Grinder buying guide, part one

The first decision is selecting whether you should have a blade or burr grinder, because this will separate the lot in two groups and thereby provide a much better view upon the different potential grinders. The mainly difference between the two types of grinders is the way of grinding the whole coffee beans.

Blade grinder

Blade grinders is often the cheapest and the worst for producing a very fine grind. They function by the internal blades cutting up the coffee beans and in addition to grind finer you simply need to keep the grinder running longer. Unfortunately, the resulting coffee grounds can be uneven in size, leading to inconsistent brew quality. Another major downfall, is that if you are grinding finely and therefore leaving the beans in the grinder for a longer period of time, there will be created significant heat by the blades. The created heat will give your final coffee a burned taste and vanquish some of the fresh essential coffee oils. These blade grinders are perfect for basic use when grinding for press pot or filter, but thats about it.

Conical burr grinder

Burr grinders are the notorious champions when home grinding for espresso or turkish coffee. Be aware of the two kinds of burr grinders; Wheel burr / Conical burr. In general the burr grinder function by moving a grinding wheel towards a non-moving surface and hereby crush the whole beans. The positioning on the burr is what regulates the ground size, which allows for a more consistent grind.  

The less expensive burr grinder is the wheel burr, which has a high RPM and therefore spins the wheel very fast. The high speed of the wheel leads to noisiness, mess and a high temperature (The high temperature can likewise the blade grinders vanquish the essential coffee oils). The best choice for a home grinder is certainly a conical burr grinder, that functions opposite of the wheel burr grinder by having a low RPM, which makes them quieter and less messy. You can use a conical burr grinder for oily or flavored coffees and it is not likely to clog, like the other kinds of grinders. These are as mentioned before the best grinders, but you will pay a high price for them.

If you have chosen a burr grinder there a grinder types with flat and conical burrs, which each have some cons and pros. The flat burr grinders will make the beans go multiple ways in the bean path, because there are several sides, which means that the coffee beans have to change directions. A pros for the flat burr is that it cools quicker then the conical burr grinder. 

The conical burr grinder are more temperature stable and the coffee beans is gravity fed directly into the conical burr. The quality conical burrs cut the whole coffee beans gradually down to the appropriate size, and flat burrs essentially crush the coffee beans and then cut it. The flat burrs is thereby giving a more homogeneous grind then the conical burr. 

I would personally advise people to spend at least $200 on their grinder, because a good grinder is half the effort in the making of a good espresso. Even though you have a lousy old espresso machine like I, you can achieve amazing results with a proper grinder. Buying a good grinder also last a lifetime, so you will not have to change it, unless you really like to.  

I have chosen a home grinder with 54 mm flat conical burrs, which I will blog about very soon!

// Hendrup 

Coffee of the day

I have just poured these two delicious cappuccinos on a bright tuesday morning and added some etching to the top layer of the foam. Although I am not the perfect barista for free pour latte art, I find this latte art style (Etching) easy to use and a great place to start practice latte art.

Etching differ from the traditional latte art, because its made afterwards you have poured the drink and not by the pour. All thats needed to perform this latte art style is chocolate sauce and a coffee stirrer of some sort. I use the end of my thermometer as a coffee stir to create these wonderful patterns. You might say that the patterns used for etching is simple geometric shapes to more complicated drawings for the more experienced. The downside of etching is that it has a shorter lifespan than free poured latte art because the integrated air in the milk tends to dissolve more quickly.

    How can you make this yourself? I have created a six stepped guide below!

Beware that if you use chocolate sirup it will tend to flow through the top foam, which ruins the etching art and the freshly coffee flavor that the drink possess. I use chocolate sauce with a temperature of the room, because it then would be flexible to bend on top of the foam and will not add the drink to cool down. The adding of the chocolate sauce on top of the foam layer will not affect the coffee flavor of the drink as long as it stays on top. While drinking you will get a touch a chocolate flavor along with the origin coffee flavors, but not overwhelmingly. I would not add etching to a coffee drink brewed on some exclusive coffee beans, because the chocolate sauce will add some additional flavors, which I think in case of an expensive bean, would be a shame.

Likewise are you bound to use chocolate sauce? No! Feel free to try out some different styles and colors, I have seen some using latte art etching with red cherry sauce on top of a white foam layer, which was beautiful art, but I don't think that it would have tasted nice.

// Hendrup

The quest for the right grinder begins

Peugeot Coffee Mill, $140

I started back in 2009 with a manual coffee mill from Peugeot, which had a phenomenal warranty of life on the burr-grinders. The coffee mill worked by putting whole roasted coffee beans in the top chamber and adjusting the fairly simple thumbwheel to the wanted grind size. The adjustment of the thumbwheel made it easy to adjust from fine to very coarse, according to the needs of the brewer and type of coffee.

Burr-grinder:
Burr coffee grinders are especially significant for keeping the flavor and aroma of the coffee beans intact. Burr mills differ from blade grinders in not producing as much heat from friction (This is especially important for coffee enthusiasts looking to get the most flavor from the freshly ground beans). 

The pros about this type of coffee grinder is that it will not heat the beans while grinding, leaving the coffee´s essential oils untouched. This would ensure more of the fresh ground flavor would be released in the brewing process. The manual coffee mills will also be non-elektric and therefore be unplugged, which will lead to opportunities for taking the grinder to your friends houses and being the cheapest way of grinding.

The cons about the coffee mill is, likewise its pros, that its driven by hand and for that reason extremely hard to grind for brewing that demands a very fine grind. I have because of this hand driven mill a lot of days where I would go miles around the espresso machine, because it was not worth the effort.

The function of this particular coffee mill is said from turkish to press pot, but in my experience I would not recommend this for any turkish or espresso brewing. The burr-type coffee mill is perfect for when grinding for press pot or filter coffee, but not for the espresso or turkish coffee if you seek flavors beyond pods. The coffee mill have a serious problem when setting it for a very fine grinding, not because it can't, but because the handle will be impossible to rotate. Sometimes I even tried used a wrench from the toolbox to adjust the coffee mill, which resulted in a good cup of coffee, but a broken mill after a couple of grinds. After returning the coffee mill at the shop multiple times, I concluded that I needed a automatic grinder which was able to grind fine enough for espresso and therefore the quest began.

Stay turned for next post about selecting the right coffee grinder for your need and how I found my way in the consumer jungle of coffee grinders.

// Hendrup

Welcome to Coffee Channel

This blogspot site will upload posts about coffee brewing techniques and the produced coffee flavor and taste. There will be a lot of tests of the equipment, that are present and futuristic available for the private consumers.

This will be driven by my own passion for coffee, especially espresso which started almost two years ago. Today I am the proud owner of the home roasting machine Gene Cafe and the european grinder Mahlkönig Vario.

I still have my first espresso machine, which is the Francis Francis X1 a model from year 2000. Interesting about this espresso machine is that there is an internal PID, which there will be a post about later on.

These three product will there be a lot focus on in the coming post and afterwards the attention will attend to the other products available for consumers. If you have any request for a review, you can send me an e-mail;

 kasperhendrup@gmail.com
//Hendrup