# Kruve - techniques & dialling in



## MWJB

This is the way I am approaching applying the Kruve to my daily drip regime. Maybe someone will find it helpful.

First step was sieve 10g of my grind with the stock 400 & 800 sieves:








[/url]

11.4% landed in the pan, 23.6% between the sieves, 65% on top of the 800.

My grind is therefore coarser than 800 as more than half of it landed on the 800. I calculated about 25% would be


----------



## MWJB

600 & 1100 sieves installed...








[/url]44

24%

My average grind size looks to be a little under 1000um. So, what to do next?

Brewing with a Kalita Uno which forces lots of small pulses (13.5g dose, bloom 25g for 30s, 8 more pours of 25g every 15 sec.), so adjusting the grind much finer (to get the bulk between the sieves) means making smaller cups of coffee (not doing that), or over-extracting (we'll see on that score). For now plan A is to stick with the grind setting that works, fit the 300 sieve, sift out anything smaller than this (maybe around 10%) & regrind the 40% that lands in the 1100. This should drop my average grind size...

To start with, I will keep the brew ratio & method the same.


----------



## the_partisan

Would be interesting to compare grind profile for different grinders at same average grind size setting, such as the number of fines.


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> Would be interesting to compare grind profile for different grinders at same average grind size setting, such as the number of fines.


Not sure we'd have enough data points with just a 2 sieve set up, nor good enough resolution in the fines region. I also suspect that the profile on the upper side off the average would be very informative, but we don't currently have a range of sieves to explore that.


----------



## MWJB

Ground 15g, 11% passed through the 300 sieve, 38% stayed on top of the 1100. 51% between the sieves.

Reground the >1100 and re-sieved. 12% then passed through the 300 & 25% stayed on top of the 1100. Now 63% between the sieves . Discarded the

Extraction was the same as the previous un-sifted brew, but drier & less body. Tomorrow, I'll keep the 1100 and discard whatever remains there after the regrind.


----------



## fluffles

I've had a couple of tasty cups removing the "boulders" and keeping the "fines"


----------



## Rhys

So far I've used it for French Press, espresso (complete failure), V60 and Aeropress. I'm making less mess (although my other half has her own opinions lol)


----------



## MWJB

MWJB said:


> Extraction was the same as the previous un-sifted brew, but drier & less body. Tomorrow, I'll keep the 1100 and discard whatever remains there after the regrind.


This morning's unsifted drip brew was 19.4%EY, 2:40. It was OK, not bad, not great.

Sifted brew. Ground 16.9g, was left with 6.2g (37%) on the 1100. Reground >1100 & was then left with 3.3g (20%) >1100 [Edit: which was then discarded]. EY was 20.6% (2:54). Quite a bit sweeter, a good brew.

To use the Quito without the burrs gnashing during grinding, I only have the option of going 1 click finer. So, that's what I'll do & see whether the >1100 is low enough to discard without regrinding & upsetting my conscience...or, switch to a different grinder. I was hoping that sifting could be something you could do without constantly messing with settings (though this might be naive & optimistic on my part, as I'm not following the Kruve recipes which obviously are based on calibrating to the suggested sieves). For immersions, optional sifting of the larger grinds is probably more feasible.

So, to recap, so far from limited samples: Discarding the smallest 11-12% made no difference in my extraction. Discarding the largest 20% straight away lifted extraction by 1% (in effect a 6% increase & larger than my Sdev 0.26 for previous 9 brews). Still have to try discarding smallest & largest with a calibrated grind.


----------



## Thecatlinux

Fascinating thread , with regards to your last , sorry might be me but does that mean you discarded the remainder 3.3g after second grind .and brewed with the rest ?


----------



## MWJB

Thecatlinux said:


> Fascinating thread , with regards to your last , sorry might be me but does that mean you discarded the remainder 3.3g after second grind .and brewed with the rest ?


Sorry, yes, I wasn't clear - I reground the 6.2g >1100 & discarded the resulting 3.3g that was left over >1100 after regrinding. Brewed with 13.44g of the initial 16.9g grind.


----------



## NickdeBug

and, in your opinion, are the losses (20%) and additional time spent worth it for the result?

I'm struggling to see this as more than an academic exercise, albeit an interesting one, but then I freely admit that I am not as committed to the pursuit of perfection as some others.


----------



## MWJB

NickdeBug said:


> and, in your opinion, are the losses (20%) and additional time spent worth it for the result?
> 
> I'm struggling to see this as more than an academic exercise, albeit an interesting one, but then I freely admit that I am not as committed to the pursuit of perfection as some others.


For 1 brew a day, yes, I'd be happy to sieve, regrind, sieve & discard. For every brew, no. Hence going finer, to see if I can get to nearer a (subjectively determined) acceptable excess. Quite often with manual brew methods we have to wait for the kettle to boil, so a couple of minutes sieving when you have nothing else to do seems like a good use of time.

All along, my main anticipated use for the Kruve was to be able to relay average grind size to other folk, for a given recipe (e.g. 950-1000um for this recipe). Say a sift once in a while?

"Perfection" isn't the aim, a higher proportion of very nice cups is the aim, I haven't hit a ceiling on that score yet  If I'm going to bother to make my own coffee, it's because I want it to taste better than the other options, not because I don't have enough things to do


----------



## MWJB

Rhys said:


> So far I've used it for French Press, espresso (complete failure), V60 and Aeropress. I'm making less mess (although my other half has her own opinions lol)


I'm finding a jam funnel useful for transferring from Kruve to brewer/grinder, without spillages.


----------



## Rhys

MWJB said:


> I'm finding a jam funnel useful for transferring from Kruve to brewer/grinder, without spillages.


Mite mainly what's clinging to the bottom of the sieves when I take them apart.


----------



## MWJB

OK, last one for today.

Grinder set one click finer, next notch causes burrs to rub so as fine as I'm prepared to go, but still likely in the region of 850um average.

Brew #1 unsifted, 20%EY, 2:54 - OK, not bad, not great, a little dry (the reason I went coarser before this week).

31.6% >1100.

Brew #2. Reground >1100 & went from 31.6% (again!) to 16.1% >1100, which were then discarded. No real impact on

Resulting brew 21%EY (again a 1%EY increase), 2:58. Juicier, less dry, cleaner, slight improvement.








[/url]

The regrinding >1100 for the second time today took the shine off the process, what I really need (for this method, which is I admit a little atypical) is a 1400um sieve & go back to setting 2 on the grinder, so the larger sieve just removes ~15% without the regrinding.

When my right eye stops twitching, I'll think about applying the Kruve to a more typical pourover recipe, closer to theirs.


----------



## Thecatlinux

I am likeing the idea of being able to closely follow recipes


----------



## Phil104

MWJB said:


> OK, last one for today&#8230;.When my right eye stops twitching, I'll think about applying the Kruve to a more typical pourover recipe, closer to theirs.


This really is taking one for the team - and very welcome, too.


----------



## Rob1

Do you calculate your brew ratio from sifted grinds or pre-sifted?

I.E Do you brew with 270ml of water to 18g of unsifted coffee and 270ml to say 12g sifted?


----------



## MWJB

Calculate brew ratio from the weight of grinds that actually go into the brewer, mine were all 13.4 to 13.5g doses of grinds (whether sifted or not) to 223-225g of water.

It took ~16-17g of grinds to make up that 13.5g once ~20% were sifted & discarded.


----------



## fluffles

Brewed this morning 15g/250g as usual. Sieved 17g using 1000um and 250um. This is a fairly wide spread but I don't want to waste too much coffee at this stage







Ground at #9.5 on my EK and I got 15g between the sieves.

1.47 TDS / 20.62% EY. This is the first time I've omitted any fines and weirdly it resulted in a longer brew time. It does taste good though. My sieved brews have all been a touch sweeter I think.


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> Brewed this morning 15g/250g as usual. Sieved 17g using 1000um and 250um. This is a fairly wide spread but I don't want to waste too much coffee at this stage
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .


That's very sensible & probably a more realistic target for separating the "fines & boulders" too. If 30-40% of your grind is landing outside of the sieves, you're excluding a good bit of your actual 'grind'.


----------



## alexferdi

Fascinating work and very interesting results!


----------



## the_partisan

How does sieving out the boulders compare to making the actual grind finer? They both seems to result in higher EY..


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> How does sieving out the boulders compare to making the actual grind finer? They both seems to result in higher EY..


Grinding too fine can allow too much undissolved solids into the brew which can flatten sweetness, grinding a little coarser & sifting the boulders makes for a cleaner, sweeter brew.

In the few brews I did here going a notch finer (to be fair with this grinder & method there was only 1 finer notch available) only lifted EY half a percent, but sifting out the largest 15-20% lifted it by a whole percent.


----------



## fluffles

I'm definitely seeing that sieving out both bottom and top gives a longer brew time. Today's 13g brew took a full minute longer than normal (4:30, 2 pours). When I've removed boulders only, this hasn't been the case.


----------



## fluffles

Lovely brew though! Really good (sieved between 250 and 1000 again). Might try a tighter range tomorrow, maybe 300/800.


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> Lovely brew though! Really good (sieved between 250 and 1000 again). Might try a tighter range tomorrow, maybe 300/800.


How much did you lose to the 1100?


----------



## fluffles

MWJB said:


> How much did you lose to the 1100?


You mean 1000? (I don't have a 1100).

I didn't weigh the top and bottom pans as I was in a hurry, but I ground 15g and had 13.1g within around 40s of shaking. I think I could've got slightly more if I kept going. I'll have more time to weight it properly tomorrow.

This was pretty fine on the EK (setting #7.5). I've already measured the "median" size by doing a single sieve test at various settings. I figured this will help me choose a grind setting for any given pair of sieves (i.e. pick the grind setting that will put me in the middle).


----------



## fluffles

Refracted at 1.52 / 21.90%. Sweet and smooth, no dryness.

If the sieving allows you to push the EY higher without losing tasty (the jury's still out on that, but it's a possibility), it may be possible to run more water through less coffee? 1.52 is pretty strong and if I want to push EY I could lengthen the brew ratio a bit. This would offset some of the wastage from sieving.


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> Refracted at 1.52 / 21.90%. Sweet and smooth, no dryness.
> 
> If the sieving allows you to push the EY higher without losing tasty (the jury's still out on that, but it's a possibility), it may be possible to run more water through less coffee? 1.52 is pretty strong and if I want to push EY I could lengthen the brew ratio a bit. This would offset some of the wastage from sieving.


Jury's not really out on it, it is well known & you're right, if aiming for a higher EY you can go longer on BR to curb strength.


----------



## JGF

Just filtering out the boulders seems eminently doable... don't suppose anyone has done any testing with a feldgrind or equivalent to see if the 1000um filter would still require regrinding for v60 to get it down to less than ~15/20% wastage (sorry, I don't currently have these but am getting tempted by the results above)?

And slightly off topic, but removing the fines results in a longer brew time? I had naively assumed the fines would slow it down?


----------



## MWJB

JGF said:


> I had naively assumed the fines would slow it down?


I think that's a common assumption, like fines over-extracting, but I don't know what real evidence there is to support this.


----------



## fluffles

JGF said:


> And slightly off topic, but removing the fines results in a longer brew time? I had naively assumed the fines would slow it down?


Yes that's why I mentioned it, seems odd and possibly points to conventional thinking on this being not quite right. Also consider: EK43s produce more fines for espresso but results in quick pours


----------



## unoll

So far I've tried the sieves for V60 and espresso. Using the EK with original coffee burrs I would ordinarilly have the dial at roughly 7-6 o'clock (14-15 with a callum dial), to work to the MWJB 1 cup V60 recipe. However, in order to get approx 70% of particles between 400μm - 800μm and still hit the recipe time, I ended grinding at about 11 o'clock (10ish on callum dial). Disgarded fines and boulders for cold brew. The resulting cup was definately more focussed but did lack a bit of sweetness. The cold brew ended up tasting pretty great after a 16 hour steep.

For espresso, I've found the sieves pretty frustrating. So far I've found that they just get clogged up really easilly and sieving can seem to take forever despite all the banging and frantic shaking for 10 minutes. For regrinding I've been using the feldgrind as I can't imagine that getting the EK to regrind will work very well due to the auger feed. The shots I've had have been ok, but the coffee I've got on the go at the moment isn;t the easiest so can't really blame the sieves or grinder. With the boulders reduced however, shot times have sped up by quite a bit.

When I've got some time on my hands It'd be interesting to see what the particle size spread is like for my various grinders (EK43, Pharos, feldgrind, Rosco mini, Diennes Mokka), I've got every sieze except the 1100μm. As I don't have a refractometer I suppose the only thing I could do would be to figure out the setting on each grinder that achieves the MWJB pulse pour recipe time and then sieve the associated grind decreasing in size until I get down to 200μm. Any better suggestions? If someone wants to lend me a refractometer to better experiment with then I'd be happy to oblige









Has anyone considered getting something like a dental vibrator? I'm going to experiement with an electric toothbrush tonight to see if it can help sieve a bit faster.


----------



## Phil104

Following all this so far, it sounds like sticking to brewed is best and since I'm going to be using my hausgrind, I'm going to have to experiment a bit but be guided by this thread. I'm currently experiencing another of those times when work and busy weekends get in the way of coffee experiments.


----------



## MWJB

Personally, for brewed I get into it in stages...like a hot bath.

Start with a recipe that works for you, then start by sieving out the top 10-20%, probably start with the largest sieve you have. Then, when happy, add the smallest sieve you have in the bottom and try and even up the smallest & largest?

Yesterday, I thought I'd go straight in with a 400-800 recipe (with a grinder I know well, so didn't anticipate getting it right 1st time, but also didn't anticipate a chore), 50g of wasted beans & no coffee after half an hour had me reaching for the wine.


----------



## Xpenno

MWJB said:


> I think that's a common assumption, like fines over-extracting, but I don't know what real evidence there is to support this.


Nick Cho used to say the opposite, he used to talk about over extraction coming from the boulders as they have a limited surface area to extract from. Can't remember where I saw his post but this seems to back that up.

P.s. Great thread


----------



## Rob1

Did another syphon tonight. One half notch shy of one full turn out from zero on the Lido E. After re-grinding the boulders ended up with just over 4g in the top sieve and just over 4g in the tray. Total in the middle was 13g. Added 2g from the bottom tray and brewed for the recommend 1:40 and then cut the heat. Body was better and taste was sweet and juicy. Had a little sludge at the bottom of the cup (the tastiest part actually) and a few more grinds in the receptacle. I put about 1g of the

In fact I'll probably put the


----------



## Xpenno

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/07/how-to-make-better-french-press-coffee-tips-technique-grind-timing.html

Surface over extraction talked about here.


----------



## MWJB

Xpenno said:


> http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/07/how-to-make-better-french-press-coffee-tips-technique-grind-timing.html
> 
> Surface over extraction talked about here.


There's less over-extraction of all types with a very coarse French press (I always grind coarser for drip than press, for the same brew size, because the press is, as Nick says, a gentler extraction). But I do agree that over-extracting the larger particle's more accessible outer layers is probably not focussed on enough. I suspect that in drip, fines clogging the filter & extending brew time leads to over-extraction, but the fines themselves are more likely facilitating over-extraction of large particles, rather than suspect number 1 themselves. They can certainly make a nominally extracted brew bitter, but more by their physical presence in the brew than their overall effect on extraction, which logically can only be negligible.


----------



## JGF

MWJB said:


> ...I suspect that in drip, fines clogging the filter & extending brew time leads to over-extraction, but the fines themselves are more likely facilitating over-extraction of large particles, rather than suspect number 1 themselves.


Apart from when they are speeding the brew times up!?!

(Edit: sorry, that was not aimed at you Mark, just my addled brain!)


----------



## MWJB

JGF said:


> Apart from when they are speeding the brew times up!?!
> 
> (Edit: sorry, that was not aimed at you Mark, just my addled brain!)


Ha! Fair comment.  I was talking about normal grind distributions, with particles at both extremes. Grinding finer will extend brew time & increase extraction, until it doesn't anymore & though you have progressively smaller & smaller boulders the finer you go & everything should be extracting more, the bed as whole extracts less.

Maybe if you have a suitable median size with no/negligible fines & less boulders, less boulders makes for higher extraction without bitterness & but the ground mass is easier for water to penetrate & hungrier for brew water, slowing the brew (if they have more intact cells they can act more like a sponge, rather than fines acting like little clam shells, in that they can present resistance, but not absorb much/contribute much to extraction relatively speaking)? Well, maybe...


----------



## Xpenno

MWJB said:


> There's less over-extraction of all types with a very coarse French press (I always grind coarser for drip than press, for the same brew size, because the press is, as Nick says, a gentler extraction). But I do agree that over-extracting the larger particle's more accessible outer layers is probably not focussed on enough. I suspect that in drip, fines clogging the filter & extending brew time leads to over-extraction, but the fines themselves are more likely facilitating over-extraction of large particles, rather than suspect number 1 themselves. They can certainly make a nominally extracted brew bitter, but more by their physical presence in the brew than their overall effect on extraction, which logically can only be negligible.


If you apply this to the ek it works too. Ek has less boulders due to the tight distribution than say a robur. This would then allow you to push extraction further with fewer negative effects.


----------



## fluffles

Another day another brew. I swapped sieves to 300/800 (more aggressive at both ends) and ground at EK #7. I got 13.9% in the pan, 67.5% in the middle and 16.6% in the top (the other 2% presumably stuck in the sieves!).

1.57/21.59%. Again, a very slow brew. Flavours are very well-defined and it is clean. Too strong for my tastes - I tried diluting it but I think I over did it slightly.

I think I might try a longer brew ratio to try and gain back some of the wastage


----------



## Rhys

Ok, just made a mess (good job our lass is out otherwise my ear would be raw..







)

Decided to fill my grinder with some older beans to see what a 'normal' consistent (not single dosing) espresso grind broadly consists of using a he 400μm and 600μm sieves..

40g Sydney Road LSOL at normal grind

0.7g over 600μm

28g between 400μm and 600μm

10.5g under 400μm

0.8g wasted (bottom sieve came out while emptying)

I didn't go any finer (no point if only 10.5g of 40g was finer than 400μm.)

From this I'm wondering what range is suitable for a balanced espresso?

Now I could go on making more mess in a 'Socratic coffee' sort of way and experriment in the adding an amount of fInes under a certain range (in this case under 400μm) from zero up to the full amount (reducing the middle region appropriately to maintain the same weight). But I don't have a refractometer etc so can't gather data that way. Plus my Pavoni isn't exact enough and am lucky to get a decent shot let alone several in a row - which is impossible without refilling.


----------



## Rob1

Had another syphon today. Sediment was the same despite only using the grinds >400

20g total

1g >800

5g

13.5g between. Presumably lost .5g to both my receptacle and bits left on the sieve.

Ground one notch finer than last time when the grinds were more evenly split between top and the pan. Didn't significantly increase 'fines'.


----------



## MWJB

Rhys said:


> Ok, just made a mess (good job our lass is out otherwise my ear would be raw..
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> )
> 
> Decided to fill my grinder with some older beans to see what a 'normal' consistent (not single dosing) espresso grind broadly consists of using a he 400μm and 600μm sieves..
> 
> 40g Sydney Road LSOL at normal grind
> 
> 0.7g over 600μm
> 
> 28g between 400μm and 600μm
> 
> 10.5g under 400μm
> 
> 0.8g wasted (bottom sieve came out while emptying)
> 
> I didn't go any finer (no point if only 10.5g of 40g was finer than 400μm.)
> 
> From this I'm wondering what range is suitable for a balanced espresso?
> 
> Now I could go on making more mess in a 'Socratic coffee' sort of way and experriment in the adding an amount of fInes under a certain range (in this case under 400μm) from zero up to the full amount (reducing the middle region appropriately to maintain the same weight). But I don't have a refractometer etc so can't gather data that way. Plus my Pavoni isn't exact enough and am lucky to get a decent shot let alone several in a row - which is impossible without refilling.


If this is your normal grind range on the grinder, I'd perhaps go a tad smaller on the top sieve. Targeting across a 200um range seems a bit tight & bound to end in a fair bit of discard. I'm not convinced anyone is making espresso without the smallest particles, try leaving them in Just taking 10-20% off the top?

Balanced espresso is normaly made with the whole grind distribution.


----------



## fluffles

Really went for the EY this morning. Longer ratio to keep the TDS down. Ground a tad finer at #6 on the EK (this is the midpoint between my usual drip setting and espresso setting, so its really fine for drip).

Sieved 15.5g using 250/800 and got 13g out. Brewed with 245g water 95C. TDS 1.42 EY 22.90%. Still not getting any hints of over extraction - it's lovely. At this brew ratio I've almost pulled back the waste.

I'm just about at the end of this coffee. Waiting on a delivery from Workshop, at which point I'll try an unsieved brew again alongside a sieved one as a comparison. It's been a while since I've not sieved a drip brew so I may be losing my reference point a little.


----------



## the_partisan

Been following this thread.. what seems to be the verdict? Has anyone done A/B testing with the following, for drip?

1- Unsieved

2- Fines filtered out

3- Boulders filtered out

4- Both fines and boulders filtered out

My understanding is that filtering out fines doesn't have much effect on extraction itself, but makes the brew time shorter, so you need to have a finer overall grind? Filtering out boulders seems to increase extraction as well, which is intuitive. Brew time seems to increase when you have a finer grind, mainly because there are more fines produced. But I'm confused for example, how different is having a finer grind in the first place and sieving out fines to shorten brew time vs just filtering out boulders.


----------



## MWJB

I have done 1, 2 & 3...4 too but not quite dialled in yet.

Grinding finer vs sieving out larger particles - grinding finer reduces the size of everything, so as the largest particles decrease, the smaller ones increase, even at a nominal extraction you might get a claggy brew from solids in the cup. Staying a little coarser & sieving out the largest component effectively makes the grind finer, without the increase in smaller particles, so sweeter at the same extraction, at the same grind setting you get a cleaner sweeter brew & higher extraction. This can be applied to your regular method, with/without adjustment, for an improvement.

Just sieving out fines doesn't seem to increase extraction without you increasing brew time (change in method), can kill body & makes for a drier brew.

Hopefully over the weekend, I'll get a chance to tackle #4 (top & tail). But Fluffles is finding sweeter & higher extraction (so far my top & tailed brews have fallen in normal range but taste under), Randy Pope did an experiment at Nordic Barista Cup where the majority overwhelmingly preferred his 'topped & tailed' brew.

Sieving out the largest component is in effect like using a better grinder (many grinders work well enough, but still don't make an ideal grind), removing fines is fundamentally changing the distribution in a way burr grinder simply cannot do.

The only technical description I have seen relating to fines & boulders is those that fall outside 95% of the main distribution...nothing we are doing with Kruve is really doing quite that. In good circumstances, 2 sieves, one twice the size of the other, will remove 30-40% of your grind. Perhaps using 2 sieves with one 3-4 times the size of the other is a better compromise?


----------



## MWJB

Sifted out 1100 (11%)

11.9g to 220g, 3:01 brew time (bloom & 8 pours every 18sec), 22% EY - good, clean, but not particularly sweet. The sifted brew was only longer because I broke up the pouring.

Unsifted - 13.5g:227g, 2:40 brew time (bloom & 4 pour of 50g every 30sec). 22%EY. Sweeter, slight preference for this one.

A soluble coffee, so I wouldn't take the high EY as being out of the ordinary.

Going to go finer & drop bottom sieve to 200 to lose less smaller particles.


----------



## MWJB

Finer grind setting, sifted out

13.5:249g, 3:49 brew time inc. 20sec bloom - 23%EY. Tasted bitter, couldn't finish it.

Unsifted 13.5:225, 2:14 brew time inc. 30sec bloom (2 pours of 100g every 50sec) - 21%EY, tasting notes nailed.

So, as yet, I haven't managed to improve a brew by sifting out the smallest component, only by sifting the largest. However, sieving the smallest particles is definitely resulting in the bed holding back more brew water.


----------



## Phobic

that's interesting to hear Mark, why do you think sieving the smallest is making the bed hold back more water?

seems a bit counter intuitive to me.

how easy is it to sieve out the boulders and clean the sieve? is it going to be practical to do it for every brew?


----------



## Rhys

MWJB said:


> If this is your normal grind range on the grinder, I'd perhaps go a tad smaller on the top sieve. Targeting across a 200um range seems a bit tight & bound to end in a fair bit of discard. I'm not convinced anyone is making espresso without the smallest particles, try leaving them in Just taking 10-20% off the top?
> 
> Balanced espresso is normaly made with the whole grind distribution.


I used these two sieves out of interest. Binned the grinds as they're old beans and wasn't bothered. I know the first time I used their espresso sieve suggestion I had to grind a whole lot finer to get the most in the middle range. The results didn't really astound me in the cup, it was drinkable.

One thing that did cross my mind was when using fine sieves (200/250μm) will fresh beans clog due to oils? Also I've noticed static cling under the sieves, more the finer you go.


----------



## MWJB

Phobic said:


> that's interesting to hear Mark, why do you think sieving the smallest is making the bed hold back more water?
> 
> seems a bit counter intuitive to me.
> 
> how easy is it to sieve out the boulders and clean the sieve? is it going to be practical to do it for every brew?


I don't think the smallest particles have the ability to hold much water as only being fragments of the structure (think honeycomb), liquid more washes over them, or is held up by their physical resistance, the larger particles have more ability to absorb & hold liquid.

The larger sieves just need a wipe with kitchen towel & occasional wash. Sieving out the largest 10-15% is practical for every brew & only takes a minute or two, the Kruve makes this less of a faff by being self contained (though a jam funnel is very handy), at work I use a regular kitchen sieve and a huge steel mixing bowl (bulky & messier).

This pic of sea snail shells might help illustrate my theory, the whole shells (big grounds) can hold water, the eroded shells/spirals (smallest grounds) can't...


----------



## MWJB

Rhys said:


> One thing that did cross my mind was when using fine sieves (200/250μm) will fresh beans clog due to oils? Also I've noticed static cling under the sieves, more the finer you go.


I think the smaller sieves (350 & smaller) get clogged simply by smaller particles plugging the holes. What can't pass quickly through the smallest sieve will then stick to larger particles. I'd probably still be looking at 700 or 800 for espresso territory? Try and incorporate with your normal settings?


----------



## Rhys

MWJB said:


> I think the smaller sieves (350 & smaller) get clogged simply by smaller particles plugging the holes. What can't pass quickly through the smallest sieve will then stick to larger particles. I'd probably still be looking at 700 or 800 for espresso territory? Try and incorporate with your normal settings?


is the 700/800 for the top sieve? (i.e. just to get rid of any 'boulders'?)


----------



## MWJB

Rhys said:


> is the 700/800 for the top sieve? (i.e. just to get rid of any 'boulders'?)


That's my thinking, no bottom sieve.


----------



## Rhys

MWJB said:


> That's my thinking, no bottom sieve.


I'll give it a go tomorrow


----------



## Phobic

that makes sense.

I just did a search for electron microscope coffee grinds, nice spongy structure.









I guess that also explains as to why boulders are the biggest culprit. Water will enter the structure and take longer to work it's way through, the longer it takes the more it extracts, in other words boulders have an internally slower flow rate.

more boulders also create larger gaps between them which increases the flow rate of the bed overall.

medium grinds have a higher internal flow rate and smaller gap between grinds which decreases the flow rate of the bed.

Fines have no internal flow rate but slow the rate of the bed down overall.

So when you grind finer and finer at some point you hit a threshold where the % of boulders is too low to make a difference, and the contribution of extraction from fines exceeds the extraction from medium grinds and you don't extract enough to make a difference. Ironically with a given flow rate that means that the fines are under extracting..

Sieve out the boulders which are over extracting and keep the % of fines the same will have a larger impact than sieving out both fines and boulders.

am I picturing thing correctly?


----------



## MWJB

Phobic said:


> So when you grind finer and finer at some point you hit a threshold where the % of boulders is too low to make a difference, and the contribution of extraction from fines exceeds the extraction from medium grinds and you don't extract enough to make a difference. Ironically with a given flow rate that means that the fines are under extracting..
> 
> am I picturing thing correctly?


Yes I think it's along those lines (for drip).


----------



## MWJB

Bingo, managed to improve a brew by top & tailing the grind.

22.5% 1100, 68% between sieves for sifted brew. (This was at the same grind setting as the previous drip brew, notice with the larger bottom sieve mesh the outlying grinds have now come back into expectation - less over 1100 at a finer setting).

French press 13.5g to 247g, sink crust at 5:00, decant at 10:00, stir in cup & take TDS.

Both were 1.14%TDS (+/-0.01%), 22% EY.

The unsifted brew had a slightly charred, bitter flavour, sifted brew was cleaner.

I'd guess the consistent extraction means that it's not absolutely necessary that you remove the larger particles for immersion, unless they are stopping you hitting a tasty extraction (pulling it down), maybe concentrate on removing the smaller component as a priority. They (sub-400) don't appear to have a bearing on extraction, just muddy the flavour by their presence.


----------



## fluffles

I've moved on to a different coffee - Workshop Kelloo (washed Ethiopian) - so have spent a couple of days without sieving to get a baseline.

Brewed at exactly the same grind setting as yesterday but sieved with the 1000um only. I got 80% through the sieve and brewed 12g/200g. It refracted at 1.61/22.40% which was a tad shy of a 1% extraction increase over the unsieved. I diluted it with 20g water to bring to the TDS down to around 1.4, so you could say my net loss from sieving was around 10%.

It tastes marginally better sieved in this way than unsieved, curiously though if anything it tastes "less" extracted (don't know how possible it is to detect this, but its how it comes across to my palate).

It also took a lot longer to brew without the boulders. @MWJB - do you also get longer brew times sieving in this way? Is this a problem? We usually aim for say a 3 minute brew, if it is now taking at least a minute longer is that likely to be detrimental? Can it undo some of the good that sieving can do?


----------



## MWJB

You can probably push up the EY a tad after sieving boulders - Damn it, I said "boulders"...OK I give in, 'large/small particles' is getting too much of a mouthful .

Or, if always sifted boulders, you can grind a tad coarser too, for a cleaner brew.

I'm not noticing a big difference in brew time without boulders (will have a proper check when I get home, but work brews are marginally faster if anything) you did say you are using an Ethiopian, maybe more related to the coffee than the technique? I'd always use a range of coffees to establish an average brew time & set too much store in a single one.


----------



## fluffles

MWJB said:


> You can probably push up the EY a tad after sieving boulders - Damn it, I said "boulders"...OK I give in, 'large/small particles' is getting too much of a mouthful .
> 
> Or, if always sifted boulders, you can grind a tad coarser too, for a cleaner brew.
> 
> I'm not noticing a big difference in brew time without boulders (will have a proper check when I get home, but work brews are marginally faster if anything) you did say you are using an Ethiopian, maybe more related to the coffee than the technique? I'd always use a range of coffees to establish an average brew time & set too much store in a single one.


with this coffee 3:15 unsieved and 4:30 sieved - 12g/200g - 2 pours


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> It tastes marginally better sieved in this way than unsieved, curiously though if anything it tastes "less" extracted (don't know how possible it is to detect this, but its how it comes across to my palate).


Probably less influence from over-extraction of the now absent largest particles.


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> with this coffee 3:15 unsieved and 4:30 sieved - 12g/200g - 2 pours


At home now, same grind same pour regime, same coffee, same water - about +4seconds (2:54 to 2:58) for 15-20% of the largest sifted out & 1% EY increase.


----------



## fluffles

fluffles said:


> I've moved on to a different coffee - Workshop Kelloo (washed Ethiopian) - so have spent a couple of days without sieving to get a baseline.
> 
> Brewed at exactly the same grind setting as yesterday but sieved with the 1000um only. I got 80% through the sieve and brewed 12g/200g. It refracted at 1.61/22.40% which was a tad shy of a 1% extraction increase over the unsieved. I diluted it with 20g water to bring to the TDS down to around 1.4, so you could say my net loss from sieving was around 10%.
> 
> It tastes marginally better sieved in this way than unsieved, curiously though if anything it tastes "less" extracted (don't know how possible it is to detect this, but its how it comes across to my palate).
> 
> It also took a lot longer to brew without the boulders. @MWJB - do you also get longer brew times sieving in this way? Is this a problem? We usually aim for say a 3 minute brew, if it is now taking at least a minute longer is that likely to be detrimental? Can it undo some of the good that sieving can do?


A repeat of this brew and it definitely has a sort of green / vegetal note, particularly as it cools


----------



## MWJB

For those with a range of sieves, it looks like using 2 sieves a factor of ~2.8 apart might be a good target for a typical hand grinder, say 350 & 1000, or 400 & 1100, to keep 60-65% between the sieves.


----------



## the_partisan

Given that you'll be wasting 30% of the coffee as well, do you feel the brew is so much more improved that it's worth the trouble using the sieves?


----------



## MWJB

Don't waste 30%, just lose ~15% smallest for immersion, or ~15% largest for drip, or regrind the excess largest & lose

Don't think of it as wastage, think more, what is an acceptable dose size? 16g per beverage is fine with me, even if I brew with 13.5g of that.

You throw away ~80% of your dose anyway, if we were really bothered about wastage we'd all be drinking instant 

And, yes, sweeter brews & improved strike rate is worth it. There's no real trouble for the home brewer, you could sift for drip over a bowl just using the top half of the Kruve, whilst the kettle boils, so you're not extending the time involved. I do this everyday as it is with Chemex brews and a regular kitchen sieve...I can sift the coffee, set up the Chemex, filter & scales before the kettle has boiled. I start with 46g for 3x200g mugs, an equivalent French press (no sifting) would take more like ~50-54g of coffee.

At the moment at home I'm alternating between sifted & non-sifted, so sifting twice a day is no real faff & I can keep the recipe constant without dropping out of the zone. If I had to make 3 or 4 individual brews for guests, then sifting would get the chop.


----------



## Rob1

Two bad experiences to report:

Sifted out only the fines for a french press and the brew had a bitterness to it which made the whole process pointless.

Sifted out boulder for espresso (for the second time) and ended up with a 17g dose from 20g ground (perfectly acceptable) but this time instead of having the shot run flawlessly I saw channeling appear on one side of the basket and it never developed into a cone (just squirted everywhere). My prep was exactly the same as the previous sifted shot (beading across the basket to an instant thin central stream) and unsifted shot (beading across the basket forming a central stream just before brew pressure is reached). The grind was set slightly finer, maybe too fine?

I find all this sifting increases prep time by about 5 minutes with regrinding boulders. Might have to buy one of those USB powered desktop Henry vacuums for cleaning the sieves quickly.


----------



## MWJB

Can you tell us more about the French press brew? Sifting out the fines won't have increased extraction, so your bitterness must be due to something else, other than bittering fines/over-extraction?


----------



## Rob1

It was bitter compared to sifting out both fines and boulders. Ratio was 1:13. Maybe let it brew too long at 12 minutes.


----------



## MWJB

Maybe not long enough. Sifting boulders would have let it extact more. What are you calling fines & boulders, what sieves sizes & how much in each? If you're sifting boulders & lifting extraction you can probably go longer on the ratio, 1:13 with a higher extraction would be pretty intense for me,


----------



## Rob1

I'm following the recommendations in the book. 1000um 600um. I didn't weigh the left overs but think it was around 7g under 600um and 3-4g over 1000um after regrind based on appearance and previous weighins.


----------



## Rhys

MWJB said:


> Bingo, managed to improve a brew by top & tailing the grind.
> 
> 22.5% 1100, 68% between sieves for sifted brew. (This was at the same grind setting as the previous drip brew, notice with the larger bottom sieve mesh the outlying grinds have now come back into expectation - less over 1100 at a finer setting).
> 
> French press 13.5g to 247g, sink crust at 5:00, decant at 10:00, stir in cup & take TDS.
> 
> Both were 1.14%TDS (+/-0.01%), 22% EY.
> 
> The unsifted brew had a slightly charred, bitter flavour, sifted brew was cleaner.
> 
> I'd guess the consistent extraction means that it's not absolutely necessary that you remove the larger particles for immersion, unless they are stopping you hitting a tasty extraction (pulling it down), maybe concentrate on removing the smaller component as a priority. They don't appear to have a bearing on extraction, just muddy the flavour by their presence.


I just tried this with the Hasbean Feb #SSSSS. Exactly same input/water/time. No idea on TDS as I don't have a thingy.. Think I lost about a gram in fines, with very little boulders/chaff. After grinding anything over 1100 again, brushing off the fines that had clung to the bottom of the 400 sieve then sieving the middle portion again just to make sure, I was left with 13.5g

I also sandwiched a single thickness of a V60 filter paper in the FP plunger to try and filter out some finer particles. The resulting brew was a bit cloudy with a little bit of sediment. I could just about get the pear acidity in the coffee, and a lot of 'dryness'. It wasn't juicy etc. I guess my mouth felt like it was 'degreased'. Maybe I should try another coffee or different sieves?


----------



## MWJB

Rob1 said:


> I'm following the recommendations in the book. 1000um 600um. I didn't weigh the left overs but think it was around 7g under 600um and 3-4g over 1000um after regrind based on appearance and previous weighins.


Fair enough. Be aware that 600 & 1000 targets a pretty narrow range (factor of 1.3 around mid point, if you're using the Lido in your sig, you might find 1.6-1.7 more reasonable?), if you want to cut back on prep time & regrinding, try using the largest sieve you have and a sieve 2.8 times smaller. e.g. 350 & 1000 or 400 & 1100.


----------



## MWJB

Rhys said:


> I just tried this with the Hasbean Feb #SSSSS. Exactly same input/water/time. No idea on TDS as I don't have a thingy.. Think I lost about a gram in fines, with very little boulders/chaff. After grinding anything over 1100 again, brushing off the fines that had clung to the bottom of the 400 sieve then sieving the middle portion again just to make sure, I was left with 13.5g
> 
> I also sandwiched a single thickness of a V60 filter paper in the FP plunger to try and filter out some finer particles. The resulting brew was a bit cloudy with a little bit of sediment. I could just about get the pear acidity in the coffee, and a lot of 'dryness'. It wasn't juicy etc. I guess my mouth felt like it was 'degreased'. Maybe I should try another coffee or different sieves?


I didn't regrind, I didn't use a paper in the plunger either (this is going to give you more sediment than the 'no plunge' method without a paper - I'd put a filter paper in a cone & filter the brew that way, use Chemex or Filtropa paper, not liked the V60 filtered brews for filtering, just brewing...you'll want to brew at a shorter ratio to offset loss of mouthfeel).

I did intend to brew at a shorter ratio (~57gL to 60g/L) but overshot the water & had to match them up for a comparison. I would have preferred to have left both presses for 20min with no break (it was more of an experiment in sifting fines than a 'how to' & the coffee was very soluble so I reckoned I'd get away with a shorter brew).

Sounds like your grinder is set much, much coarser than mine if you had 1g in the pan. I had 5g (sifted out 32% in total). You will always get a hazy brew with French press. There was though, slightly less sediment compared to the unsifted brew, but the biggest difference was in flavour, not sediment/haze.

Trying another coffee is the last thing I'd do.

I didn't mention water, but it was 1 part Highland Spring to 3 parts Waitrose Stretton Hills at rolling boil in kettle when the pour started.


----------



## MWJB

Sunday morning French press, went too coarse on grinder so lost too much to top sieve (used 350 & 1100, will go back finer on grinder), sifted for 1-2 min, 62% into the Bodum Colombia. Boiling water (310g - 1 part Glaceau:6 parts Volvic) straight in on coffee at 58g/L, covered with lid only (no plunger installed), went for shower...

Don't know how long it sat for but was 65c when I returned, surface oils poured off, plunger installed, no plunge, no further filtering, poured gently to ~200ml in cup. Sweet, balanced, no bitterness, representative of notes, tasted like a filter brew with a little more body, silt levels:








[/url]


----------



## Rhys

MWJB said:


> I didn't regrind, I didn't use a paper in the plunger either (this is going to give you more sediment than the 'no plunge' method without a paper - I'd put a filter paper in a cone & filter the brew that way, use Chemex or Filtropa paper, not liked the V60 filtered brews for filtering, just brewing...you'll want to brew at a shorter ratio to offset loss of mouthfeel).
> 
> I did intend to brew at a shorter ratio (~57gL to 60g/L) but overshot the water & had to match them up for a comparison. I would have preferred to have left both presses for 20min with no break (it was more of an experiment in sifting fines than a 'how to' & the coffee was very soluble so I reckoned I'd get away with a shorter brew).
> 
> Sounds like your grinder is set much, much coarser than mine if you had 1g in the pan. I had 5g (sifted out 32% in total). You will always get a hazy brew with French press. There was though, slightly less sediment compared to the unsifted brew, but the biggest difference was in flavour, not sediment/haze.
> 
> Trying another coffee is the last thing I'd do.
> 
> I didn't mention water, but it was 1 part Highland Spring to 3 parts Waitrose Stretton Hills at rolling boil in kettle when the pour started.


Interesting.

I didn't plunge either, had it about halfway down. I usually filter through the V60 but it clogs up quickly so thought I'd add a filter paper to the French Press instead and have a steady, slow pour thinking it might hold some sediment back. You're right about the haziness, and the sediment was very little to be fair. My grind was about 2 digits courser than espresso on the Major (set at 4, espresso is bang on 2 for this one, which is 3 notches left of the sticker's centre arrow.) I have some Mellita papers, or I could pour it through an AeroPress and use a couple of filters in the bottom. Although I'm wondering if this is stripping the body put of it and leaving the dryness I was left with?


----------



## MWJB

Personally, I prefer to eliminate the silt at source (not kick it up in the pot), I have used all sorts to secondary filter French press, it's just an added faff & variable (adjusting for lack of body). I tend to get the best French press & Sowden results without additional filtering.

If you just had 1g in the bottom of the Kruve, you were either way coarse, or so fine that tiny partcles were sticking to everything else...sorry, that's not much help


----------



## Rhys

Static cling is probably it. Have you noticed fines sticking to the bottom of the sieves?


----------



## MWJB

Not so much at the setting I have just been using, more at finer grind settings/with smaller sieves. At the moment I'm around fine drip & it's not an obvious issue.


----------



## Phobic

my set arrived today, much better made than I was expecting.

just jumped in the deep end straight away and made a CCD, just used the 1000 sieve to get rid of the "boulders". WOW, so much sweeter, very noticable difference straight away, I'm shocked.

24g ground on my usual setting produced ~9g, I reground again much finer and re-sieved to produce my usual 20g for 300g of water. (will do some calibration grinds to understand how the distribution changes at some point).

I've been gridning at 17 on the 3FE dial for CCD for a while now, had to go down to 12 to get the 20g with regrinding - will try it at 12 again to start with next time with the aim of not having to regrind as I can already tell that regrinding isn't that effective or practical with the EK as you can hear that the grinds are sticking in the chute, had to use an air blower to clear them out.


----------



## MWJB

Been dialling in my Lido 1 to the 350 & 1100 sieves and pretty much there & happy, though might switch back to 400 on the bottom, just because the larger sieves are easier & quicker to clean. Setting to 0.63 from zero gives me around 16% under 350 & 18% over 1100 (the 400 should give an even split). This setting works well without sifting too for 1 mug drip & med/large French press...








[/url]


----------



## Xpenno

So my Kruve arrived last week. I made my first spro sieveing off everything over 600. Shot ran 8 seconds faster than unsieved which I wasn't expecting. The shot was really clean and tasty but I need to bring down the grind to see if it can be further improved.

For filter are the 350/1100 good for all methods?


----------



## MWJB

Xpenno said:


> For filter are the 350/1100 good for all methods?


I'm currently using 600 & 1100. Sifting out ~15%

Sifting out ~15% >1100 for 1 mug drip brews, regrinding >1100 if you have much more than 20% left on top after the first pass.

350 & 1100 might sift out ~15% off each end for a conical hand grinder, you might be able to use a closer spacing for an EK?

Marek Krupa stated on Facebook that they were looking at producing some 1200, 1400 & 1600 sieves for coarser grinds.


----------



## Xpenno

MWJB said:


> I'm currently using 600 & 1100. Sifting out ~15%
> 
> Sifting out ~15% >1100 for 1 mug drip brews, regrinding >1100 if you have much more than 20% left on top after the first pass.
> 
> 350 & 1100 might sift out ~15% off each end for a conical hand grinder, you might be able to use a closer spacing for an EK?
> 
> Marek Krupa stated on Facebook that they were looking at producing some 1200, 1400 & 1600 sieves for coarser grinds.


Ok ta.

Looking at an ek43 filter grind curve you could possibly go 400 and 800. There's a fines peak around 300-350 And not much over 800. Will give it a go and report back.


----------



## Xpenno

And regrinding on the ek43 is a no go for me.


----------



## MWJB

Xpenno said:


> Ok ta.
> 
> Looking at an ek43 filter grind curve you could possibly go 400 and 800. There's a fines peak around 300-350 And not much over 800. Will give it a go and report back.


Cool, where's the curve you mention?


----------



## Xpenno

MWJB said:


> Cool, where's the curve you mention?


Socratic, which I know most people turn their noses up at but similar sources are hard to come by.


__
http://instagr.am/p/BJclF7WjGNA/


----------



## MWJB

Xpenno said:


> Socratic, which I know most people turn their noses up at but similar sources are had to come by.
> 
> 
> __
> http://instagr.am/p/BJclF7WjGNA/


It's not so much a case of turning a nose up, it's more that there is no similar/equivalent convention for displaying a distribution, so it's very hard to interpret without raw data. It also won't translate to Kruve sizes.

That "fines peak" is more likely closer to the median than it looks in that chart, with likely no dip between it & the median.

You'd be better off grinding a few doses at a workable grind setting then sifting at say 350&1100, 500&1000, 700&900 & build your own, cumulative curve that is in the units that other Kruve users can relate to? You wouldn't have to do them all in one hit, just sift & weigh during your normal regime.


----------



## Xpenno

MWJB said:


> It's not so much a case of turning a nose up, it's more that there is no similar/equivalent convention for displaying a distribution, so it's very hard to interpret without raw data. It also won't translate to Kruve sizes.
> 
> That "fines peak" is more likely closer to the median than it looks in that chart, with likely no dip between it & the median.
> 
> You'd be better off grinding a few doses at a workable grind setting then sifting at say 350&1100, 500&1000, 700&900 & build your own, cumulative curve that is in the units that other Kruve users can relate to? You wouldn't have to do them all in one hit, just sift & weigh during your normal regime.


That's the plan. At this point it's early doors and I'm just looking for a reasonable starting point.


----------



## Xpenno

Old coffee burrs, 10 in the 3fe dial. 350 and 1000.

25g in

2.5g in the base (10%)

0.7g in the top (2.8%)

Rest (87.2%) in the middle

Ccd, dropped at 8mins. Just cooling.


----------



## Xpenno

Very clean, very delicious.

I'm really impressed how easy the kruve is to use and clean. I thought I might be sieveing for half an hour each time


----------



## the_partisan

Xpenno said:


> Old coffee burrs, 10 in the 3fe dial. 350 and 1000.
> 
> 25g in
> 
> 2.5g in the base (10%)
> 
> 0.7g in the top (2.8%)
> 
> Rest (87.2%) in the middle
> 
> Ccd, dropped at 8mins. Just cooling.


So it seems EK43 indeed produce very little boulders? 0.7% seems very low. Does sifting the fines make any big difference at all in extraction?


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> So it seems EK43 indeed produce very little boulders? 0.7% seems very low. Does sifting the fines make any big difference at all in extraction?


That's 0.7g (2.8%).

Note the sieves are around a factor of 3 apart, so 87% between them might not be wildly unusual.


----------



## MWJB

MWJB said:


> That's 0.7g (2.8%).
> 
> Note the sieves are around a factor of 3 apart, so 87% between them might not be wildly unusual.


 @the_partisan this link might explain it better...I put in Xpenno's values, my own from a Lido 1 (set fairly fine) and a theoretical ideal for a similar average grind size. You'll see the EK & ideal do have less particles outside the sieves, but in this instance are pretty close (may vary more with a more controlled sifting?). The Lido 1, whilst a very capable grinder, obviously has a wider distribution (I need to use an 1100 with the 350 in this grind range to get 2/3 of the distribution between the sieves).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SD1C6t8GZsydi8ERXCJJbo3tyids-liGiZUFxRxCM5c/edit?usp=sharing


----------



## the_partisan

My bad about 0.7%, 2.8% also seems quite low though. When making these graphs, how do you ensure the average grind sizes are the same? I would imagine the grind setting would skew the graph left or right. I'm tempted to get a Kruve as well, but I'm not sure I want even more faff. For pourovers, it seems enough to filter out boulders to push extraction up. Is there a benefit from sieving out the fines as well?


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> My bad about 0.7%, 2.8% also seems quite low though. When making these graphs, how do you ensure the average grind sizes are the same? I would imagine the grind setting would skew the graph left or right. I'm tempted to get a Kruve as well, but I'm not sure I want even more faff. For pourovers, it seems enough to filter out boulders to push extraction up. Is there a benefit from sieving out the fines as well?


You don't need to be exact in making sure the average grind sizes are the same, but from what little info you get from 2 sieves Xpenno's looks to be around 650,my Lido was ~700, "ideal" was plotted assuming 650. "Ideal" assumes a symmetrical split, but in reality distribution will be biased towards the smaller end.

If I can only get 60% between 2 sieves of a given relationship, this doesn't seem to change much over the options of sieves available.

I personally have only seen a benefit in immersions when sieving out fines, not yet seen a significant change in extraction doing this. Assuming you heat your water in a kitchen/gooseneck kettle, you probably have a couple of minutes to spare whilst waiting for this? For drip I just sieve out the boulders (~16-18%), you could just use the top section.


----------



## Flibster

So there's some new sieve sizes on the way.

1200, 1400 and 1600um sieves.

But... $14.99 each or $39.99 for the set of three plus postage. Which appears to be surprisingly, extremely reasonable at $4.90.

May consider it in the future as the larger sizes would be useful.


----------



## The Systemic Kid

Been playing with my Kruve set which was really late in arriving. For a 500grm Chemex, having to grind another 4-5grms to make up for the fines lost in sieving. Currently drinking some natural Ethiopian Wegida. The Kruve is toning down the natural's booziness making the brew much more balanced. Impressed.


----------



## Phobic

how are people getting on with the Kruve? any more learning or tips to share?


----------



## DoubleShot




----------



## Phobic

I'm liking his reviews generally, I think if he continues to possision himself as impartial and honest his channel has the real possibility of evolving into something very good.

not sure he's thought about these sieves in entirely the right way though, if I think about how I use them day to day and how they fit into my workflow some of the draw backs he raises become none issues. I tend to sieve while the kettle is brewing so it doesn't slow me down much (at all?), I leave the same sieves in for long periods of time without changing them so not feeling the pain of the seals, also don't find the way they come apart an issue as to sieve you grab the top and bottom then squeeze and shake.

not really any discussion on how they improve the taste either....


----------



## MWJB

DoubleShot said:


>


Using the factory recommended 400-800 is bound to end in disappointment & wastage. With a hand grinder you are only likely to catch around 30% of the ground weight between the sieves, at a grind size useful for even a moderately sized V60 brew. This might not even include the average grind size. Best to aim more like x3 or x4 between the sieve sizes & use the largest you have. If you just have the 400 & 800 set you might just use the 400 to get rid of smaller particles for immersions, maybe the 800 to get rid of the largest, but only at pretty fine grind settings (or again, the smallest, if brewing with a very coarse immersion grind for some reason).

All burr grinders make particles down to a few microns, so with 800 as the largest, no burr grinder will keep all the particles to within less than half that size.


----------



## CoffeeChris

Thinking of getting one of these. I do have one question. If I'm grinding say 18 grams of coffee and I end up with 16g in the middle tray, would I make an espresso with w the 16 gram or would I need to add more than 18g to start with.

Is it true that you can also regrind the boulders to again so not to waste?

Thanks


----------



## MWJB

CoffeeChris said:


> Thinking of getting one of these. I do have one question. If I'm grinding say 18 grams of coffee and I end up with 16g in the middle tray, would I make an espresso with w the 16 gram or would I need to add more than 18g to start with.
> 
> Is it true that you can also regrind the boulders to again so not to waste?
> 
> Thanks


I wouldn't discard anything in the bottom pan for espresso/drip, just discard the top pan (discard bottom for immersions)...but in all honesty you might find espresso grind doesn't sift well (sticks to each other & the coarser particles).

You can regrind the largest component certainly with a hand grinder, probably with conical that are straight through. Not a good idea with auger fed grinders & probably will get eaten up as retention in any grinder with sweepers & a chute (happy to be corrected on this). Won't regrinding make shots laborious with weighing, grinding, sifting, reweighing, regrinding, resifting, reweighing? Some wastage is inherent with sifting out part of the distribution, but remember your time & enjoyment has value too?

If you start with 18g and only lose 2g between sieves at x2 intervals, you probably have a grinder that isn't going to be easily improved by sifting...and can you tell us what grinder that is, we all want one . I'm finding that 15-25% discard is enough to make a positive difference with hand grinders.

The coffee sees the dose in the basket, if you have 16g in the basket where you would normally use an 18g dose, the machine/basket/brewer was never aware of the missing 2g, so you would grind enough to have 18g at the end of sifting.

Long story short, I don't think it's going to work quite like you anticipate it will. Better for coarser (than espresso) grinds & manual brewing.


----------



## CoffeeChris

MWJB said:


> I wouldn't discard anything in the bottom pan for espresso/drip, just discard the top pan (discard bottom for immersions)...but in all honesty you might find espresso grind doesn't sift well (sticks to each other & the coarser particles).
> 
> You can regrind the largest component certainly with a hand grinder, probably with conical that are straight through. Not a good idea with auger fed grinders & probably will get eaten up as retention in any grinder with sweepers & a chute (happy to be corrected on this). Won't regrinding make shots laborious with weighing, grinding, sifting, reweighing, regrinding, resifting, reweighing? Some wastage is inherent with sifting out part of the distribution, but remember your time & enjoyment has value too?
> 
> If you start with 18g and only lose 2g between sieves at x2 intervals, you probably have a grinder that isn't going to be easily improved by sifting...and can you tell us what grinder that is, we all want one . I'm finding that 15-25% discard is enough to make a positive difference with hand grinders.
> 
> The coffee sees the dose in the basket, if you have 16g in the basket where you would normally use an 18g dose, the machine/basket/brewer was never aware of the missing 2g, so you would grind enough to have 18g at the end of sifting.
> 
> Long story short, I don't think it's going to work quite like you anticipate it will. Better for coarser (than espresso) grinds & manual brewing.


Thanks for explaining. Have only just seen this product today,will have a search for more info. I agree reginding/weighting will be very laborious .... So I guess it's best used for pour over than espresso mainly ?


----------



## MWJB

CoffeeChris said:


> Thanks for explaining. Have only just seen this product today,will have a search for more info. I agree reginding/weighting will be very laborious .... So I guess it's best used for pour over than espresso mainly ?


Works well for immersions too. I have never tried it for espresso...it can be incorporated into prep time for brewed (whilst the kettle boils) but the sifting will likely take as long as the rest of the shot prep. No harm in trying it though, I'd dial in your espresso as normal, then maybe try incorporating a screen size that just lops off the largest 15-20% (you won't know what that is until you try).


----------



## unoll

I've been playing with the sieves off and on for a while and tend to:

- keep the sieved particles and use them in cold brew. Although not precision and focussed, i end up with something rather tasty after 18 hours. Saves waste and can be tasty.

- not bother with use for espresso. I've tried it a few times now and I'm not doing it again in a hurry, it takes aaaaaages and even then you have to fight clogging. I'm also pretty dubious about how many particles actually make it through a 200 sieve when you've got static to contend with.

- regrind boulders at an espresso type level when I can be bothered, using the rosco. I figure that if half of them are in the target size and half end up in the bottom then im pretty happy.


----------



## Stevebee

Just got my delivery of the Kruve set. Wanted it to try and calibrate my different grinders so if I brewed for drip or french press they are the same average grind. Easy to do for espresso and with a standard dose and tamp the shot time will calibrate so they are the same. Below are the results of my first go. Used the same shaking action for 1 minute per sieve selection. The sieves used were the full 12 plus 1200, 1400 and 1600. My targets were 900 for the Behmor Brazen drip and 1200 for the French Press. I know some use a much finer FP grind but I wanted to calibrate to the traditional coarse.

I also show the mean and std deviation on the graph. The median and mode were also calculated but not shown.

For Drip









For French Press









Also kept going for Espresso, although as I said shot time does this for me.









Not sure how these images will appear - hopefully not too small.

After I'm happy I can get the same grind average on each grinder (I am) I will probably look at trying a brew excluding a percentage of boulders for the drip and French Press brews

I'll leave the fines in as it looks like these are not the 'evil' it was once believed to be.


----------



## Stevebee

Forgot to mention before. Each grind sample was 30g with the same coffee being used in all.

The grinders are:-

Mazzer Royal 83mm Flat Titanium burrs

OE Pharos 68mm conical burrs (manual)

Macap 7k Deli 75mm Flat burrs

Hausgrind 38mm conical (manual)

Zassenhaus Santiago guessing 38mm conical (manual) new so burrs not broken in yet


----------



## the_partisan

How is everyone getting on with their Kruve? Is it seeing daily use?

I am thinking of getting one - but it seems like I would need at least the 12 pack which has 400-1100 for drip at least and it's kind of more than I'd be willing to pay. I wish they had more usable default options. For example 400-800 of the basic set seems not that useful according to @MWJB's analysis. The best option seems to be get the basic set with 400-800 and also 1100 and/or 1000 with it.


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> How is everyone getting on with their Kruve? Is it seeing daily use?
> 
> I am thinking of getting one - but it seems like I would need at least the 12 pack which has 400-1100 for drip at least and it's kind of more than I'd be willing to pay. I wish they had more usable default options. For example 400-800 of the basic set seems not that useful according to @MWJB's analysis. The best option seems to be get the basic set with 400-800 and also 1100 and/or 1000 with it.


I mostly use mine for calibration.

For a 400 smallest I'd use 1000-1200 as the largest and not remove any of the smallest grounds, just 10-20% of the largest. I only use 400 as the smallest as this is a sieve everyone would have so can be used as a datum.

For instance:

Feldgrind at 1+13 might lose 10% above 1000 (~17% below 400)

Feldgrind at 2+6 might lose 20% above 1200 to 7-8% above 1600 (~12% below 400).

Feldgrind at 3+2 might lose 16% above 1600.

Mesh sieves might capture 68% of your grind between 2 sieves, one double the size of the other, but with Kruve you seem to need a factor of 2.5 to 3.0 to capture a similar amount.

I only discard the small particles in an immersion brew...on the rare occasions I make them these days.

So I guess, long story short, if primarily for drip & you don't want the full set, I'm saying get the basic set & the 1200/1400/1600 if typically grinding past 2+0 on Feldgrind, or equivalent.


----------



## the_partisan

I only do very few immersion brews, and then usually a big batch. Not sure what 2+6 on Feldgrind would correspond to on my Kinu M47. I looked at your sheet (this one) and it looks like you used 400/1100 for calibration?

I'm also mainly interested in calibrating and evaluating my grinders.


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> I only do very few immersion brews, and then usually a big batch. Not sure what 2+6 on Feldgrind would correspond to on my Kinu M47. I looked at your sheet (this one) and it looks like you used 400/1100 for calibration?
> 
> I'm also mainly interested in calibrating and evaluating my grinders.


Ooops! Apologies, a typo on that spreadsheet, the tab title had it correct as 400 & 1200, corrected it now. Though you could use 400 & 1100 for relative data & lose a little more above the 1100. If your Kinu was set to produce 12% +/- 2% or so below 400 after 2 mins of shaking, then that would be a broadly equivalent setting to 2+6.

So far, I seem to be finding that the smaller sieve is more indicative of setting.


----------



## the_partisan

Do we know that the particles have normal distribution by mass? Then you would be able to calculate the median grind size with any two filters, given that the median would be between the large and the small sieve. That sounds quite useful.

I have looked at Socratic's distribution graphs but couldn't make much sense of them as the Y-axis is "grams-per-100 microns". It looks like they're looking at the number of particles rather than the total mass.


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> Do we know that the particles have normal distribution by mass? Then you would be able to calculate the median grind size with any two filters, given that the median would be between the large and the small sieve. That sounds quite useful.
> 
> I have looked at Socratic's distribution graphs but couldn't make much sense of them as the Y-axis is "grams-per-100 microns". It looks like they're looking at the number of particles rather than the total mass.


I don't think you can determine the median by calculation with the Kruve, as it seems to skew towards a higher SDev on the smaller end. Of course, you can calculate what the sieves suggest it might be, but in reality this doesn't seem to tie up with the 50% weight mark. Kruve is useful, repeatable & available, there should be enough out there for us to share information, but I wouldn't try and correlate to US Standard/Tyler mesh sieve analysis (via which brewed coffee grinds have been shown to have normal distribution by mass).

Here's an example of how the Kruve compares to the Keck sand shaker (which only works with ~3g of coffee).








[/url]


----------



## the_partisan

I got my set (400/800/1200/1400/1600) and did my first measurement

10g coffee ground on 4N setting on my Vario w/ steel burrs, my typical filter setting.

0.9g left on >1200um

8g in middle

1.1g


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> I got my set (400/800/1200/1400/1600) and did my first measurement
> 
> 10g coffee ground on 4N setting on my Vario w/ steel burrs, my typical filter setting.
> 
> 0.9g left on >1200um
> 
> 8g in middle
> 
> 1g
> 
> Cool, seems a nice, tight distribution, what recipe would you use that for?


----------



## the_partisan

MWJB said:


> Cool, seems a nice, tight distribution, what recipe would you use that for?


I use it with a V60, 15g/250g, 45g bloom and then single continuous slow pour for about 30-45sec. The downside of the slower pour is that slurry temperature is lower, but it does seem to result in a cleaner brew overall and more consistent results.. It gives me around 20% EY.

I tested the Kruve with some darker than usual roasted beans that I don't quite care for, so it might not be the most representative. But as I suspected the Vario ended up somewhere between EK43 and Feldgrind in terms of grind distribution uniformity.


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> I use it with a V60, 15g/250g, 45g bloom and then single continuous slow pour for about 30-45sec. The downside of the slower pour is that slurry temperature is lower, but it does seem to result in a cleaner brew overall and more consistent results.. It gives me around 20% EY.
> 
> I tested the Kruve with some darker than usual roasted beans that I don't quite care for, so it might not be the most representative. But as I suspected the Vario ended up somewhere between EK43 and Feldgrind in terms of grind distribution uniformity.


You have around 10% more of your grind between the sieves that I'd expect from Feld/Lido/similar set to 10% at 400. Probably around x1.5 Sdev factor compared to 1.7 for the conical hand grinders. I guess that what that means is for the same weight of particles at 400, you have an overall finer grind & more evenness.


----------



## the_partisan

I'll compare it to my hand grinder tomorrow. The Vario has 55mm steel flat burrs, so I guess burr size and shape make quite a difference. Will be interesting to see how Kinu M47 compares to the Feldgrind and Lido. It has the same burr size as Lido I believe.


----------



## the_partisan

Didn't get to use the Kinu yet, but I did an Aeropress using the Vario and the Kruve. I weighed out 15g of beans and ground them at 3E setting (somewhat finer than my drip setting), which resulted in 13% ending up at

The particles under 400 do look really fine, and I might actually save these to make a cup of Turkish coffee!


----------



## the_partisan

Any tips on cleaning the sieves? Rinsing is fine, but doesn't seem to remove everything 100%, especially on the finer sieve (400um).

BTW These are my measurements so far.. not sure if it's particularly useful.

I ended up taking the middle parts of 3N and 2N and making an Aeropress







Didn't turn out half bad. The macro/micro discrepancy in the Vario seems to be much larger than I thought. Not sure what they were thinking when they came up with this way of adjusting. I got almost the same percentage of fines retained on setting 3E - 14% vs 13.2% (only sieved fines for Aeropress, not full measurement) as it is for 2N.


GrinderSettingPAN4001200PAN4001200Vario4N1.180.911.00%80.00%9.00%Vario3N1.28.40.511.88%83.17%4.95%Vario2N1.48.30.314.00%83.00%3.00%


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> Any tips on cleaning the sieves? Rinsing is fine, but doesn't seem to remove everything 100%, especially on the finer sieve (400um).
> 
> BTW These are my measurements so far.. not sure if it's particularly useful.
> 
> I ended up taking the middle parts of 3N and 2N and making an Aeropress
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Didn't turn out half bad. The macro/micro discrepancy in the Vario seems to be much larger than I thought. Not sure what they were thinking when they came up with this way of adjusting. I got almost the same percentage of fines retained on setting 3E - 14% vs 13.2% (only sieved fines for Aeropress, not full measurement) as it is for 2N.
> 
> 
> GrinderSettingPAN4001200PAN4001200Vario4N1.180.911.00%80.00%9.00%Vario3N1.28.40.511.88%83.17%4.95%Vario2N1.48.30.314.00%83.00%3.00%


I brush them with a grinder cleaning brush (using a stabbing/stippling approach on the 400), then wipe down with kitchen tissue, for a quick clean.

You seem to consistently get 83% between the sieves (I'd expect this to drop a bit as you get around 10% at 400, as Kruve seems to stretch out the smaller end), which points to a Sdev factor of x1.5. I'd be surprised if the hand grinders can hit quite this much, maybe 65-70% with 10% at 400, up to 75-78% with 15% at 400. Not enough of a difference to suggest aiming at another range of extraction yield, but possibly more flexibility in recipe?

All these 3 settings seem pretty close to each other & small increments of change, being within about 5% at 400, be interesting to see what V60s average at 2N vs 4N?


----------



## the_partisan

MWJB said:


> I brush them with a grinder cleaning brush (using a stabbing/stippling approach on the 400), then wipe down with kitchen tissue, for a quick clean.
> 
> You seem to consistently get 83% between the sieves (I'd expect this to drop a bit as you get around 10% at 400, as Kruve seems to stretch out the smaller end), which points to a Sdev factor of x1.5. I'd be surprised if the hand grinders can hit quite this much, maybe 65-70% with 10% at 400, up to 75-78% with 15% at 400. Not enough of a difference to suggest aiming at another range of extraction yield, but possibly more flexibility in recipe?
> 
> All these 3 settings seem pretty close to each other & small increments of change, being within about 5% at 400, be interesting to see what V60s average at 2N vs 4N?


Yes the Macro setting doesn't seem to make a huge difference, the 26 micro settings make more of a difference if you go from one end to another. I think the the overall grind setting is something like n*macro+micro or something along those lines where n is maybe something like 6-8? So it's not quite intuitive how to adjust the grinder at all.. My Vario is also calibrated fairly coarse, at 1A the burrs just start touching.

I now did two tests with the M47:


GrinderSettingPAN4001200PAN4001200Kinu M47171.77.70.617.00%77.00%6.00%Kinu M47201.37.21.413.13%72.73%14.14%

The numbers only add to 9.9 for the 2nd one, but I think it's close enough given I use a 0.1g scale and some grounds just get stuck or fall on the scale/countertop.

How do you calculate the SDev? I'm not quite sure how to compare these numbers to your Feldgrind/Lido numbers, as the settings on your sheet seem to be a little coarser.


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> How do you calculate the SDev? I'm not quite sure how to compare these numbers to your Feldgrind/Lido numbers, as the settings on your sheet seem to be a little coarser.


+/-1x Sdev would mean 68% captured between 400 & 1200.

1200/400 = 3

SQRT 3 = 1.73

86.6% captured = +/-1.5 Sdevs = 1.44

95% captured between (+/-2x Sdevs) would be SQRT of 1.73 = 1.32 (unlikely with typical grinders)


----------



## the_partisan

MWJB said:


> +/-1x Sdev would mean 68% captured between 400 & 1200.
> 
> 1200/400 = 3
> 
> SQRT 3 = 1.73
> 
> 86.6% captured = +/-1.5 Sdevs = 1.44
> 
> 95% captured between (+/-2x Sdevs) would be SQRT of 1.73 = 1.32 (unlikely with typical grinders)


Does that assume that you adjust your grind so that it 1200 have the same percentages?

Should I aim at about ~10.5%


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> Does that assume that you adjust your grind so that it 1200 have the same percentages?
> 
> Should I aim at about ~10.5%
> 
> No, it doesn't need equal weights outside the sieves, there will often be a bias towards the smaller end. But, as the % under 400 drops, Kruve exaggerates the Sdev factor, so it will appear to get wider, so sure compare a recipe that uses 10% below 400, with another that hits similar. Or, just expect the Sdev to appear to get smaller as you get over 10%.
> 
> E.g. 2 grinders might hit 78% between the sieves, with the same % above & below but for the same recipes one may be too fine, the other perfect, this is why correlating to a recipe & yield makes the measurements more useful. One grinder might need a different recipe, or setting to get to an equivalent point.
> 
> That's the thing really, have recipe with a grinder, when dialled in sift. Then dial in another grinder & sift.


----------



## the_partisan

MWJB said:


> +/-1x Sdev would mean 68% captured between 400 & 1200.
> 
> 1200/400 = 3
> 
> SQRT 3 = 1.73
> 
> 86.6% captured = +/-1.5 Sdevs = 1.44
> 
> 95% captured between (+/-2x Sdevs) would be SQRT of 1.73 = 1.32 (unlikely with typical grinders)


Could you explain the calculation here? How do you calculate the stddev of 1.44 given 86.6% was captured?


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> Could you explain the calculation here? How do you calculate the stddev of 1.44 given 86.6% was captured?


Calculated average between 400 & 1200 is 693.

1200/693=1.73 (43.3% or 1.5 Sdev)

1.5 Sdevs will be a figure that when multiplied by its own SQRT = 1.73 (half an Sdev factor is the SQRT of itself).

SQRT 1.44= 1.2

1.44*1.2 = 1.73

Or, 693*1.44*1.2 = 1200.


----------



## the_partisan

Sorry for sounding stupid, I think I still don't quite understand it. I think I don't quite understand what you mean by 1.5 stddev in the first place.. In a normal distribution 1 standard deviation is where 68% of grounds would fall in around the mean. So not sure what std dev 1.5 means in this context. Do you mean 1.5 stddev falls within the filters, meaning the actual stddev of the distribution is lower? How do you calculate the mean given %s retained above and below?

I always did bad in statistics in school


----------



## MWJB

Sure, 68% equates to +/- 1 Sdev (34% +1 Sdev, 34% -1Sdev).

+/-2 Sdevs would normally account for 95% (well, 95.45%) of the distribution.

87% (86.6%) would account for +/- 1.5 Sdevs - I only really mention the 1.5 Sdev as you are able to capture more than 68%, but less than 95%. So if you capture 83% between the sieves you are closer to this region than +/-1 or +/-2 Sdevs.

Yes, if you capture 1.5 Sdevs (87% or thereabouts) between the filters your 1x Sdev factor is 1.44, not 1.7 as for 68%, nor 1.32 as for 95%.

https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/images/normal-distrubution-large.svg

I'm calculating the average as the difference between 400 & 1200, not necessarily in relation to % above & below. This was Lockhart's method described 60yrs ago with respect to sifting.

1200/400 = 3

SQRT 3 = 1.73

1.73*693 = 1200

693/1.73 = 400

(1200/1.32)/1.32 = 693

(400*1.32)*1.32 = 693

The calculated mean should suffice for our purposes...unless someone wants to calculate a formula for accounting for the way Kruve skews the average - a nice little project for someone, someone who's not me. 

The thing about using Sdev factors is it allows comparisons, rather than stating in um (e.g. -293um +507um) as this isn't so easy to follow across slightly different settings & distribution characteristics. So conical grinders might usually fall +/- 1.6-1.7 using 400 & 1200, wobbly burrs might push that out to 1.8-1.9, your Vario seems to be 1.5-1.6.


----------



## the_partisan

I noticed the shape of grounds are also quite different in Vario vs Lido. In Vario, they look more slices (more like flakes) where as with Kinu they look like little cubes, like granulated sugar. I wonder if the flake-like shape affects how things pass through the sieve?


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> I noticed the shape of grounds are also quite different in Vario vs Lido. In Vario, they look more slices (more like flakes) where as with Kinu they look like little cubes, like granulated sugar. I wonder if the flake-like shape affects how things pass through the sieve?


The sieve just sees the dimension that prevents a particle from passing through. In that respect it assumes a disc, cube, sphere, unicorn are all the same if bigger than 400um on the smallest plane. It's really beyond sifting & LPA to determine the effect of shape, so long as measurements are meaningful & repeatable, that'll do me at this price point.

But, let's say you have 56 beans in your 10g sample, each is perhaps broken up into an average of 5,000 pieces (more smaller, less bigger), that's about a quarter of a million particles & we're only looking for +/- a couple of % (5600 particles?) overall.


----------



## the_partisan

Two more measurements:


GrinderSettingPAN4001200PAN4001200Vario5N (5+14) 0.87.51.78.00%75.00%17.00%Vario5J (5+10) 0.97.71.49.00%77.00%14.00%



So 5J is still a bit coarser than 4N, but not by much. I think the factor I'm looking for is either 6 or 8, my next test will determine this









Afterwards, I took the middle part of both of these grinds, and made an Aeropress treating it more or less like a FP (inverted, break crust after 4 min, steep for 10+ min) and it resulted in a really really nice cup, very sweet and no bitterness. I could have probably left in the boulders as well but had already binned those. Clearly removing fines gives a huge benefit for immersion brews. I think it's not so much about extraction but they tend to get in the cup and taste very bitter. The improvements to my immersion brews have been great, and I don't have to be so careful not to agitate the brew too much to avoid getting undissolved solids in the cup.


----------



## the_partisan

More measurements today and here is the whole table for the Vario. I think I'm mostly done taking these now. I think the each macro setting roughly equals 10 micro settings, probably the measurements should be repeated a few times and also a 0.01g scale used, but this is close enough. I also did a drip with 5F which resulted quite nicely, I think I was using a slightly too fine grind before (4N). I should redo the 4N measurement at some point since this was the first one I ever did, and my method might not have been 100% consistent..


GrinderSettingPAN4001200PAN4001200


Vario5N (5+14) = 640.87.51.78.00%75.00%17.00%Vario5J (5+10) = 600.97.71.49.00%77.00%14.00%Vario5F (5+6) = 560.981.19.00%80.00%11.00%Vario5D (5+4) = 5418.10.910.00%81.00%9.00%Vario4N (4+14) = 541.180.911.00%80.00%9.00%Vario3N (3+14) = 441.28.40.511.88%83.17%4.95%Vario2N (2+14) = 341.48.30.314.00%83.00%3.00%

Also did another measurement with the Kinu:


Kinu M47171.77.70.617.00%77.00%6.00%Kinu M47201.37.31.413.00%73.00%14.00%Kinu M472216.52.510.00%65.00%25.00%

Seemed to do rather poorly when getting to only retain 1g of fines, I guess comparable to Feldgrind in this aspect. Setting to use for brew with similar recipe to Vario seems to be between 20 or 21.


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> Also did another measurement with the Kinu:
> 
> Seemed to do rather poorly when getting to only retain 1g of fines, I guess comparable to Feldgrind in this aspect. Setting to use for brew with similar recipe to Vario seems to be between 20 or 21.


Wow, you have been busy. 

Yeah, I think there's a definite trend for the performance to appear to drop off around 10% on the smaller sieve, awkward if that's where your recipe sits, but then the improvement as you get nearer & over 15% seems consistent too & the offset can maybe be predicted?


----------



## the_partisan

MWJB said:


> Wow, you have been busy.
> 
> Yeah, I think there's a definite trend for the performance to appear to drop off around 10% on the smaller sieve, awkward if that's where your recipe sits, but then the improvement as you get nearer & over 15% seems consistent too & the offset can maybe be predicted?


I don't typically use the M47 for drip anyway, but it was a fun experiment. The few times I've used I think it was at between 18-20. I put all the results there, done over a few days. I didn't end up wasting that much coffee as I used the grounds for Aeropress







Now I'm quite curious how EK43 would perform compared to Vario.


----------



## MWJB

MWJB said:


> Wow, you have been busy.
> 
> Yeah, I think there's a definite trend for the performance to appear to drop off around 10% on the smaller sieve, awkward if that's where your recipe sits, but then the improvement as you get nearer & over 15% seems consistent too & the offset can maybe be predicted?


Or, maybe the apparent drop in performance is a by product of when the sifter is asymmetric in favour of the 1200 & captures a greater % in the top sieve than below the bottom sieve? For instance if you had 10% below 400, but then excluded 5% over 1600, the Sdev comes back into line.


----------



## the_partisan

But I think the numbers clearly show that Vario has a tighter distribution, by your terms it has 1.5x stddev vs 1x stddev from Kinu. Your numbers for Feldgrind and Lido also seem fairly close to Kinu's numbers. BTW do you have any new sheets with updated formulas for calculating stddev?


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> But I think the numbers clearly show that Vario has a tighter distribution, by your terms it has 1.5x stddev vs 1x stddev from Kinu. Your numbers for Feldgrind and Lido also seem fairly close to Kinu's numbers. BTW do you have any new sheets with updated formulas for calculating stddev?


Indeed, the conicals are 1.6 when biased towards the 400 & 1.7 when biased towards the 1200.

For the sheets on google you'd need to change the sieve sizes. But for 400 & 1200 the Sdevs will be constant:

87% = 1.44

~80% = 1.55

~74% = 1.63

~71% = 1.68

68% = 1.73


----------



## fluffles

the_partisan said:


> I don't typically use the M47 for drip anyway, but it was a fun experiment. The few times I've used I think it was at between 18-20. I put all the results there, done over a few days. I didn't end up wasting that much coffee as I used the grounds for Aeropress
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now I'm quite curious how EK43 would perform compared to Vario.


Not really been following this but if you want me to do any measurements with my EK43 and kruve let me know and I'll report back


----------



## the_partisan

Yes, do you have the 1200 sieve? We have a bunch of measurements which we tried to consolidate and plot. If you'd like to contribute results to that, that'd be great. The protocol is to take 10g of coffee, and sieve it for 2 minutes and then weigh the amount in each compartment. All grinders are dialled in to a typical V60 225-250g recipe. If you have other sieves, like 1100 or so that should work as well.


----------



## the_partisan

This is the link to the data & graph with my and @MWJB 's measruments, and one from Xpenno (but for Clever rather than V60).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cYpaG-4eNmhRxdgctOl0atZnw6nEK80Z68FR9Cy1fjA


----------



## the_partisan

Any updates on your measurements @fluffles ?


----------



## fluffles

the_partisan said:


> Any updates on your measurements @fluffles ?


Sorry not yet been a bit busy, will do at some point though as I've been intending to get to grips with the kruve again for a while


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> Sorry not yet been a bit busy, will do at some point though as I've been intending to get to grips with the kruve again for a while


No worries & no rush, really appreciate any contributions. It doesn't necessarily matter if you don't have a 1200 either, it would be good if 400 is the smaller sieve (maybe 1000 or 1100 as the larger) & the V60 recipe yields a mid box extraction for a brew with 225g to 250g brew water, so we can compare with measurements so far.

350/1000 would be fine too.


----------



## fluffles

MWJB said:


> No worries & no rush, really appreciate any contributions. It doesn't necessarily matter if you don't have a 1200 either, it would be good if 400 is the smaller sieve (maybe 1000 or 1100 as the larger) & the V60 recipe yields a mid box extraction for a brew with 225g to 250g brew water, so we can compare with measurements so far.
> 
> 350/1000 would be fine too.


Sure - am I targeting a particular EY with the V60 brew, or just something that typically tastes good for most coffees on my set up?

I think I have 400 and 1100


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> Sure - am I targeting a particular EY with the V60 brew, or just something that typically tastes good for most coffees on my set up?
> 
> I think I have 400 and 1100


A recipe that typically tastes good will be fine. I rarely change grind setting, so the settings I have recorded are what I use day to day & I just happen to know that brews all fall within 18-22%...but real world practice is probably more useful.


----------



## fluffles

I'll do the experiment for you later today...

Just made my first Kruve V60 brew in a while and used 1000 (my biggest) and 250 sieves. Got ~4g in the top, ~13g in the middle and hardly any in the bottom - about a level tsp, didn't even register on my scales! Brew came out at 1.44/22.00% - have people been finding that they can hit higher tasty EYs with the Kruve?


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> I'll do the experiment for you later today...
> 
> Just made my first Kruve V60 brew in a while and used 1000 (my biggest) and 250 sieves. Got ~4g in the top, ~13g in the middle and hardly any in the bottom - about a level tsp, didn't even register on my scales! Brew came out at 1.44/22.00% - have people been finding that they can hit higher tasty EYs with the Kruve?


Cheers, that would be much appreciated 

I have found that discarding the largest 15-20% can be worth about +1%EY and a comparatively sweeter brew, keeping all other aspects of the recipe the same. I didn't find an improvement when sifting out the sub 400, if anything brews were drier, but I haven't tried going as low as 250. Discarding the smaller end tends to screw up flow rates, so too much faff for me to have different recipes for sifted/non-sifted. (I do discard the smaller end for immersions though).

I prefer to reduce the stuff under the smaller sieve size by grinding a little coarser, then discard from the top for drip.

Depending on the coffee 22%EY might still be fairly normal?


----------



## fluffles

Some more data for you...

My EK is aligned-ish - I've had it aligned better in the past, but it is much better than out-of-the-box. Caveat - I seem to grind a fair bit coarser than other EK users for pour over. This is ground on setting 11.5 on the Callum/Foundry dial which is around 8 o'clock. This normally gives me an EY or around 21.5%. Thought I would use the same sieves as Xpenno so 350 and 1000 - 10g ground, 1.0g in the pan, 6.0g in the middle, 2.7g in the top.

I then made another brew using the same sort of dial setting as Xpenno did, which equates to setting 8 on my dial. Same sieves. 15g ground, 2.6g in the pan, 11.3g in the middle, 0.9g in the top. In the V60 I ended up with 1.48/22.10% so similar to my previous brew despite a very different grind setting. This brew is the tastier of the two.


----------



## fluffles

Last one for today. Thought I'd brew one with just the boulders taken out. Went one notch coarser at setting 9 to try and exclude a little more. Just the 1000 sieve... 13.5g in, 12g under and 1.3g in the top. Brewed with the 12g and got 1.48 22.48%. This is probably the best of the three cups. The ones without the fines had a sort of cleaner mouthfeel but lacked the sweetness compared to brewing with the fines.


----------



## the_partisan

Thanks. Your brews seem significantly finer than mine at least. If I was grinding that fine my brews would taste quite dry and bitter. You have something like


----------



## fluffles

the_partisan said:


> Thanks. Your brews seem significantly finer than mine at least. If I was grinding that fine my brews would taste quite dry and bitter. You have something like
> 
> To be fair, they didn't taste that fantastic. Had better brews without sifting with this coffee


----------



## fluffles

Post from barista hustle today:


__
http://instagr.am/p/Bcs0y9BF8XX/

What can we learn from this? This is only an immersion test and not a long immersion at that, but gives some credence to the view that fines are preferable to boulders. The larger particles are maxing out at a pretty low extraction.


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> Post from barista hustle today:
> 
> 
> __
> http://instagr.am/p/Bcs0y9BF8XX/
> 
> What can we learn from this? This is only an immersion test and not a long immersion at that, but gives some credence to the view that fines are preferable to boulders. The larger particles are maxing out at a pretty low extraction.


How do you get the sub 250um particles out of the cup?

The entire grind distribution may hit 24% if given enough time & heat. If you hit 24% without the sub 250um the immersion will usually taste better/cleaner. Small particles in the cup are the biggest cause of poor flavour with an immersion & big drip brews.


----------



## jlarkin

fluffles said:


> Yes that's why I mentioned it, seems odd and possibly points to conventional thinking on this being not quite right. Also consider: EK43s produce more fines for espresso but results in quick pours


Sorry this may well have come back later in the thread, but thought I'd comment before i continue reading. I seemed to experience this today as well. Discarded everything below a 300 sieve and did a kalita brew with 260 ml of water which took about 5 minutes!

I'll probably have to read more of the thread later but I'm finally coming back to the Kruve after a long gap, so a lot of reading ahead of me.


----------



## fluffles

jlarkin said:


> Sorry this may well have come back later in the thread, but thought I'd comment before i continue reading. I seemed to experience this today as well. Discarded everything below a 300 sieve and did a kalita brew with 260 ml of water which took about 5 minutes!
> 
> I'll probably have to read more of the thread later but I'm finally coming back to the Kruve after a long gap, so a lot of reading ahead of me.


I don't think you'll find too many answers. Kruve just baffles me, no idea how to get the best out of it  Let us know if you have any success


----------



## MWJB

fluffles said:


> I don't think you'll find too many answers. Kruve just baffles me, no idea how to get the best out of it  Let us know if you have any success


What are you trying to achieve with it? It's a pretty informative calibration tool. Good for removing small particles from immersions.


----------



## MWJB

jlarkin said:


> Sorry this may well have come back later in the thread, but thought I'd comment before i continue reading. I seemed to experience this today as well. Discarded everything below a 300 sieve and did a kalita brew with 260 ml of water which took about 5 minutes!
> 
> I'll probably have to read more of the thread later but I'm finally coming back to the Kruve after a long gap, so a lot of reading ahead of me.


What % did you get under 300? Did you discard any of the larger grounds? 5min for a 260g Kalita brew could be normal. How did it taste?


----------



## jlarkin

MWJB said:


> What % did you get under 300? Did you discard any of the larger grounds? 5min for a 260g Kalita brew could be normal. How did it taste?


Below 300 was 5.6% I didn't discard any larger grounds. I had just over 50% above 1000.

I combined everything above the 300 and included the optional step of throwing some coffee on the floor and brewed with what I still had left...


----------



## jlarkin

Oh sorry taste was pretty good. I've had a miserable cold and it's just starting to head off now but definitely pleasant enough for what I could taste.


----------



## MWJB

jlarkin said:


> Below 300 was 5.6% I didn't discard any larger grounds. I had just over 50% above 1000.
> 
> I combined everything above the 300 and included the optional step of throwing some coffee on the floor and brewed with what I still had left...


I'd worry more about discarding the larger end, sounds like at your setting you might not have a suitable Kruve to do that. Maybe a regular kitchen sieve could take out the top 10%?


----------



## jlarkin

MWJB said:


> I'd worry more about discarding the larger end, sounds like at your setting you might not have a suitable Kruve to do that. Maybe a regular kitchen sieve could take out the top 10%?


When I tried it I was initially hoping to see what impact on time it had if I discarded the

By the time I'd got the sieves set-up properly (like a mug I also put them the wrong way round the first time then picked them up and realised) and finished throwing them on the floor all I was hoping was that I'd have something drinkable to crack on with .

I think I've only got up to 1000. Given it doesn't seem to be the fines affecting it, I think I'll grind a bit finer anyway and could check a standard sieve as well - thanks.

I'm actually also separately interested in 2 things. I'm fairly close to committing to look at alignment on the EK. I thought if I was starting to gather a bit of information from the sieves that it might give me a comparison afterwards.

I'm also interested in you mentioning that it's a good calibration tool good for removing small particles from immersions. Sorry if you've explained that in the thread already feel free to just tell me to read back . I just wondered what you do end up discarding "below" for them?


----------



## MWJB

jlarkin said:


> I'm also interested in you mentioning that it's a good calibration tool good for removing small particles from immersions. Sorry if you've explained that in the thread already feel free to just tell me to read back . I just wondered what you do end up discarding "below" for them?


For calibration I'd pretty much always suggest the 400 as smallest, everyone, anywhere, who has a Kruve has this size. 1000 is 2.5 times 400, so if you ground with 20-25% passing through the 400 it should give some useful info with 1000 as largest sieve.

As I keep a 400 in the lower part, this is what I discard from immersions, could be 10-20% of the total ground weight, depending on how coarse a grind I use. I guess for a very coarse immersion grind (big, double walled French Press) you might not lose too much ground weight with a 600 in the lower section?

What strikes me about the espresso grind charts is that all 4 grinders made about the same % under 80um, the bigger variations were at larger sizes. This is also something I have seen sifting V60 grounds.


----------



## the_partisan

We don't really have any data from an EK43 for 400/1200 sieves, so it 's hard to compare how yours is performing compared to others. You can compare it to other grinders though if you would have those sieves. I don't find the 1000 sieve useful for me, it's too fine for a typical pour over brew. Looking at the tests we did with MWJB using several grinders, the mean particle size for single V60 that we prefer seem to be mostly around 800-850um range. When using Kalita it's even coarser than that.


----------



## Zephyp

Is the Kruve Two with 400 and 800 enough for dialling in grinders for pourover? I got a Lido 3 and Comandante MK3.


----------



## MWJB

Zephyp said:


> Is the Kruve Two with 400 and 800 enough for dialling in grinders for pourover? I got a Lido 3 and Comandante MK3.


Yes, the 400 would be the more critical for calibrating. The 800 isn't really big enough to tell us much about distribution though.

Just to be clear, I'm not at this stage suggesting you remove any component from your dose, just sift a 10g test grind, for 2 min with side to side shakes with occasional taps & vertical shakes.


----------



## Zephyp

MWJB said:


> Yes, the 400 would be the more critical for calibrating. The 800 isn't really big enough to tell us much about distribution though.
> 
> Just to be clear, I'm not at this stage suggesting you remove any component from your dose, just sift a 10g test grind, for 2 min with side to side shakes with occasional taps & vertical shakes.


Great, thanks. I wasn't planning on removing anything. My intent was to see the distribution at the grind I've been using and use it to dial in my grinders. I had a Wilfa electric grinder that I found produced a lot of fines and did try to sift out some of them, with improvement to the results. I then realized I'd get a better hand grinder rather than remove excessive fines from a poor grind. My Lido 3 and Comandante MK3 however, I don't plan on removing anything from. I've thought about a Kruve or similar before, but never had a clear plan on what to do with it. Now I think I do.


----------



## the_partisan

You can try finding a grind where about 10-13% of grinds is


----------



## Zephyp

I can always compare, but I will be using both either way. One for work and one for home. The goal is to dial them in to a good size for V60.


----------



## Zephyp

Can you use the Kruve to dial in a grinder specifically for the purpose of cupping?


----------



## MWJB

'Cupping' is a bit vague, but maybe aim ~23% passing through the 400.


----------



## jlarkin

It's the SCAA (American) guide but there cupping info said: "coffee used for cupping shall be ground so that 70 - 75 percent of the grounds pass through the 20 mesh sieve". A 20 mesh sieve is 841 microns. So something like 70% passing through 800 or a little more through 900 might be pretty reasonable?


----------



## MWJB

jlarkin said:


> It's the SCAA (American) guide but there cupping info said: "coffee used for cupping shall be ground so that 70 - 75 percent of the grounds pass through the 20 mesh sieve". A 20 mesh sieve is 841 microns. So something like 70% passing through 800 or a little more through 900 might be pretty reasonable?


You can't transfer ASTM wire mesh sieve sizes directly to Kruve sizes because of the different manufacturing style. SCAA/Agtron cupping grind is an average size of ~700um, probably a bit coarse for lighter roasts.


----------



## Zephyp

How did you arrive at the conclusion to dial grinders in at 13% with two minutes shaking with 400? Is the grind size dialled in for your standard recipe with a specific dose/water amount and pour regime? Would you lose wiggle room by using the same grind you've dialled in for brews varying in dose from 12 to 18 grams, assuming you change pour regime with each dose amount?


----------



## MWJB

Zephyp said:


> How did you arrive at the conclusion to dial grinders in at 13% with two minutes shaking with 400? Is the grind size dialled in for your standard recipe with a specific dose/water amount and pour regime? Would you lose wiggle room by using the same grind you've dialled in for brews varying in dose from 12 to 18 grams, assuming you change pour regime with each dose amount?


I brewed hundreds of cups at the same grind size, looked for an average extraction a little over 20%, then tried different grinders to see how they sifted at a similar extraction & that's just where they fell 13% +/- 3%.

This grind setting will work for one brew size if pouring 25g every 15s after bloom, most likely 12:200g. If I were to brew 18:300g I'd likely need to use fewer pours than the 6 pours I use for 13.5 to 14.5g brews.


----------



## ScottAllyn

Mark, what beans are you guys using for your testing? I just got steel burrs for my Vario and wanted redo my sifting tests which were previously a random unorganized mess. I dialed in the Vario for the pour-over on your blog using Temple's Cadence beans (draw down time of 3:07) and then did a 2 minute sift on 10g of beans at that setting. My


----------



## MWJB

ScottAllyn said:


> Mark, what beans are you guys using for your testing? I just got steel burrs for my Vario and wanted redo my sifting tests which were previously a random unorganized mess. I dialed in the Vario for the pour-over on your blog using Temple's Cadence beans (draw down time of 3:07) and then did a 2 minute sift on 10g of beans at that setting. My
> 
> View attachment 32637


I use whatever beans that fall to hand, method still seems very repeatable with regards to the 400 sieve, you will have a larger deviation at the upper sieve.

Here is a test I did with the same grinder, 3 siftings of 3 separate grinds with a light roasted Panama & 3 siftings with Illy Monoarabica Ethiopia https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZLC4cbOwQYj6Ltg0135mNz6CqlVeRg6hBmwPl-2QmsE/edit?usp=sharing

As far as Kruve can tell, being able to hit 83% between 400 & 1100 vs 81% 400 & 1200 isn't so big a difference that I'd read too much into it.


----------



## ScottAllyn

Yea, that's interesting. I just ground 5 different roasts with the same setting on my Kinu and got pretty much the same numbers for each grind.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18vLQtokZm9fq-4WmbLi2Msa8kScBubmlrTAgIKPaQf8/edit?usp=sharing

I really did think there'd be more variation between the roasts based on how they behave in the V60. The Kenya, for example... I haven't done a cup with it yet, but one of the guys at work said that he had to use a noticeably coarser grind to get the same draw-down time that he gets with the Cadence. The Kenya *does* seem to produce more fines, but enough to have an impact? It's changing what I thought I knew about beans.


----------



## MWJB

ScottAllyn said:


> Yea, that's interesting. I just ground 5 different roasts with the same setting on my Kinu and got pretty much the same numbers for each grind.
> 
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18vLQtokZm9fq-4WmbLi2Msa8kScBubmlrTAgIKPaQf8/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> I really did think there'd be more variation between the roasts based on how they behave in the V60. The Kenya, for example... I haven't done a cup with it yet, but one of the guys at work said that he had to use a noticeably coarser grind to get the same draw-down time that he gets with the Cadence. The Kenya *does* seem to produce more fines, but enough to have an impact? It's changing what I thought I knew about beans.


The Kruve can't give minute detail into specific sections of the grind distribution, still useful for calibration & an overall comparison of distribution.

Sure, I see coffees that appear to have more fines...whether that's really the case or not, I don't have the tools to say (more static, overall finer grind, denser material, moisture content?)

Once set & tasted over a range of coffees, for a set recipe, I don't adjust grind. I certainly don't adjust a dialled-in grind to change draw down time, this can vary (the biggest margin of variation for similar brews) & should...if you try to keep it the same the see-saw effect will be that your extractions vary by a greater degree. I might find some African coffees take a while longer & hit 22% EY, or a shade more, & often don't suffer flavour-wise because of it.


----------



## ScottAllyn

I've been telling everyone that my hand grinders are right up there with the Vario in terms of V60 performance... when the Vario has the ceramic burrs installed. With the steel burrs installed in the Vario... not so much! I'm going to have to rethink my grinder assignments now. Why did I wait so long to get these steel burrs?

I added the Hario Skerton Pro and the super-cheap SimpleTaste grinders to my data. They both have pretty big steps on their adjustment knob so you just kinda have to take what you get with the grind. I actually got a decent cup out of the SimpleTaste grinder but it was a bit of a struggle with the Hario; sour, go finer, les sour, go finer, a bit sour and bitter, go finer, bitter. I settled on a cup that was both slightly sour AND slightly bitter if that's even possible.

How much coffee do you guys end up drinking when you do your testing? I dump most of it, but I've still obviously consumed too much... I'm wired right now!









*Edit*: My 1200 sieve seems to be stuck in customs.


----------



## the_partisan

My Vario with Steel Burrs at 4N was 11/80/9% when using 1200um. So not radically different than yours, probably your burrs are sharper and newer. I also won't be surprised of variations between grinders due to alignment and what not. Vario does perform better than most hand grinders, I don't have any numbers for the 68mm conicals though. Comandante could be quite interesting. I think there can be variations of about up to 3% between different beans.

All measurements I did are here, document is a bit of a sandbox though: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15ee5VEPbskzP4xHQg-9b9QN2ZfEF4a7NcDDiln_lGOY

I also tested with frozen beans but it didn't really make a big difference.


----------



## ScottAllyn

I brought the kruve to the office and ran the Comandante though it this morning. The C40 shall not be dethroning the Vario on this day.


----------



## the_partisan

Your results seem to align with mine, more or less, except the Kinu seems slightly worse off, but then again my setting seems to be slightly finer.

Probably best way to compare the grinders might be to "lock" the amount at


----------



## ScottAllyn

the_partisan said:


> [...]Probably best way to compare the grinders might be to "lock" the amount at
> 
> That's a good idea! If my 1200 sieve ever actually gets here, I'll adjust the grinders for 10% in the bottom tray (or as close as I'm able to get the budget grinders) and redo the numbers.


----------



## ScottAllyn

It looks like my 1200 sieve has finally cleared customs; 'should be in my hands by the weekend. I may also have the





 by then, too; it looks interesting but I'm not expecting much since the burrs/shaft/adjustment mechanism look like they were taken right out of the Slim+/Skerton Pro. It's gonna be a sifting weekend!


----------



## Zephyp

Did you try the Comandante for 13% on

13% for 0+8 on the Lido 2 is around what I expected.

My Kruve is in the city now, so I should have it before the weekend.


----------



## ScottAllyn

I've done 17 and even 16 (which would probably give around 13% in the bottom pan) with that recipe but 18 seemed to be the sweet spot for me.

When my 1200 sieve arrives (it's now 3 states away), I'm going to set all of the grinders so that they give 10% in the bottom pan and redo the numbers.


----------



## the_partisan

I've updated the spreadsheet with measurements from my EK43S with SSP burrs. Not fully broken in yet..

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cYpaG-4eNmhRxdgctOl0atZnw6nEK80Z68FR9Cy1fjA/edit#gid=0


----------



## Zephyp

I ground 14.4g on the Comandante Nitro at setting 26.

14.36 came out of the grinder.

11.92 remained above the 400 sieve.

2.30 (16.17%) fell through.

I know the instruction says +/-3%, but I'll try going a few clicks coarser next time and see how that turns out in the cup.

Those of you with refractometers, have you tried removing parts of the grounds after using a Kruve and get a better cup? I don't plan on it, but if removing a few percent would give a noticeable difference, it might be worth a try at least. I know it's about total distribution, not just what remains above and below a 400 sieve.


----------



## MWJB

Zephyp said:


> I ground 14.4g on the Comandante Nitro at setting 26.
> 
> 14.36 came out of the grinder.
> 
> 11.92 remained above the 400 sieve.
> 
> 2.30 (16.17%) fell through.
> 
> I know the instruction says +/-3%, but I'll try going a few clicks coarser next time and see how that turns out in the cup.
> 
> Those of you with refractometers, have you tried removing parts of the grounds after using a Kruve and get a better cup? I don't plan on it, but if removing a few percent would give a noticeable difference, it might be worth a try at least. I know it's about total distribution, not just what remains above and below a 400 sieve.


I have had some small gains by removing the largest 10-20% (say, over 1100/1200) of the grind for drip, or by removing the sub 400 for immersion (never by removing this component with drip).


----------



## Zephyp

Alright. I might get a 1100/1200 sieve at some point, but I'm pretty happy with the cups now. I only do pour over, so I won't remove anything below 400 then.

With setting 28 I got out 13%. Sifted 10g this time, 8.61g remaining and 1.3g falling through 400. If someone wants to add that to the sheet, feel free to. I shook for 2 minutes, but didn't use the 800 sive, I put it straight into the 400 one. It's a Comandante MK3 Nitro Blade. Both me and my GF agreed this was a better cup. Now I can drink great cups every day, only wondering how long until I get a refractometer. Thank you again, Mark!









I got two bags open now from a roaster that I feel got a bit of the same taste to all his beans. Next bag will be a Wendelboe I think. Looking forward to it.


----------



## ScottAllyn

I updated my data with all grinders set for a 10% drop in the bottom tray with 400 and 1200 sieves. I still have a few grinders to do, but I need to take a break. I close my eyes and see sieve hole patterns and hear grounds shaking back n' forth!









https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18vLQtokZm9fq-4WmbLi2Msa8kScBubmlrTAgIKPaQf8/edit?usp=sharing

I've saved the coarse grounds. Well... the ones that would fit in my mini petri dishes, at least. The hario overflowed the dish, so I discarded the extras. When I get thru all of the grinders, I'll get a single photo of all the coarse grounds in separate little piles.


----------



## the_partisan

Nice! Do you mind me adding these results to my spreadsheet?


----------



## ScottAllyn

@the_partisan, go ahead and add them, tho they may not be the best for direct comparison to your existing data since these were tuned for 10% in the bottom tray as opposed to being tuned for the pour-over.

My Hario PRISM is at the post office waiting to be picked up. I'm not expecting much, but it'll be interesting to see how it compares to the plastic-bodied Harios.


----------



## the_partisan

They're still in the ballpark of other grinders, so it's OK enough. If you want to dial them in and measure again then I can update them. You probably want a rest from the Kruve now though









Thanks, updated: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cYpaG-4eNmhRxdgctOl0atZnw6nEK80Z68FR9Cy1fjA/


----------



## ScottAllyn

I like using the "10% in the bottom tray" approach a bit better than just subjectively tuning them for a pour-over. It gives everyone a hard target that they can adjust their grinders to for direct comparison while not being too far off (in most cases) from what we use for our pour-overs. In the case of my Vario (with the steel burrs), that data is right in the middle of my pour-over range.


----------



## MWJB

ScottAllyn said:


> I like using the "10% in the bottom tray" approach a bit better than just subjectively tuning them for a pour-over. It gives everyone a hard target that they can adjust their grinders to for direct comparison while not being too far off (in most cases) from what we use for our pour-overs. In the case of my Vario (with the steel burrs), that data is right in the middle of my pour-over range.


Mine weren't subjectively dialled in, they were objectively dialled for a specific recipe & measured extractions.


----------



## the_partisan

There is a slight difference in dialling for 10% vs dialling in for <highest extraction that taste good> with a specific recipe. For example, I could grind relatively coarse on my EK43 and this still gives me 9% of fines and also 9% boulders. However I can dial finer , i.e. 13% fines and still get very good brews with higher tasty EY than it was possible with my Vario, and this reduces boulder percentage to 2%. So two sieves don't really tell the whole story. Ideally we would also need 4 sieves to get a proper distribution, but this wouldn't be very practical with Kruve.</highest>


----------



## ScottAllyn

MWJB said:


> Mine weren't subjectively dialled in, they were objectively dialled for a specific recipe & measured extractions.


That's probably very repeatable for you. But someone else may end up with a noticeably different grind if they're dialing in their grinder for your recipe with different beans, tabbed filters and a V60-02 instead of a -01 (or vice versa) and only going by taste instead of measuring the extraction. My buddy and I do the same recipe back to back here at the office, but he always goes a couple steps finer than I do, which is a bit too far on the bitter side for me. What's interesting is that if he uses my grind, his final time can vary from mine by as much as 25 seconds with the exact same gear and beans. 'Just seems like there are some variables that can be ruled out if we shoot for a fixed grind level when combining results.


----------



## MWJB

ScottAllyn said:


> That's probably very repeatable for you. But someone else may end up with a noticeably different grind if they're dialing in their grinder for your recipe with different beans, tabbed filters and a V60-02 instead of a -01 (or vice versa) and only going by taste instead of measuring the extraction. My buddy and I do the same recipe back to back here at the office, but he always goes a couple steps finer than I do, which is a bit too far on the bitter side for me. What's interesting is that if he uses my grind, his final time can vary from mine by as much as 25 seconds with the exact same gear and beans. 'Just seems like there are some variables that can be ruled out if we shoot for a fixed grind level when combining results.


Well my recipe specifies white Japanese filters. A recipe that is not repeatable, within reason, isn't a 'recipe', it's an 'experiment'


----------



## ScottAllyn

MWJB said:


> Well my recipe specifies white Japanese filters. A recipe that is not repeatable, within reason, isn't a 'recipe', it's an 'experiment'


Yup, I get that! I just like to rule out the possibility of variables. I suspect that, if I told my buddy to go home and follow a certain recipe using the japanese white filters then sift the grounds and give me the numbers, there's a good chance his numbers, tho repeatable for him, would be quite a bit different than mine. However, if I told him to grind for 10% in the bottom tray, they'd probably be a much closer match to my own. Course, he'd probably take my kruve and slam it down on the top of my head if I actually asked him to do that.


----------



## the_partisan

With pour overs I find it's not that hard to end up within 18-22% using a relatively large window of grind sizes. Once you are within the "window" there might be 3-4 settings which are fairly similar but all end up in the range, with ~0.5% EY between each setting and these have slight variations in the sieves but all can produce tasty brews.. On the higher end of the range you'll start get some astringency but higher sweetness and on the lower end it'll taste less sweet but cleaner. I tend to prefer on the higher end, where I get a lot of sweetness, even at the expense of little astringency but a lot of cafes actually seem to up the dose instead and aim for lower extractions..


----------



## MWJB

the_partisan said:


> With pour overs I find it's not that hard to end up within 18-22% using a relatively large window of grind sizes. Once you are within the "window" there might be 3-4 settings which are fairly similar but all end up in the range, with ~0.5% EY between each setting and these have slight variations in the sieves but all can produce tasty brews.. On the higher end of the range you'll start get some astringency but higher sweetness and on the lower end it'll taste less sweet but cleaner. I tend to prefer on the higher end, where I get a lot of sweetness, even at the expense of little astringency but a lot of cafes actually seem to up the dose instead and aim for lower extractions..


Sure, I can take 13.5g of a coffee, grind for 25% at Kruve 400 & hit ~22% in 2:00. I can then grind 7% at Kruve 400, pour 20g every 20s and end up at 18.5-19.5% in 3:40. But if I'm going to brew tens of different coffees there's only a small range of adjustment that will ensure that for a given recipe, filter paper & grinder, that they will all fall within +/-2%EY (e.g. if I drop to 2+4 or go up to 2+8 on my Feldgrind, from 2+6, I'll be under/over-extracting a larger % of brews). Of course, I can tweak as much as I want to then move them around the box, or keep them where they are with less silt...but the more I do that, the less transferable a recipe becomes.


----------



## ScottAllyn

I added the Hario PRISM to my data. The grinder looks and feels really nice but the innards are like a combination of the worst features from both the Skerton Pro and the Mini-Slim+. There's sooooo much wobble and slop in the shaft and burrs. Tons of fines and boulders.









https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18vLQtokZm9fq-4WmbLi2Msa8kScBubmlrTAgIKPaQf8/edit?usp=sharing


----------



## MWJB

ScottAllyn said:


> I added the Hario PRISM to my data. The grinder looks and feels really nice but the innards are like a combination of the worst features from both the Skerton Pro and the Mini-Slim+. There's sooooo much wobble and slop in the shaft and burrs. Tons of fines and boulders.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18vLQtokZm9fq-4WmbLi2Msa8kScBubmlrTAgIKPaQf8/edit?usp=sharing


Excellent stuff thanks for doing these.

All the ceramic grinders with floating burrs seem to average about 55% between the sieves. The small hand/electric grinders with bearing support seem to largely sit around 70%. The better electric grinders ~80%, EK around 5% on top of that? Give or take a few %. Not definitive, but it's an interesting start


----------



## the_partisan

Yes Scott's data vs. mine and MWJB seem pretty consistent. Thanks for doing these tests, I know how tedious it can be!

Niche seems a little bit of an outlier, in that it's dialled in a lot finer than the Vario. It's the only grinder in the comparison with a large conical though.


----------



## ScottAllyn

I added a "Cheap Whirly Blade Grinder" row, but don't have any data yet. I was thinking about it on the way to work this morning... I know that I have a Black & Decker blade grinder somewhere in the kitchen and I'm curious to see just how bad it is. Will it be worse than the Hario PRISM? Will it be even remotely repeatable if I grind two or more batches for the exact same amount of time? I have no feel for how it's going to perform at all, tho I suspect quite poorly!


----------



## MWJB

ScottAllyn said:


> I added a "Cheap Whirly Blade Grinder" row, but don't have any data yet. I was thinking about it on the way to work this morning... I know that I have a Black & Decker blade grinder somewhere in the kitchen and I'm curious to see just how bad it is. Will it be worse than the Hario PRISM? Will it be even remotely repeatable if I grind two or more batches for the exact same amount of time? I have no feel for how it's going to perform at all, tho I suspect quite poorly!


Moccamaster make a blade grinder, beans drop through from above, get chopped, then anything that is larger than the mesh screen below the blade gets blown through again. Better grind consistency than small, conical, floating burrs. Non-adjustable & not practical for single dosing/bean swapping though.


----------



## ScottAllyn

MWJB said:


> Moccamaster make a blade grinder, beans drop through from above, get chopped, then anything that is larger than the mesh screen below the blade gets blown through again. Better grind consistency than small, conical, floating burrs. Non-adjustable & not practical for single dosing/bean swapping though.


That's interesting. Seems like it wouldn't be too hard (for the manufacturer) to make that screen an easily removable part that can be swapped out with other screens in order to cover a range of grind sizes. Just a plastic frame with the screen suspended in the middle and a slot in the front of the grinder for it to slide in and out of, similar to what many computer case manufacturers do with their removable dust screens.


----------



## the_partisan

Also interesting for me is to have numbers for Krups GVX2 which a lot of people seem to end up with, and Wilfa Svart. Unfortunately I gave mine away to a friend..

Also potentially something with "ghost" burrs but these are very rare and exotic


----------



## ScottAllyn

So yea... blade grinders are maybe not so good!







But they can be surprisingly repeatable if you have a system. I used a metronome and a timer and pulsed my Chef Pro at 160bpm for 40s to get the data. I did it 3 times and the numbers really didn't vary any more than what I saw with the Hario grinders. Though the numbers are even WORSE than the Harios!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18vLQtokZm9fq-4WmbLi2Msa8kScBubmlrTAgIKPaQf8/edit?usp=sharing


----------



## MWJB

Timemore Nano Italian burrs

>1200 2.91g

>400 5.96g

Producing very tasty brews.


----------



## Rob1

Hmmmm. Ground 10g of coffee and ended up with 14g back from the EK43, that thing really is magical.


----------



## the_partisan

I have pretty much 0 retention with RDT, just one squeeze using a mini spray bottle. Not even 0.1g retention.


----------



## ScottAllyn

MWJB said:


> Timemore Nano Italian burrs
> 
> >1200 2.91g
> 
> >400 5.96g
> 
> Producing very tasty brews.


Ooooh! I've been curious about the Timemore grinders; the Chestnut more than the Nano, but still. That Nano is so cute!







How does it feel in operation?


----------



## MWJB

ScottAllyn said:


> Ooooh! I've been curious about the Timemore grinders; the Chestnut more than the Nano, but still. That Nano is so cute!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How does it feel in operation?


It's nice & small in the hand, easy to grind, perfect for 1 mug brews...I wouldn't like to try and grind much more than 15g with it. Catch cup screws on, which makes it a nice upgrade from the Zass Panama's interference fit cup (which can drop off mid grind unless you secure it somehow). Fast to grind too, like the Zass., about 25s at this grind setting for 13.5g.


----------



## MWJB

MWJB said:


> It's nice & small in the hand, easy to grind, perfect for 1 mug brews...I wouldn't like to try and grind much more than 15g with it. Catch cup screws on, which makes it a nice upgrade from the Zass Panama's interference fit cup (which can drop off mid grind unless you secure it somehow). Fast to grind too, like the Zass., about 25s at this grind setting for 13.5g.


Unfortunately, had to shelve the Timemore Nano as the setting slips with each grind.


----------



## ScottAllyn

That sucks! I think the larger G1 uses that same "self-locking" adjustment mechanism, too. 'Sure seems like it's slim pickins for quality grinders under $150 USD.


----------



## the_partisan

Noticed this on their page:


----------



## the_partisan

Someone brought me a 500g bag of commercially pre-ground coffee, likely roller mill or big industrial grinder. Curiously on the box it says to use 40g-45g/L as the recipe amount.

Visibily a fine grind, I sifted with my 400 & 1200 filters and got something like 5% 1200.

I brewed it using my normal Moccamaster recipe, 56g/L, and it came out at 1.42% TDS / 23% EY which isn't too extra ordinary. Taste wasn't great of course and you could tell that from the vile smells of the beans. Probably drinkable with some milk and/or some sweets though..


----------

