above. For me it’s mostly about the burr geometry, then workflow and size of burr is not much of a consideration.

Apparently the Etzinger etzmax produce a superb espresso at something like 38mm. The only reason I didn’t buy one was that a retailer here in Australia (well respected and someone I’ve come to trust) told me that he got hurt after he sold a bunch of them and the motors burnt out. The warranties were not honoured (no idea why or whose fault is was) and so he refunded everyone at his own cost and was left with a bunch of burnt out grinders. Anyhow, at 38mm, the etzmax produces great espresso according to those who have them which reinforces the idea that my wife tells me, size is indeed not everything. Just a shame that the motors are not up to it by the sound of it.

Grahamsphillips

Link to the discussion in the NICHE facebook group if anyone is interested

https://www.facebook.com/groups/571008890139282

Grahamsphillips

@tompoland have you played with the GEVI? I bought one too, and I’ve had a lot of fun with it, esp using it with the KONO and the TRICOLATE

tompoland

Grahamsphillips did a couple of pours when I first got it middle-ish last year. Amazing burr set and very clever machine. I intend to get back to it but just been busy with othrr stuff. It’s sitting in the office collecting dust at the moment which is a bit of a shame.

Would you be up for starting a thread on it?

Ahh, so many beans, so little time.

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