Dialling in...with the Niche Zero

Pompeyexile

I will be the first to admit when it comes to making proper coffee, I am as about as profficient as a one legged man trying to tapdance. In fact, if any of you luminaries on here who perform the art of making proper coffee to a standard I can only dream of acheiving ever came to my humble abode, I would have to pretend my espresso machine was broken, my pour over kit stolen and offer only to make you a cup of tea.

My biggest problem is, because I really do not know what I am doing, I need not so much general guidance as more of an ’idiot’s guide’, especially when it comes to being able to get the correct grind size of the bean for the method of brewing I am attempting.

Everything I’ve read, indicates to me that when trying to make an espresso, that the ‘general’ aim is for the grind size to allow for the machine to hit no more than about 9 bar of pressure and for a what, 28-36 second extraction? That’s fine I can more often than not manage that. But, when it comes to pour overs and grind size, I find it is more hit and miss…usually miss.

There are many threads on here where people talk about a particular bean and the flavour, but when it comes to grind size they may say, slightly on the coarse or fine side or the grind size used was so many microns et cetera or not mention that at all, and this is where I come unstuck.

Now I know this is maybe a request too far, but I’ll ask it anyway.

When talking about what you have just done, be it espresso or pour over, well any brewing method actually, can you if you are using the original Niche Zero (which I have) say where you set the grind scale.

I appreciate that diiferent beans will grind differently and there is a good chance I may not have the same beens, but for me this is more of having a starting point and trying to get a better understanding of what to expect on grind size in order to maximise flavour.

Of course, whilst I am an original Niche Zeroite, there are many on here who are not. But, many of you do have the same grinders as each other, so maybe it would be useful for others too, if you mention the grinder used and where you set the grind scale on it.

I also understand there are many other variables that go to making a decent cup, but for me the grind size has always been my nemesis and as a certain supermarket chain says… every little helps.

So, as a certain TV psychiatrist would say… Thanks for listening.

John_Yossarian

Pompeyexile I liked the Niche Zeroite thing 😀.
I rarely drink drip coffee but I am sure the help/advice are on their way.

MWJB

Pompeyexile For pour over/drip coffee the grind setting is only half the story, you need to also consider the brew size, as you’ll need to balance the pour rate against the grind size. Normally, you don’t need to adjust for different beans for pour over, but if you do, it’s only minor.

So, which brewer are you using and what is your brew size?

Typically a grind setting for pour over might be between the left hand edge of the left hand hinge (approx 75), up to one full turn (85.5) or a little more. If you set the original marker to ‘50’, you can add a second grind marker at ‘0’ (so ‘0’ now becomes 50 and 20 becomes 70 etc.) to allow you better resolution in the drip/pour over range.

DavecUK

Pompeyexile I will be the first to admit when it comes to making proper coffee, I am as about as profficient as a one legged man trying to tapdance.

pff

MWJB

Pompeyexile I appreciate that diiferent beans will grind differently and there is a good chance I may not have the same beens, but for me this is more of having a starting point and trying to get a better understanding of what to expect on grind size in order to maximise flavour.

Here’s a few examples of brews & Niche Zero grind settings I have used:

Clever Dripper long steep (20min+ for small, 40min for large) setting around 33 - 1:15 brew ratio, ⅔ water in first, then coffee, then add last 3rd of water mixing the grounds in & cover). Preheat server & cups before drawing down.

V60 01, 20g dose, setting 85.5 (one full turn from zero) - pour 30g every 20s, each pour takes about 10s, up to 300g total.

V60 02 with 02 Drip Assist, 13.8g dose, setting 85.5 - Pour 25g every 30s, each pour takes 10-15s, first 3 in the middle, last 5 in the ring to 200g total.

V60 01, 13.8g dose, setting 92 - Pour 20g every 20s to 220g total. Each pour takes about 10s.

Clever Dripper short steep, up dosed, low extraction, setting 93 - 24g coffee, 230g water in. add coffee, start timer, wet. Stir surface at 1:30s, Draw down at 1:45.

Chemex 6 cup, 18g dose, setting 94 - Pour 67g every 45s to 270g total. Each pour takes about 20s.

I didn’t use the Niche for this brew method (V60 02 18g:270g), but I’d be expecting the grind to be 92-94ish:

Pompeyexile

DavecUK

Okay…..A one legged Flamenco Dancer…..get out of that one!😁

JHCCoffee

MWJB V60 01, 20g dose, setting 85.5 (one full turn from zero) - pour 30g every 20s, each pour takes about 10s, up to 300g total.

Wondering whether your definition of “85” on the Niche Z is the same as mine, assuming a calibrated machine. “One full turn from zero” is 50, is it not? I always assumed that your 85 was 50 (my second zero mark + 35). Maybe I misunderstood your words or perhaps I am just being thick headed.

Pompeyexile

Thank you guys for your time advice and patience.

MWJB I have just tried your V60 01 20g method and I am gobsmacked.

First I was very surprised at the grinds and how course they were at the 85.5 setting which I think I got right. But then even more surprising was the taste… Not a hint of bitterness or sour just lovely coffee with a hint of sweetness.

With the Niche for filter/drip I have used the 30 to 40 guide because that is what I thought I should use according to the grinder calibration guide. It would never have occurred to me to go to 80 to over 90. Plus, I have always used 15g of coffee at 250ml water so going 20g of coffee for 300ml again was new for me.

I will be trying your Clever Dripper and Chemex methods next.

I love learning from you chaps especially if the results are as good as I’ve just experienced.

Thanks again.

CafeNoir

Close enough??? https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/one-legged-salsa-dancer/
😅

Pompeyexile

Priceless! 😆I bet If I had said as proficient as a blind brain surgeon one of you would find a video or news article showing just that.

Mostlyharmless

Whenever the topic of immersion/percolation brews using Niche Zero comes up, I feel compelled to post these:

Basically, a criticism of the Niche Zero for filter brews has been the quantity of fines it produces. In the Hoffman and Wired Gourmet videos above, the assertion is that slow-feeding of beans can dramatically reduce fines, making for better (cleaner?) cups. While the NFC disk works to this end to some extent, even dividing your dose into half or thirds can improve things. I believe the theory is that reducing the incidence of beans milling against each other can reduce the quantity of fines generated.

The upshot is that you can grind finer and shorten brew times. This seems to to align with the (very good) advise you’ve already received above – the very coarse grind setting adjustments are paired with some long brew times.

Hope that is of some use to you.

(and yes, I have tried this, to hilarious effect – without adjusting anything else, I went so far as to feed beans one at a time into my Zero. Espresso turned into gushers and Clever Dripper draw-downs were super fast).

MWJB

Thanks, but I’m not sure that there is any hard evidence that the Niche Zero produces an abnormal amount of fines (when considering the grinder universe). I don’t recommend grinding very coarse, I recommend grinding in the normal pour over/drip grind range (equivalent to around 30 on a Wilfa Flat, or 24 on a Comandante, finer than SCAA US drip grind) in terms of particle size, It’s more that the marked settings for “Filter” on the Niche Zero don’t reflect typical drip grind sizes.

You normalise the proportion of fines, or let’s say particles below a known size like 600um (or 400Kruve, or whatever your datum point is) by correctly setting the grinder in the first place.

What I do see is examples of folk showing bizarrely fine grind settings for drip on videos and guides with a Niche. Anyone suggesting that 40-50 on a Niche Zero is anywhere near a typical pour over/drip grind is best ignored. You can certainly grind finer than 85.5 with a quicker pour (this setting is primarily suggested above because it is a reference for anyone with a Zero, without the addition of a specific filter marker).

CFUK user DSC (Tom J, credited in Hoffmann’s video) posted about feeding beans individually on CFUK in May 2018. Hoffmann made his video 2 years later.

whinmoor85

MWJB What do you mean ‘an abnormal amount of fines’?

MWJB

whinmoor85 For a given brew method/recipe, a higher proportion of particles under a given size. I don’t really like using the word fines (though I just have) because they’re not really defined for brewed coffee grinds (there is more focus for espresso). We’ll stick with it though because that seems to gel with people’s general understanding.

For example, you are making a V60, your recipe gives good results and you then sift the grinds. You might find that you have 17% of grinds that pass through a 500Kruve sieve. When you try another grinder with the same brew parameters, you would initially aim to set the grinder to give a similar proportion, as this helps regulate the extraction. If you set a Niche Zero to 40 you will find around 30% of the grinds pass through a 500Kruve sieve. A difference as large as this is too big to be natural variation for the same brew recipe. This isn’t a grinder making, ‘a lot of fines’, it is a grinder incorrectly set with respect to the grind size aims (not helped by the printed scale on the Zero’s grind setting ring). This affects all grinders the same way, it is not a Niche issue specifically.

When you set the grind size for percolation methods, you are in effect setting the amount of ‘fines’, it is within your control and you adjust accordingly. Sure there are undoubtedly odd/rare grinders that create significantly lower proportions of fines, for a given average grind size, but most grinders make a distribution that falls within normal expectation. Again, you are regulating extraction by dialing in the fines/smaller particles component, rather than the average, or larger grind size proportions.

MWJB

JHCCoffee If you calibrate your Zero, set it to ‘0’, then turn the indicator a full 360 degrees anticlockwise, so the original marker is again at ‘0’, the real setting using the secondary marker is 85.5.

Your second mark should be at ‘0’ when the original mark is at ‘50’.

‘0’ to ‘50’ with the original marker is only just over half a turn (what, 185-190 degrees?)

JHCCoffee

@MWJB I knew it was an uninformed question. Here is one more.

I have enjoyed decaf medium roast in a V60 at a 55 grind setting, 30g in, 240 out (1:8) ratio. I like the flavour intensity and body. I find that if I go 10:1, I lose some of that, especially as I take my v60 with cream (and a tsp sugar). But I am betting that I am missing some flavour nuances.

I tried an 85 setting with 30 in, 300 out (10:1) and found the coffee to be abit too weak and thin (ie insufficient strength and body). I used the Drip Assist and poured 60g water into the centre over 30 seconds and then let the grounds pre-infuse for a further 1 minutes and 30 seconds. Then 30g over 15 seconds, then 15 second pause, until done in 6 minutes total. The taste was however balanced (not sour or bitter), just too weak.

FYI, I have generally used this pouring rate for all of my v60, as I do not know the impacts of other different approaches. Hence my questions below.

If I wish to extract more flavour should I pour smaller pulses less frequently? Or larger pulses more frequently? Or?

What is the impact of smaller vs larger pulses? What is the impact of more frequent vs less frequent pulses?

MWJB

JHCCoffee OK, that’s such a short brew ratio & atypical target for me, I thought I’d give it a go. You don’t say where you poured after the bloom, so I poured all subsequent pours in the ring.

To note if you pour 300g onto a 30g dose, you get considerably less than 300g out, I had 243g following removal of the dripper at 6:00.

The cup was unsurprisingly strong and tasted under-extracted, there was a tangy, slightly green tree bark edge to it.

Measuring the brew confirmed this with a TDS of 2.06% (around 17%EY). You could perhaps hit around 2.35% to 2.50% TDS for a typical extraction.

My good pour overs with this coffee have been around 1.54%TDS (around 19%EY). So ¾ as strong despite having 50% more water in the cup (relative to dose). So you would seem to have some leeway to extract more coffee, it doesn’t look like you are in imminent danger of over-extracting.

So in answer to your questions - Your current pour rate is 1g/s on average (with 50% actual pouring time), to increase extraction at this grind size (you obviously have scope to grind finer with the current method) you could increase the number of pulses and/or pour more pulses in the centre of the brewer at in the early stages, say 3×30g every 30s in the middle, rest in the ring.

I don’t really see any value in the 2:00 bloom.

Also dropping the pulse size to 25g every 30s (0.8g/s) could lift extraction a tad, if 30g/30s pulses aren’t extracting enough.

If you speed up the pour rate by pouring larger pulses every 30s (each pour taking 15s), you will decrease extraction and therefore strength at this brew ratio.

Frequency of pours is balanced against their size, to achieve the desired rate.

It may turn out that your strength preference falls outside what is easily achievable with a V60, bear in mind that a longer, well extracted espresso shot might be the best way to achieve concentrations over 3%TDS (1:6 or 1:5 shots).

Unfortunately, a 30g V60 dose is way too much for me, as this would pretty much account for my daily allowance, so I’m afraid I can’t pursue this method further.

JHCCoffee

Thanks for the further insights @MWJB . Fyi, I typically pour back and forth across the entire Drip Assist. I guess I should be using the ring only, after the initial pre-infuse.

MWJB

JHCCoffee I guess I should be using the ring only, after the initial pre-infuse.

I just use the centre for the first third, or so, of brew water to ensure the dose is well wetted. I have found that pouring too much here can make brews overly silty.