# Grinder choice for Londinium R



## FaceandEdge (Nov 11, 2017)

I'm looking for a grinder, that I will never hopefully need to upgrade to go alongside a Londinium R.

After many months of reading far too many reviews the contenders are the Compak R120 or waiting for the Compak PKR or putting myself on the waiting list for a Monolith.

I should add I haven't even ordered the Londinium yet.

But my overall objective is to make a future proof, one off purchase on both machines.

Any advice most welcome!


----------



## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

All depends on your bean choice ie lighter, medium or darker roasts. This will help you work out flat or conical. Do you want to single dose or have a hopper full?


----------



## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

FaceandEdge said:


> I'm looking for a grinder, that I will never hopefully need to upgrade to go alongside a Londinium R.
> 
> After many months of reading far too many reviews the contenders are the Compak R120 or waiting for the Compak PKR or putting myself on the waiting list for a Monolith.
> 
> ...


Mix of different grinders there. The PKR is it even out yet and weights by demand ? Early adopting may be painful. T

The others are single dosing . If it is going to be a monolith then you need to factor in a good long wait , even getting on the order list aint that easy .

You have ruled out alot of other grinders any reason why ?

Don't think about a grinder for a particular machine ( a Lever ) think about what you want for use, features , size and budget.

Nothing is future proof in espresso, ( including the Londinium ) unless you buy your shit and then disconnect from the internet and never read anything ever again


----------



## Jony (Sep 8, 2017)

I like the looks of the Compak E8 OD, in fact I want one.


----------



## jerbla (Nov 13, 2017)

Mrboots2u said:


> Nothing is future proof in espresso, ( including the Londinium ) unless you buy your shit and then disconnect from the internet and never read anything ever again


LOL how I chuckled at that, applies equally to Bikes and Hifi I have discovered in this journey called life......


----------



## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

dfk41 said:


> All depends on your bean choice ie lighter, medium or darker roasts. This will help you work out flat or conical. Do you want to single dose or have a hopper full?


It would be interesting to hear your view on that. Maybe for lots of people.

John

-


----------



## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

ajohn said:


> It would be interesting to hear your view on that. Maybe for lots of people.
> 
> John
> 
> -


Excuse the generalisations, but here we go. Conicals seem to be able to extract a wider range of taste from a darker bean than a lighter bean. Flats seem to go the other way. The EK seems to work really well with lighter roasts although Ronsil will say his darker roasts are also top drawer from his EK. The point I was making was that the bean style rather than the machine might influence things more. That said, levers on the whole seem to do better with darker roasts than lighter, that was until the LR came along that allowed you to vary the pressure so that lighter roasts now do far better on the LR than the L1.....


----------



## johnealey (May 19, 2014)

R120 is good across both light and dark but is brutal in its clarity. Have had some really cracking dark bean espresso from the K10PB just seeming to have a softer edge than either the R120 or Mythos which is also very good on lighter roasts (really darks are not it's forte)

Am curious to see how the PKR manages to get close to any weight consistency and am sure the burrs / speed will need to be different to the R120 as can't see how you'd get any on demand to work consistently with 120mm burrs plus 1400rpm (18g single dosing in less than 3 seconds probably nearer 2.5) without loading the hopper.

As said above you may want to check on the sizes of the grinders you looking at as not all partners are as forgiving







and you do have to live with them (the partner and the grinder...). Shame you missed the forum day there were all the main contenders there and everyone that went got to taste lots of different grinders outputs as well as play on different machines.

Hope of help

John

Edit: answered my own query with a bit of tinterweb reading. PKR 100mm more aggressive burrs 350rpm so clearly a different approach to the R120


----------



## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

With A PKR you would still need to have a good run of beans in the hopper to get it a optimum surely ? Depends if you are happy leaving a bulk of beans in a hopper. If you are going to single dose it , then it's pointless.


----------



## Thecatlinux (Mar 10, 2014)

Large flat burr grinder should fit the bill I would think


----------



## FaceandEdge (Nov 11, 2017)

dfk41 said:


> All depends on your bean choice ie lighter, medium or darker roasts. This will help you work out flat or conical. Do you want to single dose or have a hopper full?


My apologies, I was rather vague, in all fairness at the moment I would probably favour lighter to medium roast, which may favour, if my reading is correct flat burrs?

Looking to single dose, the majority of the time.


----------



## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

FaceandEdge said:


> My apologies, I was rather vague, in all fairness at the moment I would probably favour lighter to medium roast, which may favour, if my reading is correct flat burrs?
> 
> Looking to single dose, the majority of the time.


In that case, all that is missing is a budget! Versalab M3 if you can find one, the Monolith. Single dosing can be achieved with grinders with hoppers but involve some fairly basic mods. Keep on asking questions!


----------



## Jony (Sep 8, 2017)

You can single dose on the Compak E8 and buy the orphan espresso dosing cup, which looks better than the compak one. But yes budget will be a factor.


----------



## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

Jony said:


> You can single dose on the Compak E8 and buy the orphan espresso dosing cup, which looks better than the compak one. But yes budget will be a factor.


You cannot successfully single dose on the E8 matey. It is designed to be fed by a weight of beans in the hopper. If you single dose, the beans will pop corn and as there is no weight pushing them through, the grind will be very uneven. I am not saying that you cannot drop one dose of beans in and grind, I am saying the results will be below par


----------



## Jony (Sep 8, 2017)

Ah ok thanks. I actually thought the Orphan espresso with the weight stopped that. But I know very little


----------



## UbiquitousPhoton (Mar 7, 2016)

If you are going to consider the compak, then the EK43 should be on your list as well. Both single dose well.

The R120 is a great grinder, and have had lovely shots off one, however it is definitely more ... conventional than the EK in its results. For me this is a bad thing, but there is a lot of personal taste involved here.

Otherwise as previously mentioned, Versalab M3 or something a bit more monolith flavoured.

All of the above should be relatively future proof for some definition of future, however please do not underestimate the learning curve


----------



## FaceandEdge (Nov 11, 2017)

dfk41 said:


> In that case, all that is missing is a budget! Versalab M3 if you can find one, the Monolith. Single dosing can be achieved with grinders with hoppers but involve some fairly basic mods. Keep on asking questions!


Since joining this forum I now realise how important the grinder is to the overall coffee tasting experience, therefore a reasonably healthy budget of around 2k for the grinder 5k for the complete set up.

Which I appreciate is an awful lot of money, however, I do hope I will enjoy the investment for many years in the future.


----------



## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

@FaceandEdge

Thats a good budget and will get you some substantial kit. Let me expand a bit since I have 5 minutes, and sorry if this seems like a lecture! Me, I cannot stand all the additional layers of faff that get built into coffee making. I bought a Ceado E92 conical as people have come up with a solution to single dose them. On a conical like that, the retention will be 30 grams plus so to be able to single dose and have zero retention is amazing. However, the simple act of grinding 18 grams took nearly 2 minutes and involved copious amounts of jiggling and puffing with a lens hood......I am 60 and counting down my life so the thought of losing an extra 2 minutes every time I want a cuppa was nonsense!

I tend to drink similar coffees so do not need to single dose. I am happy to accept a bit of retention but I like on demand grinders for the fact that they are nearly faff free. I hate dowered grinders as all that flapping does my head in. I always run on demands......my grinder of choice and I have had quite a few of them, is the Eureka Mythos. It is a 75 mm flat burr but the burrs are mounted at a 45 degree angle which means that the coffee does not need centrifugal force to make it exit the burrs......it just falls down the chute ending up with the most perfect fluffy mound of coffee which very few other machines can get near. it is fast taking 4 seconds or so for 18 grams. They are ugly and enormous if space is an issue. The question is would you rather date a beautiful woman who was boring in the bed room department, or an ugly woman who was a tiger (no offence meant but it is a good parallel).

If you have a single doser like M3, Monolith etc, then you end up with very little retention and something that many say produces in the cup, but for me, the thought of losing precious seconds of my life weighing out beans etc etc turns me off! On demand, slap in the pf, 4 seconds, lovely mound.....do I care if it weighs 17.6 or 18.2 grams....not in the flipping slightest as my tastebuds would never know (thank goodness!).......I make 2 sorts of coffee.....drink it or sink it, and very few get wasted!

So, to sum up, do you want a high maintenance wife or a low maintenance wife?


----------



## pj.walczak (Sep 6, 2017)

If you are considering only single dosing, you can also consider hand grinders.

Pharos 2.0 - probably best price/grind quality in the coffee industry. Hard to grind light beans.

Kinu M68 - same burrs, but built in Europe not in Taiwan. Higher quality of the built. Easier to grind.

From electric grinders:

Monolith Flat - superb, but you pay 50% more for shipment, taxes and duties. This was the only reason i didn't buy it.

Mahlgut Mola-E - looks very solid, but it is not yet there, so bit of unknown

Hedone Honne grinder - Romanian version of M3/Titus. Much cheaper. Looks promising.

Niche Zero - must have. Cheap, probably great, and it always good to have two grinders not one







.

EK43S - superb.

New Titus based on EK43 burrs - they should announce something this year.

PS. And I fully agree with dfk41. Go for Mythos, on demand grinder. I did single dosing for two years. I do not do anymore. I just enjoy coffee with Mythos and LR. I wake up, put the PF into Mythos, push a button, 5 second later I tamp, fix PF into LR pull the lever. In less then a minute total I have best cup of coffee in Poland







. In my kitchen







.

@dfk42 Date the beautiful one again, but this time make her a tiger!







Give her a doppio instead of solo.


----------



## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

FaceandEdge said:


> Since joining this forum I now realise how important the grinder is to the overall coffee tasting experience, therefore a reasonably healthy budget of around 2k for the grinder 5k for the complete set up.
> 
> Which I appreciate is an awful lot of money, however, I do hope I will enjoy the investment for many years in the future.


With that sort of budget, your choices are virtually endless. Setting aside £2k for a grinder is sensible. With £3k, you have the pick of high end pump espresso machines with variable temperature and pressure profiling like the Vesuvius and Rocket R 60V which allow almost limitless tweaking to the art of espresso. Having such levels of control can also be daunting. If that's not your bag, a lever machine like the Londinium is simple to operate and rewards in spades in the cup.

You would be well advised to see the machines in action before making a decision though and, most importantly, using the beans you favour. This is going to sound like heresy, so I'm going to say this softly.

Investing that much money in high end kit doesn't mean you will automatically see huge differences in the cup compared to a more modestly priced set up. After a certain point, spending more and more doesn't equate with similar incremental jumps taste-wise in the cup. That comes more from the quality of the beans you use and barista technique which includes paying attention to weighing your dose and shot output to correspond to extraction ratios.

As for choice of grinder, if your tastes lean towards light - light/medium, then a big flat burr grinder is the way to go. You might want to consider the grinder's ability in relation pour over coffee too. Pour over adds a whole different dimension to coffee enjoyment.

You may want to consider getting some training if you are relatively inexperienced so you can short cut the learning and frustration curve.


----------



## FaceandEdge (Nov 11, 2017)

A big thank you to everyone who took time to reply to my grinder quandary and my sincere apologies for taking so long to reply, end of project work commitments I'm afraid.

You've certainly given me plenty to ponder .

I now of course realise my short list was indeed too short and missing some serious contenders, the EK 43 springs to mind, I'm going to look into the Mythos, I can appreciate what was said about dosing convenience, however if truth be told, I'm a bit of a aesthetic tart and I might find it hard to live with. I only hope I'm not reminded of the analogy when I'm faffing on another grinder!

I accept having a heathy budget won't directly relate to the quality of coffee in the cup, so I certainly will seek some kind of barista training in the near future, but I appreciate the tactful manner in which it was raised.

I will no doubt post a few more questions of the naive nature so thank you for you patience!


----------

