Five grinders, one pour over recipe

MWJB

This is not ‘science’, nor is it intended to be, neither am I trying to convince you of anything. This is just a record of some brews, dialled in to a single recipe, using 5 different grinders and my observations of the results in the context of brewing day-to-day, drinking the entirety of every cup brewed.

Prior to starting the the sequence, 4 of the grinders were dialled in for the best results I could get, except for the Feldgrind V1. If a brew suggested a noticeable & potentially fixable issue, I made small adjustments as I saw as necessary. The Feldgrind has been set between 33 (2 turns+5) and 35 (2 turns+7) for more years than I can remember and is a grinder that I look at as a ‘normal reference’ at a typical, pour over grind setting.

I still have 10 brews to go before I can share any thoughts on my observations on the coffee made, but here are the representative grind curves achieved by sifting samples with a Kruve sifter - each sample was sifted with 3 sets of sieves, each sifted sample was a fresh ground sample for each sifting (no re-sifting) and the same coffee was used for all the sifting.

MWJB

The pour over recipe for all brews is as follows:

Hario Switch 02 with pink & black packaged, loose bagged, Japanese Hario 01 white filters, preheated with around 150ml of boiling water with the valve shut. Drained, then 13.8g of coffee added, Drip Assist 02, 2 pours of 40g every 40s (each taking about 15s) in the centre, then the final 3 pours of 40g/40s (to 200g total) in the ring of the Drip Assist. Switch valve open throughout brewing.

Both the Ode & Comandante have the note “no knock”, as both retained a degree of static. after grinding there was no knocking of the grinders/knockers prior to transferring to the brewer and the overdosed whole bean (half a gram minimum for the Ode, min 0.2g for the Comandante) was trimmed & placed into the brewer.

The Feld had very little static, dosed to 14.0g minimum, but still the free falling grinds were transferred to the brewer. Grinder then tapped & shaken to clear before next grind.

The Niche was just dosed (14.0g min) into the grind cup, after dosing the grinder was run & lid was clacked a few times to force out any small amount of chaff/fines.

The Wilfa has a habit of trapping a bean or so, so was given a quick wobble/shake when starting the motor, the free falling grinds added to the brewer, then the grinder run & wobbled again to clear any chaff/fines before the next brew.

The finest grind is the Ode V1.1, the coarsest is the Wilfa, the Comandante is the 2nd coarsest. Niche Zero & Feldgrind are close to the same average size (between the Ode & Comandante average grind sizes), the Feld having a little more below 400Kruve and a little less over 1200 Kruve - but very close to the Niche Zero overall.

LMSC

The number of grinders you keep track of always amazes me. Is there a go to grinder for your daily brews and why? 😊

MWJB

LMSC At the moment, it is the Ode V1.1.

It’s fast to grind. It is easy to grind what I need, when over dosing the whole bean by 0.5g+, without disturbing the grinder, then knock out any excess chaff & fines after dosing the brewer.

Downsides - I have a couple of tablecloth clips holding a bag in front of the grinder, like a nose bag, so I can easily sweep away the knockings/chaff. Overdosing by at least 0.5g and discarding the chaff makes me feel a little uneasy.

Least favourite is the Wilfa flat mostly because you generally need to wobble it whilst grinding to get every bean to pass through and the annoying, ‘fally offy into the grind cup lid thing’…which is unnecessary to operate the grinder, but if you leave it off the grind cup can make its way out of the grinder, due to vibration.

If using a hand grinder, ‘go to’ is the Feldgrind v1 - because of the tight tolerance feel of it, the stepless adjustment is easy to see/check without any disassembly. Lid, or catch cup has never fallen off whilst grinding.

LMSC

MWJB Thx. How often the Niche comes out for brews?

I don’t use my JX Pro anymore since the Duo landed. Their stock filter burrs set is awesome and great for my daily brews. I swap the burrs for espresso only over the week ends. 😊

MWJB

LMSC Niche is 2nd most used grinder. It has the best workflow.

Tal

Hi, do you find the v1.1 ode grinds fine enough for your lighter roasts?

What settings do you typically use?

Edit, just noticed your graph says 3.33!

I ask as I currently have a v1.1 ode that I bought on the other forum for filter, though specifically for aeropress, but I upgraded to SSP MP burrs (seller was offering them as well).

On a whim I bought a gen2 ode on ebay that should be coming next week, bought for various reasons, but mainly so I could try the gen2 burrs, also my wife uses it and doesn’t want to fuss with RDT.

I was going to offer the v1.1 to my brother, but wanted to be sure it would be good enough for aeropress as that is what he would use it for also. I could switch the burrs out and try it, which I will probably do, but if you already had the experience it would be great to hear.

Thanks

MWJB

Tal I don’t grind very fine for lighter roasts, I grind at what I consider in the middle of the range for pour over. I wouldn’t grind any finer than I am now with the Ode for this brew method (maybe down to 3.00 for say a 1L auto drip brew).

Difficult to discuss Aeropress because there are so many weird & wonderful ways to use it and most of them under-extract anyway. But, unless you are trying to do very long steeps (20min+) that need a very fine grind, I don’t see any issue. For short steep (up to a couple of minutes) Aeropress I’d tend to go coarser than 3.33.

MWJB

So 50 brews completed, 10 per grinder, each with a different coffee.

For 1,831 pour over brews with various brewers & grinders, my average score is 7.41/9.00, average EY 19.9% (stddev 1.12%).

Overall, for these 50 brews: Average score 7.44/9.00. Average extraction yield 20.6% (stddev 0.82%). Average brew time 3:14 (stddev 12s).

Fellow Ode V1.1, setting 3.33 no knocking, fines discarded from brewed dose: Average score 7.70/9.00. Average extraction yield 20.9% (stddev 0.74%). Average brew time 3:16 (stddev 14s). Comments: 1 brew juicy, 1 brew delicate & a little filmy, 1 brew slightly tart. In a previous test of 24 brews with this grinder, the 12 where I brewed including knocked out fines scored 6.75/9.00 vs 7.42/9.00 for fines & chaff discarded from dose.

Niche Zero, setting average 74: Average score 7.50/9.00. Average extraction yield 20.1% (stddev 1.18%). Average brew time 3:23 (stddev 16s). Comments: 1 brew clean, delicate shade filmy. 4 brews noted sweetness. 1 brew drier, high mouthfeel. 1 brew bang on supplied notes.

Made by Knock Feldgrind V1 with 38mm burrs, set to 34 average: Average score 7.50/9.00. Average extraction yield 20.6% (stddev 0.75%). Average brew time 3:14 (stddev 11s). Comments: 2 brews noted tannic notes, 3 mentions of siltyness, 1 fairly sweet, 1 tangible supplied notes. This grinder had the most particles under 400Kruve.

Wilfa flat burr, avg setting 24.3: Average score 7.30/9.00. Average extraction yield 20.4% (stddev 0.53%). Average brew time 3:10 (stddev 8s). Comments: 3 mentions of silty sensation but 2 of which still with brightness, 1 mention dry tannins, 1 tangible notes (as supplied), 1 mention of fairly sweet. The stepped adjustment resulted in quite significant changes in the brew, 23 made brews overly silty for my taste, 25 tended to make for under-extracted tasting brews. This grinder had the overall coarsest grind & joint least particles under 400Kruve, so I don’t see that the texture/siltyness/powdery mouthfeel is due to an excess of fines/small particles. This grinder had the most particles over 1100, 1200 & 1400Kruve.

Comandante X25, average setting 20.9: Average score 7.20/9.00. Average extraction yield 21.1% (stddev 0.47%). Average brew time 3:07 (stddev 5s). Comments: 2 brews mention muted acidity, or notes. 1 brew delicate, 1 brew thin, 1 brew under, 1 brew sour, 2 brews filmy/silty. As with the Wilfa, steps are quite large with a profound impact on brews, 20 made for chewy brews, 22 under & watery. This is the second coarsest grind in this run.

In the case of the Wilfa & Commandante, brews may be improved by grinding coarser and/or breaking the pour down into more pulses, but I wanted to keep the method common for all grinders. I feel the Ode benefitted from being able to exclude chaff & fines, much harder to do on the other grinders.

Data here for those interested.

Five grinder test

delta76

Amazing experiment and analysis @MWJB . I’m pleasantly surprised to find out NZ does well in the filter test. not ground breaking but certainly “good enough”

have you had chance to test Ode Gen 2? and Varia V3

HarveyMushman

delta76 have you had chance to test Ode Gen 2?

I might be wrong but doesn’t the Ode 2 have the same burrs as the 1.1?

I’d be curious either way, I’ve had the Ode 2 a year now and it’s a really great brew grinder.

MWJB

delta76 Thanks, these are grinders that I own and have accumulated over the years, I don’t purchase stuff to review/test. I just occasionally succumb to curiosity, or good deals (e.g. there was a flash sale of Ode v1.1 for £155, so that was an impulse purchase).

Not sure why a Gen 2 would be ground breaking compared to V1.1? I don’t see how I’d be able to discard the chaff/fines with the Ode 2 & ioniser?

delta76

HarveyMushman it has same burrs but different ionizer so much less static. I don’t know if that affects taste at all, but would be nice to confirm as I’ve been eyeing Ode 2 for filter for a while :)

delta76

MWJB I have no idea. the coffee stuff is so complex that unless we try and document everything (like you did), we can’t be 100% sure. I’m just curious because Ode 2 seems to be the sweet spot for filter - small, cheap enough, quirks ironed out (compared to gen 1), so it’s very frequently recommended. Great if you can, but your work is already very much appreciated!

Tal

Gen 2 has different burrs compared to v1.1.

delta76

Tal interesting, I thought the burr remained the same from 1.1 to 2, not sure where that impression came from but I double checked and as you said, it’s difference :)

Tal

Quite a lot of youtubers have reviewed the differences between gen1 with v1.1 burrs and gen 2. Then also comparing the gen 2 against the likes of the SSP MP.

They appear to address the main problem of v1.1, that of finer grind potential, but they also have a much more unimodal grind distribution, comparatively speaking. Not as uni modal as the SSP MP though which they often get compared to.

Worth a watch, back to back taste tests of the 3 burrs sets is interesting. I can’t say I’m qualified enough to confirm or deny their findings. Just that I have enjoyed v1.1, SSP MP and now gen 2 burrs quite happily.

MWJB

Tal I guess that the thing that I found perhaps most surprising was that all 5 grinders had burrs of different sizes and 3 conical, 2 flat. The best, 2nd worst & ‘worst’ performers (over quite a narrow span) had potential for other aspects to be playing a role (e.g. excluding chaff & fines with the Ode, loose tolerances with the Wilfa, big step intervals on X25).

There was no real ‘stand out’ grinder for me (the Ode really seemed to make the least number of defective cups, rather than cups that were in some way superior), so I wonder just how much difference a slight change in burr design (Ode V1.1 to Gen 2) is really going to provide?

Those grinders with finer resolution/most useful setting intervals seemed to do best, without further changing the brew regime.

Attributes for each grinder didn’t seem that consistent over a range of coffees, just subtle trends.

There were also test brews with the grinders to get my eye in, before starting the run of 50 brews.

Buying coffee that I could stand to drink 5 brews with, was the hardest part, otherwise I could have been finished a couple of weeks ago 😃