Coffee grinders, manual/electronic and discussion thereof

Good gawd, it's bad enough when I cycle to my doctor's and try and impress on him that I can usually do 150 miles a week.
I dread to think what he'd say if I told him I'd temporarily lost my palate and thereby could no longer appreciate fine food ...

To be fair though, I've had that for ages too - ever since my shingles last year - I almost hope that when I do get a fit of actual sneezing that it's going to turn into the flu and get it over with ...

Square mile every time if you're after a guaranteed stunner. More expensive, but also 40% bigger bags. I've been drinking their bella vista narino this week, and it's a grade A cracker.

Alt. I have been impressed by HB's Philter blend. A tremendous improvement on its predecessor!

Blimey, how much do you get for £9.50 ?

Ta muchley! If its that good I'll stand you a pound of my Italian sausages

350g.

Which, erm, £9.50/7*5 = £6.80 per 250g bag.

Thing is, I wouldn't deny that it's expensive. And, tbh, I spend long periods of time getting by with Steve's 'filter starter packs' (which are about £24, posted, for 1.25kg - you'll only get 700g of Square Mile posted for pretty much the same money).

But with frustrating consistency, I've found:
i) Square Mile's beans are almost invariably better than Hasbean. Certainly for filter. Often for espresso. The only beans that I've found - from Hasbean - that come close tend to be in the £7-9 range. (Though I genuinely have been really pleasantly surprised by the Philter blend - I'd seriously consider going with that as a staple, but I'd probably want something else from time to time).
ii) Square Mile's more expensive beans are almost always worth the extra. When I've gone for their cheaper beans... yeah. I've been mostly happy. When I was reintroduced to their more expensive ones - by being sent 4 free and completely top-end bags after 2x350g of cheapest went missing in the post - it was a bit of an 'omfg I'd forgotten coffee could be this good' moment.

They're small. They're a bit eccentric. They only roast and post twice per week (because of low order volume), which makes it a nightmare to stay consistently stocked without exceptionally good planning. They only stock 4-8 beans or blends at any one time. But what they do, they do really really really well.

I've gone through long periods of cheaper coffee, but I've always come back to them as and when I've felt less broke or'm really after a treat.

e2a: tbh, I kinda prefer my money going there sometimes, too. I get more of a sense that Hasbean'll do fine without my order. I feel like SQM deliver more of a... personal... or small-scale service (though some of their prices do definitely reflect that - 'smart filter cone' £20 from SQM, £12 from HB.)

That is still cheaper than Whittards! Presently they charge about £3.70/125g for mediocre coffee of unknown age.

I've just ordered the Bella Vista ands will post my findings after it arrives next week

I'm quite lucky in Bristol - got a small place that keeps a handful of varieties of beans - never more than 2 days since roasting and only charges about £1.25 per 100g - you even get a free 100g for every kilo you buy. Up a bleeding great hill though and a detour from anywhere else I want to go - so I tend to buy more than I should and keep it too long ...

OK have had 3 cups of bella vista narino over the past two days so far.

It is surprisingly different from any other coffee I have ever tried, down right fruity and yes you can taste red apple peel and plum skin type flavours.

Definitely not my usual chocolatey style darkish roast experience but it has a beguiling complexity of flavours all of its own, some almost sherbertish.

I am using my porlex on 4 clicks up from the finest setting, about 15g of beans and 1 small coffee cup (between 3-4 on my aeropress) of 80 degree-ish water with an inverted brew of 30-45s.

Quoad you bastard, I have become a freak and I owe you a pound of my finest italian sausages, PM me if you fancy some

It could go-on a while yet.

I've just replaced my truly annoying Bodum grinder with one of these:



The Bodum always had a weak spot in that the switch was easily clogged with grounds, resulting in it getting stuck-on and running away with itself - Usually the only way to stop it was to wallop the device hard on the edge of the worktop, which is not a brillint idea when running.

So I finally bit the bullet and got the Wahl, which was half the cost of another Bodum and I must say I am very pleasantly surprised with the results. Its blades are a lot sharper than any rotary grinder I've had before and the consistency of the grind is excellent. I swear the coffee tastes better for it too. I also like that the bowl can easily be detached for cleaning. Not tried the herb attachment yet.

Porlex FTW

Delighted to hear you're enjoying it

You're not near Elaine's, are you? If so, then I cycled past your butchers for the first time today! I saw it whilst slightly lost on a bike ride via Ely / back from Earith, and thought 'ooo, this is North Cambridge, and that's a small butchers with things about 'local' in the window.

If so, I'd be well up for buying some - no need at all for them to be free We're just the other side of the Cam; you're on the edge of walking distance.

Oh, the naivete!

This one hasn't even touched on the various commercial / industrial models

<400 posts?

Pffffft.

e2a: here's an 85 post thread on Chute Modification to the Macap M4.

That isn't a discussion about grinders, plural.

Or even one specific make.

It's a thread about an adjustment to the chute of one specific make of grinder.

And here's a subforum devoted to grinders. With 142 pages of threads. The top thread on p.1 is about 'user experiences of the Pharos grinder bought form Orphanespresso.' One vendor. One make of grinder. 883 posts. And that's just the top thread on the front page

My Saturday routine - 07.55 fill kettle and switch it on.
Spend a couple of minutes grinding 24 grammes of beans.
Upstairs to get the bread out of the machine.
5 minutes to make the coffee in the Aeropress -30 seconds, inverted, well stirred and spread the hot bread.

Sunday ditto except the bread gets toasted.

On Urban.

Ever.

I would be quite happy only drinking Square Mile's Ethiopian Yirgacheffe / Wote for the next year.

An absolutely beautiful cup - tonnes of bergamot and hints of tea, which - with the fruitiness - reminds me a lot of dried Cascara / coffee cherries.

Also reminded me a bit of 'natural processed' coffees at first I think because it's got a proper... off-center... erm... slightly dissonant / jumbly-fruity / funky (as in funk, rather than 'cool') taste about it

e2a: should probably add, I'm filtering it. Not sure how it'd work in aeropress. It's a blinder of a cup in filter, mind.

Sounds tempting.

What do you eat with your coffee ?

I maybe don't do mine justice because it's always with wholemeal bread / toast with peanut butter and yeast extract (not Marmite) which may mask some of the subtleties of the coffee.

A large portion of fuck all.

I tend to have coffee late morning, or when I'm dying at my desk post-breakfast. If I had breakfast, that is.

It's an extra break, rather than something with food attached.

(Though I'll often bring up a bit of milk, and have 1 cup with, one cup without; seems to work exceedingly well with the Wote, though I couldn't bring myself to try it today - it was just too damned good without )

I came to this thread to read about coffee grinders then I changed my mind. I'm going to get the 3rd cheapest off Amazon and see how I go.

And fuck it, why not?

Only thing I'd suggest is that if it's whirly-blade (which it almost inevitably will be) then it's better to under-grind than over-grind. Like, the less 'powder' the better, and if it's still in reasonably big crunchy chunks that's fine.

But, like, only really if you're using it for FP or filter. Otherwise - for anything longer-ground / finer - it'll pretty much inevitably have a big chunk of powder (so a big chunk of additional / unnecessary bitterness, and - at worst - grittiness) in there.

Your posts on this subject make me cry

I have a cafetiere and that's all I want. Looking at this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00004SPEU/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

Yeah. That's a whirly blade grinder. And one that'll keep going for ages.

tbh, there's not much point in differentiating between whirly blade grinders beyond their longevity, as all they're doing is smashing the beans up in a pretty arbitrary / chaotic fashion using high-speed metal blades.

tbh, if you're already looking at spending £19 on a whirly blade, I'd be minded to really suggest that you consider the extra £11 for a very solid / decent manual burr mill.

Then again, that'd require more time and effort (to grind), and if you just wouldn't use it then it'd - clearly - be a waste of an extra £11.

It has the benefit of producing more consistent grounds, though. And that's pretty much what you're looking for in any means of brewing (fp, filter, aeropress, espresso) in order to... well... ensure that all the grounds are brewed in the same time. Rather than some bits brewing a whole lot faster than other bits. Which is where the unnecessary bitterness of powder comes from.

What I am taking from the above couple of posts is; don't over-grind it & keep it chunkyish.

I do appreciate the advice and might well go into CONVULSIONS OF ENTHUSIASM and be straight back for a Porlex and a chat but I'm taking it slowly to begin with

Definitely. If you're grinding for a cafetiere.

Just buy the porlex, I love mine, it is nicely designed, easy to use and does what it says.

That and an aeropress changed my coffee drinking..............

Ditto.

No more random coffee with bits in for me. I haven't taken my combo camping with me ... yet ...

But if someone CBA to manually grind every day, and unless they're buying fresh roast, that's (arguably) a waste of their cash.

Why buy something you'll never use, for beans it won't massively improve, for an extra £11?

IMO.