Hand Grind For Life...

JonWoo187

Was missing hand grinding daily and decided to buy what I consider the ultimate to ever hit the market. Kinu recently revised the M68 to be more compact/streamline and it is quite impressive. The fit, finish, tolerances has to be seen to really appreciate. Will attach a few pics once I mess with it more.

https://kinugrinders.de/products/m68-tabletop-grinder-new?srsltid=AfmBOoptAQlsoOOGH-S8bU6VU5gfJpwfT8QP96tGh-Lh2KwI7qZvOSWh

dfk41

JonWoo187 Looks nice……I had an HG One when they first came out. regardless of what it performed like, simply turning the handle was enough to put me in a bad mood!

JonWoo187

I get that, just something I have appreciated doing since my 1st one 17 yrs ago. Between doing my own roasting and hand grinding it’s almost as manual/hands on as it can be. Also had a manual lever way back, but gladly have a semi-auto to keep up with my moderate-heavy use.

MediumRoastSteam

JonWoo187 I owned the second generation Kinu. Static monster. Messy. I didn’t enjoy it at all. Good job the Niche Zero was invented not too long afterwards!

Do you have static problems at all?

Adrianmsmith

Love my craig Lyn hg-1 prime

Even though its currently in storage in the loft 😎

JonWoo187

MediumRoastSteam Actually haven’t put it to use just yet due to recovering from knee injury/surgery, but will in the next day or 2. I have been obsessed with espresso for 20 yrs now having used various grinders (manual and electric), lots of different coffees at varying levels of development and have never had any issues with static, retention from static, etc. Also have dealt with varying levels of humidity, especially when I was doing mobile vending and just never an issue. I know some feel the need to spritz before grinding, but that’s one step I would never bother doing as it’s simply a band aid effect.

JonWoo187

OK just did a few runs to coat the burrs, remove manufacturing debris, etc. A 20 gram dose at finer level took around 30 secs, cranking around 2 revs per second. Retention both times was .1 gram, lightly cinging to burr surface. Few taps or brush swipe would handle that.

Adrianmsmith

Does the pump work…..

I just had a quick glance and this does look very interesting 😎

JonWoo187

Adrianmsmith On a flat smooth surface VERY well… basically push the plunger once to seal and it really grabs the surface nicely. Then push again and it releases.

JonWoo187

On my workbench surface it’s finished wood and not super flat. It moved around a bit due to no seal, but still not bad to hold with one hand. Then put on stone countertop with the vacuum in place and the thing feels as solid as the countertop. Might try to source a flat silicone pad to use on the wood surface as that might provide enough grab for the vacuum seal.

JonWoo187

MediumRoastSteam I will say depending on coffees being used there is some static cling to the bottom of the burrs at times, maybe a few tenths at most. Kinu said it will often smooth out once in use a bit and burrs settle, which I expected would likely be the case. They also said there’s NO harm in lightly spritzing the coffee as the internals are top notch quality, just not dripping wet. Even though I’ve never found any need to do this with any grinder I did buy a neat little spray bottle from Amazon and have tried a light spray a few times and it did eliminate that bit of cling, but I was using a different coffee than previously, so that likely played a part too. Rock solid beast of a grinder though and it will continue to improve once I get some moderate use put through it.

deuxcv

JonWoo187 your thoughts on the vacuum cylinder being made of satin aluminum and the rest of brushed stainless? one “review” on reddit found it distracting. i don’t have a strong feeling one way or the other from photos. does seem an odd design choice to bring in another material + finish for one element that is different enough to be distracting and not different enough to be interesting + add to the design.