I had long thought of, since getting the Evo, having a dedicated thread to share my coffee experience. The laziness got the better off me. I also didn’t have much recounting the journey stories like experienced folks like Dave, dfk41, Systemic, MRS, Jake and many more. Jake’s recording of his journey is beautiful. With the duo due to be delivered soon, it’s about time I take a leaf out of Jake’s and have a thread sharing the user experience of using the Duo the way it was originally meant to be and designed for. Swapping the burrs seem to be quick and easy. Can one really integrate it as a part of a daily routine? Or, would it become a faff over time - what ever may be the reason ? I make 3 espressos in the morning for 3 and at least a filter or two for self during the day. There may or may be any decaf espressos in the evening. I think users like self are perfect candidates for the duo. I have every intentions of swapping the burrs - there is no reason not to otherwise. It remains to be seen if I will enjoy using the dual burrs daily or get bored swapping daily after the honeymoon period - 3 months! I will post my views as I experience it. There will not be any reviews or comparisons for three reasons. 1) I can’t be asked, 2) Tom, I am sure, will do the honours as usual and 3) I can’t afford to buy :-) I do want to know how I will like the espresso (taste wise) from JX pro vs the duo. I mostly drink medium light / light. I take full 2 mins to grind 17g. One thing for sure is I won’t be missing the hand-grinding part! 😁 More later!

Shipping notification https://i.imgur.com/n3egQCZ.jpg

cant wait for you to get hands on, its about time they hit the hands of more real world users, im sure you will love the grinder, im finding 6 to be a good starting point with beans for espresso and then 30-40 range with filter, which i dont drink alot of tbh,

@"Cuprajake"#p48288 Great shout. I will start at those ranges Jake.

Thx to @"dfk41"#4, grabbed a few KGs of cheap beans from Amazon for £30 to season the burrs sets. Supposed to be light / medium roasts [URL=https://i.imgur.com/on0KllQ.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/on0KllQ.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

think i ran about 500g through, got bored and just used it lol

@"LMSC"#p48290 Would be terrible if you tried drinking it snd enjoyed it!

I think Niche suggest this, but if you can, once unboxed, leave it to come to room temp which takes an hour or so. If you touch it, it will be freezing cold which is just a by product of the delivery system……enjoy matey!

@"dfk41"#p48297 Yeah! I saw their video. Thx mate.

> @"LMSC"#p48286 Swapping the burrs seem to be quick and easy. Can one really integrate it as a part of a daily routine? Or, would it become a faff over time - what ever may be the reason ? You will find that while waiting for the kettle to boil, you can swap the burrs, why not to get extra good filter as opposed to just using the espresso burrs.

@"DavecUK"#p48306 Indeed. No point in getting the filter burrs set otherwise. Let’s see how it goes over time 🤞

Coffee with Duo

MediumRoastSteam

dfk41 say replace a used Zero which is conical with a DF64 which is flat. That does not answer the question nor provide 2 grinders, hence my confusion

Jeess… how hard is it?

I first said:

MediumRoastSteam In hindsight, would you have rather spent the £778.80 on two grinders? Or maybe bought a dedicated filter grinder such as the Wilfa Uniform (£259) or Fellow Ode (£159) and then kept your trusty hand grinder (or even a second hand Niche Zero for £400 or so)

So: option 1: a used Niche Zero and a Wilfa Uniform. Option 2: A Used Niche Zero and a Fellow Ode.

Then You said in your comment:

dfk41 Can you suggest two separate grinders of comparable status that you can buy for around the same price as the Duo with 2 burr sets

Which I then said:

MediumRoastSteam All relative isn’t it? As above, I gave an example. Replace the used Zero with a DF64, or another, if you want flat

So, option 3 and 4, (exchange the Niche Zero from the example above with a DF64) would be a DF64 and a Wilfa Uniform or a DF64 and a Fellow Ode, respectively.

If this isn’t clear then I’m sorry but I can’t keep going on.

Enjoy the Duo, and let us know in a couple of months how it worked for you if you happen to swap the burrs daily so we can compare to LMSC’s experience, who kindly gave his truthful and honest feedback of his own experience with the grinder swapping burrs sometimes more than once a day for over a month.

dfk41

MediumRoastSteam My blood pressure is fine matey…..how is yours! I have no intention of swapping the burrs over daily or multiple times daily…..but if I wanted to, I could. My taste buds do not care if my coffee is made with flats, conicals or both……sometimes that is a bonus

MediumRoastSteam

dfk41 - 😊👍🍿

You seem to be missing the point. The whole debate was not about the Niche Duo being poor. Far from it! It’s a great grinder! It is about whether the concept of the same grinder and swapping burrs being used for filter and espresso on a daily basis works well. My opinion (and others) doesn’t think so, and you might want to disagree. If you are going to swap the burrs once every week, then there’s no issue! It was mainly whether the concept works our for those who drink filter and espresso daily. I even said that earlier!

MediumRoastSteam If bench space is an issue, I see the points. But do you swap between filter and espresso daily? If you drink filter at the weekend and espresso during the week (or whatever) I get it. But swapping daily seems a bit too much - i found, for example, it’s hard to park the dial on the duo at the exact same spot for when the espresso was dialled in. It’s never perfect. But as you say, to each his own.

tompoland

dfk41 only relatively few people are into this burr swap ideology

There is an old saying in marketing which is doubly apt here: “the smaller the niche, the bigger the market.”

David I would agree that it’s a small percentage, but it’s definitely a very large number .

Niche thought it was big enough to meet that need in a commercially profitable manner. So too do the likes of DF, Timemore, Lagom Option-O, Gevi and Zerno who have all designed grinders with that need catered for.

I agree that the motivation for Martin and James to include say other Mazzer burrs, would not be for profit but more about not wasting the potential of their design as well as giving their legions of fans the ability to more easily enjoy a diverse range of coffee experiences.

LMSC

@DavecUK

Is it normal for the grind reference to shift after grinding a few cups please? Considering I brew on week days, I have noticed the grind size shifts by about 0.5 mark. I haven’t noticed this on the espresso burrs set as I don’t use it often

For example, I brew mostly at #17. After grinding for 3-4 cups, it would have moved to #17.5. This has been happening during the last few weeks (4-5 weeks). It is not a user error and I have checked it several times.

Thx

DavecUK

LMSC In 2+ years of testing a drifting grind setting was never a problem?

LMSC

DavecUK I was surprised. Initially, I had thought, I didn’t set the grind size properly. But, after weeks of careful observations, it does drift.

I could try cleaning the hopper, re-grease and see. But, don’t think it should cause a drift like this.

I will also drop a note to Niche as well.

LMSC

Niche advised the Vibration from the grinder can cause a drift. It is on a stable worktop. I will re-grease as they advised and see.

LMSC

I have cleaned and greased. Brewed Blossom Filter brew. It was ok.

While the drifting seen in the last 4-5 weeks by 0.5 mark on the Duo isn’t sufficient to cause a change in taste, I am observing this closely.

As a coincidence, the last 2 of the 3 brews have seen the % of fines under 12% 400 Kruve sifting moving away significantly from the usual average causing a noticeable change in the coffee strength. The coffee from the last 2 brews have become somewhat weaker, which means that I had to change the ratio from 1:15 to 1:11.25 to get the desired strength.

I am assuming this pattern doesn’t repeat itself as more than 3 dozen sifting of different coffee beans haven’t exhibited this behaviour. I do wonder why, though!

LMSC

I am about to zero the Duo hopper for the filter. Do I just need a faint sound of the burrs touching or a clear sound please? Thx

Cuprajake

You zero with the espresso burrs.

LMSC

Cuprajake Yes.

But, this is a new (spare) hopper, which I got to experiment brewing with a configured (zeroed) filter burrs set. I want to figure out where does my grind size reference would fall for Kruve sifting-based brewing over a few months. OTT, for sure. Thanks Niche for making this possible. 🙏🏽😊

Cuprajake

umm,

so you want the filter burrs to chirp lightly.

try not to press down on the ring

LMSC

Cuprajake Thx mate! I watched the Niche video on youtube. Job done.

LMSC

The first brew (the same Blossom Festive Brew) had no clarity / separation of flavours at the same grind setting (#17) of the zeroed filter burrs set versus non-zeroed. The 12% fines under 400 Kruve sieve was more like 15%

The ground was more like a coarse-esprssso grind. A fine grind like this normally requires a long steep (20 mins to 30 mins) than the typical 3:30 mins short steep. This explains why the coffee was muddled — a lack flavours and/or clarity.

The difference in taste between zeroed and not-zeroed filter burrs set for a chosen grind size is really significant. Will loosen up the same coffee and see where it takes me.

The older grind size references (#17 and #29) still hold for the filter burrs using zeroed espresso burrs set.

LMSC

Duo Zeroed Filter Burrs experiment

After 2 days of sifting coffee, I have the following experimental grind references on the Duo’s zeroed filter burrs set.

12% 400 Kruve # 29.75 on zeroed filter burrs

9% 400 Kruve # 40.5 on zeroed filter burrs

These are not recommended grind references on Duo’s zeroed filter burrs. I need to brew 10-12 bags before these grind references can be established.

However, the below grind settings are the recommended starting points on the Duo’s (espresso zeroed) filter burrs set with an optimum starting point of the upper burrs carrier.

12% 400 Kruve # 17 on espresso zeroed filter burrs

9% 400 Kruve # 29 on espresso zeroed filter burrs

I am surprised by the large shift in the grind settings the zeroing the filter burrs has caused for these two Kruve grind sizes.

Will do some back to back brews between the two differently configured hoppers during the next few months and see where they stand.

profesor_historia

LMSC just of curiosity , why don’t you try it without seasoning the burrs? What can happen?😉😄

LMSC

profesor_historia just of curiosity , why don’t you try it without seasoning the burrs? What can happen

Giphy -

😁

LMSC

I have run into an issue with the new hopper, which I got to last week.

When I used this hopper on filter burrs this morning, the hand tight fell at around 20.
I watched Niche video. Loosened the red button inside the hopper before setting the 0 point.
I zeroed it for filter burrs with an optimum upper burrs position (have a sticker now) and locked the red button. This position has burrs touching slightly at 0.
This morning, I changed to filter. The hand right was at around 20 mark.
I checked if anything was obstructing. Everything is ok. The grinder, the burrs and the threads are clean. It has enough grease. I removed the hopper and re-repeated the process a few times. The hand tight position moved from 20 to 10, and now between 10 and 5.

I know this is not normal. It rather surprised me.

The questions are: @DavecUK

What’s just happened here?
What do I do from here?
Should I repeat the Zeroing and see?
I haven’t contacted Niche yet this morning.

Thx

DavecUK

LMSC I honestly don’t know?

LMSC

DavecUK Fair enough. I will re-zero and see where it takes me.

Plese clarify how the grind size reference point change for my understanding. This is for zeroing for burrs set afresh.

Let’s take a current grind size as 6.5 for a current zero point (where the burrs are slightly touching).

What happens if the burrs touch 1 mark below zero (-1) or above zero ;+1)?

Does the grind size shift to 5.5 in the case of -1 and 7.5 in the case of +1.

Thx,

Sundar

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