Well, how about that! Niche just released an 83 mm flat burr grinder. Love my conical, but very interesting. They are using two burr sets: one for espresso and one for drip.

I backed the Timemore grinder. The Niche duo is twice the price but perhaps more likely to be reliable. I’m conflicted now…

Comes with two sets of burrs as standard, that's pretty good.

Anybody noted that the photo of the burrs show different rotation?

Hmmm all very interested and then its April 1st - bit as you can order it…. It does say its not shipping to July 2023. [URL=https://i.imgur.com/oRn6FKK.png][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/oRn6FKK.png[/IMG][/URL]

On the one hand this doesn’t seem weird enough to be an April Fool’s. A Niche with a massive hopper or something would’ve been more of a joke. On the other, for a machine known for it’s great workflow, it seems slightly weird to have to change burrs to switch coffee types as if anyone would actually just casually switch burrs multiple times a day.

Tbh the ‘sold with two burrs’ is the only thing that makes me question this.

> @"Ernie1"#p40980 slightly weird to have to change burrs to switch coffee types as if anyone would actually just casually switch burrs multiple times a day. You don’t need to. But if you want to grind correctly for filter (as in, be more optimised for that method, extract better flavours etc) you are better off with the more appropriate burr set.

@"Igm45"#p40981 Didn’t someone reference a patent entry in this forum a couple of weeks back which alluded to that very design? Edit: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/47/93/9b/b7dc1dd206b3c3/WO2023274895A1.pdf

Niche flat burr released

MediumRoastSteam

dutchy101 They’ve most likely been developing and refining it for years

My thoughts exactly. And as I said before, it’s unlikely Niche would release something they are unhappy with. Take the df64 for example. It’s 3 years old and owners are still doing mods to it. Going by Niche’s reputation (let’s not forget the Zero was in the design/prototype phase for years), it will be a finished product.

Still, it would be great if Niche sent units away for open and honest feedback and/or demonstrating the product in a much deeper level of detail.

Ernie1

I’m not saying they made it overnight, we’d seen the patent applications, but it could’ve launched with limited testing. Not saying it did, just that it’s possible.

It’s just really unusual for any product in this day and age, especially to a specialist market, just appear with absolutely no announcement prior to release. Even without competition it just doesn’t make any sales sense at all.

MediumRoastSteam

Ernie1 just appear with absolutely no announcement prior to release

If you think about it, it hasn’t been released yet. You can pre-order, but delivery is for July. You could argue that’s the announcement, and people are welcome to pre-order (or they can wait and buy when it’s readily available).

tompoland

Ernie1 it would be a loooong way out of character for James Nicholson to rush anything. By all account he’s a perfectionist.

Cuprajake

Some would say

Giphy - Refreshing Will Ferrell GIF by Anchorman Movie

Not having every new product rammed down your throat.

Take the sculptor as an example, it’s being heavily promoted ATM, the 78s hasn’t been tested yet it’s amazing,

The new world of social media has alot to answer for in reality.

We are guilty as consumers, the likes of Amazon and YouTube/Instagram give us instant gratification, and we want everything yesterday.

I think launching on April fools is brilliant, why pay/give freebies to influencers when it’s spread across every forum and Facebook/Instagram page anyway, and on a plus point those scalpers who bought niche zeros won’t have a clue about it .

JahLaza

MediumRoastSteam You could argue that’s the announcement,

As you say here and Cuprajake above, isn’t it refreshing that the established, and reputed company that it is is releasing this like this? You know their reputation, you know what they do, here is another product from them, no nonsense, just click if you want to buy one! It would be great to have some info/reviews on it before ordering but maybe the confidence/reputation is there to not need it? Compared to the big hype going around of other totally unknown stuff costing this and more at the moment I like it

Ernie1

Fair points, as above, I’m hopeful. I’d been wanting a flat burr Niche for a long while.

FadedFrontiers

MWJB yeah that’s pretty much it (average/sd), by no means novel but a straightforward way of looking at spread that is often neglected in favour of endless charts and tables.

Yeah like a lot of coffee jargon I don’t think it’s very consistently defined but I use geometry to exclusively mean the specific design of the different parts of the burr’s surface that come into contact with coffee - regardless of shape or size (well not quite regardless but you know what I mean…)

MediumRoastSteam

JahLaza - I’m sure it’s a great grinder. I suppose people have different approaches to making an informed choice. You can trust someone based on reputation, of course. A grinder is not something I depend upon. I’m happy to wait until there’s more information about it out there.

JahLaza

MediumRoastSteam yes, I think it’s an interesting decision to go with the interchangeable burr sets. I’m not sure how that will play out- would you really want to be going through all that each time just for a different brew type? Maybe, might suit some, but dialling in then becomes more labour intensive as you try get it back to exactly wherever was woth the other burrs etc etc Maybe it’s the best balancing act rather than having two grinders in the kitchen. I too, am very interested to see/hear some feedback

MediumRoastSteam

JahLaza yes, I think it’s an interesting decision to go with the interchangeable burr sets

I only drink espresso, so for me it’s rather irrelevant. I suppose you could still use the espresso burrs to grind for filter if you don’t want to swap every time, same as the current Niche Zero? But I don’t know that. Hence why I think more detailed explanations, reviews and real world usage videos are welcome. 👍

Cuprajake

You’re not going to please everyone

The zero got a pretty scathing review saying it was bad for filter, they address that by giving you a dedicated filter burr and people moan🤣

I have two grinder on the bench, it takes up more space, but I have his and hers

Doram

Regarding the two burr sets: as far as I understand, workflow is what puts Niche Zero in a class of it’s own. Assuming most people will not find frequent swapping of burrs part of an easy workflow, providing two burr sets seems to me like a strange proposition. If I had the Duo, I would end up using one burr set with the second in storage, and I assume this would be the case for most. I would probably prefer to save the cost and have the second set sold separately as an option. The rest is speculation at this stage, but my guess is that it will be a good product and that it will be a success.

MediumRoastSteam

Doram I would probably prefer to save the cost and have the second set sold separately as an option

Same here. Personally, I don’t drink filter coffee, and would have much preferred to choose if I wanted burr A, burr B or both and have a reduction in price.

Saying that, if I end up buying one, curiosity would no doubt get the better of me and I’ll end up drinking filter coffee just because I have the correct burrs! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

wilburpan

DavecUK A DC motor will draw whatever wattage it needs to, only limited by the resistance of the windings (which isn’t that high). It’s why the main control board in the Niche such (as it is) has a a self resetting cut out, if too much current is drawn in too short a time (protecting the motor windings). So it really doesn’t make any sense to talk about maximum motor power consumption in W.

I agree with all of the above, and understand the design. But this design begs the question of why a cut out would be necessary if a motor is spec’ed that’s powerful enough to grind coffee beans to espresso sizes with a given burr size.

And just to address the issue of different burrs of the same size requiring different amounts of power, burr geometry may play a role in how much power is needed for a given burr, but the burr size itself is probably the major factor. In addition, the number of third-party burrs is a pretty well known quantity, and basic engineering for this issue would probably include something like “The most power hungry burr in this size needs X watts, so let’s spec a motor that’s X+15% watts”, or something like that.

I’ll mention again that every other grinder manufacturer I can find seems to have no problem giving some sort of idea of how powerful the motor is. It’s sort of like MPG for cars – your actual mileage will differ from the stated MG depending on your driving habits, but the MPG ratings allow some sort of comparison between one car and another.

MediumRoastSteam

wilburpan But this design begs the question of why a cut out would be necessary if a motor is spec’ed that’s powerful enough to grind coffee beans to espresso sizes with a given burr size.

Until people see it in action, there’s no point speculating what it can or can’t do. How can you say the motor is powerful enough, or not, if you haven’t seen it working? You are making a lot of comments regarding burr size, geometry and whatever else, without even seen a video of the grinder turned off, let alone on.

Best to wait and see. And then make comments. Drives me mad.

DavecUK

wilburpan gn. But this design begs the question of why a cut out would be necessary

In case the burrs jam. I dropped a screw in one once, burrs stopped and it cut out. This protects the motor. It’s also good for compliance.

PaulL

Reading this thread I’m glad I’m not a manufacturer or launching a product, tough crowd. And I bet it’s the same across other forums too although I haven’t checked. I’ve had my Zero since Aug 2018 and it was unlike any grinder I had known. The workflow, the instant adjust and repeatable accuracy, the solving of purging and wastage that adds up over time and pays for the grinder quicker than one might realise.

So I ordered a Duo straight away, yes I might be blowing a lot of money on a me-too but as far as I can see it has all the same workflow of the smaller sibling so I’m guessing no purging, no bellows, no vacuum, no wastage, all the daily ease we have gotten used to and forgotten how it used to be.

The two burr sets intrigues me, I’ve never tried dedicated filter burrs before and to me they are free (I know, nothing is free) having made the buying decision for the 83mm flat espresso burrs. I remember paying £380 in 2004 for my first grinder, a 58mm Macap. Paying £515 for my 64mm Mazzer Mini E which then spent a few years on the market at £625. Then £1080 for my Ceado E37s. Which went to £1300 or more it seems. And they were all badly flawed, enjoyable but badly flawed from a home user rather than commercial perspective. And I see crazily expensive grinders at £2k to £5k now with a cult following.

So if this new Duo has all the Niche attributes we got used to with high quality results from these burr sets, and if it keeps your grind settings when swapping burrs which would be amazing, then maybe Niche is going to disrupt the market again. I do hope so.

I haven’t heard any language of game changer this time around, just a bunch of moaning and negative speculation it seems, don’t be offended it just comes across this way rather than genuine excitement. Is it just me that’s excited about it, and intrigued why it launched in this unique anti-marketing fashion? It was all a bit Willy Wonka factory and locked gates, lots of laughs.

tompoland

MediumRoastSteam 170

tompoland

MWJB simply because the differences in terms of in-the-cup is typically more marked between flats and conicals than it is between say one flat at 83mm and another flat at 83mm. More of a level playing field, if you like.

MWJB

tompoland simply because the differences in terms of in-the-cup is typically more marked between flats and conicals than it is between say one flat at 83mm and another flat at 83mm. More of a level playing field, if you like.

It seems you know the results of testing before you do the testing, which seems to make testing moot :-)

tompoland

MWJB Jim Schuman’s appraisal of the Titan grinder PD curves

can you recall how long ago those tests were run? from memory it’s quite some years ago and would predate recent developments such as Caedo’s Opal Glide or the SSP range. Perhaps its more up to date than I recall?

MWJB

tompoland can you recall how long ago those tests were run? from memory it’s quite some years ago and would predate recent developments such as Caedo’s Opal Glide or the SSP range. Perhaps its more up to date than I recall?

Do you have any tangible reason to think that the grinders you mention do anything statistically different (given Schulman’s protocol) than the grinders tested then?

MediumRoastSteam

tompoland 1984FXSE it would be a loooong way out of character for James Nicholson to rush anything

Martin Nicholson. James is his son.

Ernie1

If the burrs are Mazzer Major’s, the actual cost saving of not including both sets wouldn’t be huge as they’re ~£80 retail.

Interestingly two sets of Major burrs costs about the same as one set of Kony (in the Zero).

So perhaps that’s a sign the motor is new/different otherwise that‘s a big premium for extra plastic.

MattH

Seems like a lot of people still are looking at this like a Kickstarter. But there is no special lock in price - if you want it preorder now - thats great but other than getting it before others there’s no benefit as such.

It’s still 3 months til its release.. so plenty of time for small adjustments - (though depending on the amount of pre-orders you would expect the manufacturing run to be under way now or very shortly.)

I was not into coffee when the niche was launched but clearly they see this time as building on the Zeros’s success and have their own plan on how they are releasing this product.

I will enjoy the reviews/thoughts once its finally out there in the wild :)

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