I like to sanity test my perceptions & experience of coffee brewing. As well as working on my own preferred methods, I also, from time to time explore other recommendations to see if I have lost the plot, or if I am missing out on what could be consistently better brews.
This isn’t as easy as I’d normally hope it to be because most recommendations only come with vague notions of what your grind size should be. Checking out recipes for V60 the other day I saw a recipe that recommended, “…Commandante at 22-24, or Niche Zero at 33 to 45”. This immediately caught my attention because I have just bought a Comandante X25 (the manufacturer says that settings are common to the C40) and I know from previous excercises that 40 on a Niche Zero is a very fine grind, way finer than I’d ever normally use for a V60 brew.
24 clicks on a Comandante is roughly equivalent to a Niche Zero set in the early 90’s, or a Wilfa Uniform set upwards of 30. The Comandante at 24 clicks is essentially set to US manual drip grind (coarser than cupping grind) and about as coarse a grind as you might ever use (estimating a little over 800um).
Now I’m not making any claims that the Zero is a ‘high clarity’ grinder, it doesn’t seem to be in my experience, but it does make normal, tasty brews and I don’t see any evidence of unusually high incidences of fines. So I’m left wondering how much of this perception of it being a grinder that makes a lot of fines/muddy brews is deserved and how much is ‘finger trouble’?
Kruve 500 1400
ASTM 600 1180
Please note that I am not identifying nor making any determinations about what size particles are ‘fines’ specifically. Just that if you unknowingly grind finer than is ideal, you will obviously have a load more small particles in your dose and these will have an effect on the ability to perceive acidity & flavours.