It's been a little while since I've seen discussion about the the Shroud of Turin, a holy relic in Turin, Italy, the authenticity of which is questioned...
Our discussion today will instead be around the manufacturer of some fabulous, and great value, coffee grinders.
Let me first have a little ramble about my own journey with coffee grinders (forgive me if I've alluded to these grinders in prior newsletters).
Our first grinder was part of a very cheap combo coffee machine, a machine that housed both the pump machine required to extract espresso as well as a coffee grinder. When we purchased this machine we were taking our first, very uncertain steps, into the world of home espresso and I was far from convinced that we would take any further steps. Looking back on that machine all those decades ago, we managed to produce passably decent espresso and milk-based coffee drinks. Nothing to write home about, and certainly not at the level of a good café.
A few years later I started becoming a little more interested (the start of obsession?) with the quality of the coffee we were producing. Every piece of information I could find pointed at the grinder as the first and most important step in producing great espresso. So we purchased a Mazzer Mini Electronic... a 64 mm flat burr grinder from one of the stalwarts of the industry. This grinder used a small hopper (generally loaded full of beans) and used a timer-based mechanism to produce a, hopefully, consistent portafilter dose. The first good espresso shot that I pulled using this new grinder paired with the same old combo espresso machine was eye opening. The espresso was much thicker, oilier, tastier, just generally much more wonderful! The output was literally in a different world to when I was using the original grinder attached to the combi machine. The only problem with the Mazzer Mini Electronic was that the dose it produced was quite inconsistent, with the weight of ground coffee varying by plus or minus 10%, despite the use of the timer mechanism. This contributed to inconsistency in the cup, and I hate inconsistency.
The next purchase was a massive hand grinder, the HG-1, which was fixed to our kitchen counter. This monster had a huge fly wheel driving massive 83 mm conical burrs. The HG-1 was designed for single dosing, so I had complete control of the amount of ground coffee in the portafilter. Importantly, the HG-1 had very low retention, that is almost no coffee remained in the grinder once one stopped grinding. The consistency that this afforded meant that I used that grinder for years.
The HG-1 went to a friend many years ago and since then I've gone down the path of purchasing extremely high end electric single dosing grinders... two Kafateks, the Monolith Flat and Monolith Conical, and the Lyn Weber EG-1.
However, as stated many times in Highlander, "there can be only one..." The grinder that has stayed on the counter is the Kafatek Monolith Flat, and I don't expect that it will ever leave. Importantly, I found that I preferred the clarity of flat burrs over conical and had the wonderful opportunity to put this to the test using grinders from the same manufacturer.
TLDR: if you were to ask me for grinder advice, I'd suggest a single dosing grinder with very low retention and sporting flat burrs.
At Garage Roasters, we stock Turin grinders. Strangely enough they are single dosers with very low retention and flat burrs.
We've extensively bench tested all of Turin's models and have focused on two particular models: the DF54 and the DF83.
The DF54 is a compact grinder with 54 mm flat burrs whilst the DF83 is a larger grinder boasting 83 mm flat burrs. The main differences are that the DF83 grinds significantly faster (for a 20 g espresso grind dose the DF83 takes about 4 seconds whilst the DF54 takes 25 seconds). The DF83 has superior grind quality, however the difference is small. I'd suggest that the DF54 is 90% as good as the DF83 in terms of flavour in the cup. If you're the tinkering type, the DF83 will have more aftermarket burr options. These grinders represent fantastic value at two different price and capability brackets of the grinder market. I wish they'd been around when I started my coffee journey!
Take a look here:
Please do let me know if you have any questions about these wonderful grinders.
To learn about filtering espresso click here
To read about new green bean arrivals click here