# Grinding for brewed with an 'espresso' grinder?



## risky (May 11, 2015)

I have only tried it once before and the burrs seemed to gum up with bits of bean which led me to believe that these grinders really were not designed to do this. However I know there are people on here that do it (so it must be possible) and I'm sure people who can offer some insight into the pros and cons of it.

Does it work well, and crucially are the results in the cup better than hand grinding?

For example will grinding for v60 with a set of 83mm flats be better than hand grinding with a small conical burr set?

The main downside of doing it seems to be the need to switch between grind settings constantly. Needing to re-dial-in espresso etc. etc. However, in my case I have recently come across a solution which would negate this downside.

Tl;dr Is it worth investigating grinding for brewed on a Royal?


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

As you say, the biggest pain is resetting the grinder between big jumps.

As you grind coarser, on any grinder, the 40-60um peak, that is assumed to be universal for espresso, shrinks. The main peak will also shift upwards, as will the median grind size (around 250 to 450um for espresso, and maybe 350um upwards for V60, so there's overlap in terms of average grind size if not so much in settings for a single grinder). The burrs in the early Made by Knock grinders, the Roscos & Lido1 were all intended for use in an espresso grinder.

I'd say it's definitely worth exploring, V60 is pretty flexible with regards to grind distribution.

I don't see why a hand grinder would give a better distribution, but you'd have to have something really cruddily built (big wobble, bent shaft?), to not be able to get a decent result with V60.


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## risky (May 11, 2015)

Good info, thanks. I suppose this has come about as I sit ready to pull the trigger on a feldgrind.

I hadn't thought much of grinding for brewed with my Royal due to a) the pain of going back to where I was for espresso and b) the difficulty and no doubt waste of beans in finding the rough setting for each of the Brewed methods in the first place.

With a) all but overcome in theory I was wondering if there were any other reasons why it isn't a good idea.

Glad to hear there is no reason why the hand grinder should perform better. The reason I was looking to get a Feld was because my rhino has ludicrous amounts of play in the shaft which means I can't grind much past 2 or 3 clicks from shut without getting an awful looking mix of boulders and fines. V60 is just about passable but I really don't have any room for adjustment and wonder how much it is impacting/limiting the result in the cup.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

risky said:


> Glad to hear there is no reason why the hand grinder should perform better. The reason I was looking to get a Feld was because my rhino has ludicrous amounts of play in the shaft which means I can't grind much past 2 or 3 clicks from shut without getting an awful looking mix of boulders and fines. V60 is just about passable but I really don't have any room for adjustment and wonder how much it is impacting/limiting the result in the cup.


I'd not try to analyse the grind quality by eye, nor read to much into it. An 'even' grind averaging 500um (for instance) may still have particles of 1mm & over, also particles less than 250um.

The Rhino may be limiting you in the respect that it is slow to grind (compared to a Feld) and it may steer your pour regime towards larger, rather than smaller pulses of brew water, but I seriously doubt it is stopping you from getting tasty brews. FWIW over the last few weeks I have been brewing with the same dose of beans & water & rotating 4 different hand grinders (I could make it 5 & include the Rhino)...the grinders seem to have little relationship to the taste of the brews. Hopper sizes, speed of grinding & how much pleasure they are to use are the biggest differences.


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

Do you like immersion brews? I use an espresso grind for the Bonavita Immersion brewer (long steep). No need to change grind settings. Not going to help with pourover but it is an easy option.


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## tambu (Sep 7, 2015)

I looked into getting an electric to accompany the lido recently (my wife has trouble lifting the lido2, let alone grinding with it) and the internet mainly says that espresso grinders do not make great brew grinders and vice-versa. However, coffee-internet seems to suffer from more hypothesis than just about any other place I've been to, so as you have a royal already you should just give it a whirl and see.

From my own experience...

- Porlex ropey out coarse (chemex), so change your method to make it fine (my porlex wobbles a lot, so i've got various bits of paper wedged into it)

- Lido 2/3 is much better than the porlex at those grinds

- A borrowed vario with steel burrs seemed to me better than lido for chemex, but not by much

From the internet:

- Dedicated espresso grinders aren't great for brewed, and vice-versa

- Best electric grinders for brewed are vario with steel burrs, or bulk grinders such as ditting 804/mahls (tanzania, EK etc)

This does makes sense in so much as they're all ditting (flat, steel) burrs being recommended.

OE did a little sieving of the lido (using the 804 as a reference) a while back, for what it's worth:

http://www.orphanespresso.com/OE-Lido-Grind-Analysis_ep_645-1.html


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## risky (May 11, 2015)

I see, I know what you're saying @tambu and I think we did discuss this before @MWJB where I think your advice was to get the V60 sorted, then adjust the other methods to suit.

If the Rhino is truly capable, then maybe my money would be better spent on a temp-control kettle. As always I'm sure I'm the weakest link in the setup (poor workman blames his tools etc.)


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## insatiableOne (Jul 29, 2015)

risky said:


> If the Rhino is truly capable, then maybe my money would be better spent on a temp-control kettle. As always I'm sure I'm the weakest link in the setup (poor workman blames his tools etc.)


That at seems to be the finding with all my decade of attempt with espresso. With all the factors thrown into the mix, the one with the least flexibility (most apt for mistakes) is me...


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

risky said:


> I see, I know what you're saying @tambu and I think we did discuss this before @MWJB where I think your advice was to get the V60 sorted, then adjust the other methods to suit.
> 
> If the Rhino is truly capable, then maybe my money would be better spent on a temp-control kettle. As always I'm sure I'm the weakest link in the setup (poor workman blames his tools etc.)


At the risk of confusing matters, I'm not saying, "don't buy/you don't need another handgrinder", I stick to smallish doses so I don't run out of patience with the Porlex & tend to make several 5oz cups. I'm just saying that if you can cope with the actual grinding, then the Rhino should be capable, but ease/joy of use is also a tangible benefit & worth paying for...especially if grinding big doses becomes a chore.

The good thing about the "poor workman" analogy is that it doesn't cost any money to fix


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

Something I was wondering as well as I often switch between epsresso on the lever and pour-over with the bodum. I usually mark on my bags where the setting are on the ring of the Major so I can quickly go back and forth depending (I get passable brewed, not had one to compare from elsewhere though).


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## grumpydaddy (Oct 20, 2014)

Could it be that putting a set of shop grinder burrs in a cheaper secondhand 64mm grinder would do the trick? Basically the reverse of what I did with my Santos


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## GlennV (Mar 29, 2013)

My experience aligns more with @tambu's. I've owned a number of large burred espresso grinders, both conical and flat, and they were/are all pretty rubbish for brewed. The best grinder I have for brewed is a bunn lpg, which lives in the shed and so is hardly ever used. The feldgrind runs it a very close second. The porlex I have is very poor in comparison. This is all based on the clever dripper, and my criterion is the quickest drawdown for the same extraction yield and overall time - I find the grinder that leaves less "mud" in the filter tends to also taste less muddy.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

I haven't found draw down time in itself to impact much on cup quality, more on brew time & temp? I'd typically grind a bit coarser for V60 than Clever, they're pretty different in terms of method.


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## GlennV (Mar 29, 2013)

No comment on the V60 - too much faff for me. For the clever, the comparison I'm making is, say, grinder A, 7mins total including 2mins drawdown vs grinder B 7 mins total including 1 min drawdown, with grinders set for equal extraction yield. My claim is that the grinder B result will taste "cleaner". Objective fact is that the bed from grinder A will contain more sludge.


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## tambu (Sep 7, 2015)

GlennV said:


> The best grinder I have for brewed is a bunn lpg, which lives in the shed and so is hardly ever used.


 @GlennV did you swap in the ditting burrs? Is it in the shed because it's so ugly? Seems a waste! My wife saw me browsing bunnzillas and she was not amused. I suspect I could easily get permission to spend more on a new tanzania or an 805 if it meant not having a bunnzilla in the kitchen&#8230;


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## GlennV (Mar 29, 2013)

No it still has the original Bunn burrs. The reason I don't use it is because it popcorns like crazy, and then it's so hard to get the ground coffee out - if there were ever a grinder that only works with a hopper full of beans and grinding a couple of hundred grams at a time on a regular basis then it's this one. I was back in Minneapolis recently and visited one of my old haunts, the best diner in town (Al's), for breakfast - they have one of these and a couple of the brewers. Not "specialty", but quality, fresh brewed coffee (and an outstanding breakfast!). Happy to let this one go for the £30 I spent on it @tambu (collected) if you think you can make use of it (I should point out that the hopper broke into several pieces on shipping to me - but the bottom part of the hopper is OK).


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## risky (May 11, 2015)

GlennV said:


> No it still has the original Bunn burrs. The reason I don't use it is because it popcorns like crazy, and then it's so hard to get the ground coffee out - if there were ever a grinder that only works with a hopper full of beans and grinding a couple of hundred grams at a time on a regular basis then it's this one. I was back in Minneapolis recently and visited one of my old haunts, the best diner in town (Al's), for breakfast - they have one of these and a couple of the brewers. Not "specialty", but quality, fresh brewed coffee (and an outstanding breakfast!). Happy to let this one go for the £30 I spent on it @tambu (collected) if you think you can make use of it (I should point out that the hopper broke into several pieces on shipping to me - but the bottom part of the hopper is OK).


I'll take it if tambu doesn't want it! Hand grinding 30g is starting to take its toll.


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## GlennV (Mar 29, 2013)

risky said:


> I'll take it if tambu doesn't want it! Hand grinding 30g is starting to take its toll.


Noted. Aren't you a long way away though? To be honest, I still think you'd be better off with a feld y thing - 30g takes no time at all!


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## risky (May 11, 2015)

Well I'd need to send a collection for it. I like the idea of Mucking about with it and seeing what if any mods are possible.


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## tambu (Sep 7, 2015)

GlennV said:


> Happy to let this one go for the £30 I spent on it @tambu (collected) if you think you can make use of it (I should point out that the hopper broke into several pieces on shipping to me - but the bottom part of the hopper is OK).


That's a very kind offer, thank you @GlennV. At the moment I'm just too time poor to take advantage of it so I think if @risky is still keen and the logistics can be worked out easily then please feel free to offer it to @risky. But if you still have it in a few months and would like to move it on then please let me know - my brother lives in Cambridge so I'm pretty sure we could sort something out.

Apologies for the delay in the reply by the way, been away for a few days. Is there any way to get email when there's a notification (i.e. a mention)? Or do I have to turn on the thread subscription?


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## jlarkin (Apr 26, 2015)

tambu said:


> That's a very kind offer, thank you @GlennV. At the moment I'm just too time poor to take advantage of it so I think if @risky is still keen and the logistics can be worked out easily then please feel free to offer it to @risky. But if you still have it in a few months and would like to move it on then please let me know - my brother lives in Cambridge so I'm pretty sure we could sort something out.
> 
> Apologies for the delay in the reply by the way, been away for a few days. Is there any way to get email when there's a notification (i.e. a mention)? Or do I have to turn on the thread subscription?


I think if you use Tapatalk app it'll notify you by email when your mentioned?


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