10 ms·

I love nerding out on food as mich as the next person. On food and cooking is one of my favorite kitchen tools. Sichuan chili oil is a staple condiment in our h

• bradgessler 3y ago
  It matters if you’re brewing pour-over coffee. If you don’t use a burr grinder the fines settle towards the bottom while pouring and clogs it up. Takes forever!
• xapata 3y ago
  Comparing my cheap spice chopper and my cheap burr grinder, I noticed a clear improvement. Maybe that's because the spice chopper was so bad at chopping coffee beans. I doubt the fancy burr grinders make much difference, but then again I was skeptical of the cheap burr grinder until I tried it.
• VerminOctopus1 3y ago
  A crappy grinder will not work at all with espresso.
• crunchytreat 3y ago
  I’ve spent ten years in the specialty coffee industry (not selling grinders). If you’re controlling other variables properly you should definitely be able to tell the difference.
  • c0pium 3y ago
    I think this is an important insight. Some people don’t have much experience in making repeatable coffee, and whether you make the coffee well is more important than how good the grinder is.
    • andy_ppp 3y ago
      But once you have repeatable steps and that are good (water, quantities, temperature etc.) the grinder becomes the most important piece even in espresso.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • c0pium 3y ago
        Not really, almost everything else matters more. Bean quality and water quality in particular are at the top of the list. Good beans bad grinder > bad beans good grinder. The grinder is the last place to look, even though it does matter.
        • 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
          The mistake you’re making is that not all variables are under your control. Getting better and better beans is very hard. You’re stuck with what is available. You’re stuck with what water is available (if you’re a reasonable person). You’re stuck with the local roasters. So of the variables you can control, the grinder is the most important piece of equipment you can buy.
          • c0pium 3y ago
            Of course they are, don’t be so helpless. Getting good beans vs Starbucks is trivial. You’re obviously not limited to local roasters, google “specialty coffee delivery”, it needs to rest for around a week anyway. As is getting filtered water (in-line under your sink for less than $100, filter pitcher for a fraction of that) and saline drops (you can buy them for next to nothing online or mad-science your own for even less). All of those things will make a huge improvement compared with a better grinder. Again. Grinders can make a difference, but they’re the last step in the chain. Do everything else first.
• jonahhorowitz 3y ago
  A friend of mine started a company based entirely on the premise that grind quality matters. They did many blind taste tests and found that they could taste a 50μm difference in grind size when they controlled the other variables. Can you tell the difference between a $50 spice mill and a $200 burr grinder? Yes, absolutely. Can you tell the difference between that and a $1,500 expresso grinder, probably. His little startup company ended up getting bought by one of the large coffee companies.
  • mbakke 3y ago
    Even amateurs will notice the difference between a "perfect" pour over from a $50 grinder and a $200 grinder. The GP clearly does not own a V60 :) Above the $200 range really only matter for espresso. Manual brews don't need that fine grind precision, just consistency (no fines, no rocks) at medium grind levels.
    • ReptileMan 3y ago
      Get two laboratory sifts for 10 bucks each and ignore the grinder quality altogether.
    • elhudy 3y ago
      I’m sorry but what is an “amateur” coffee drinker? Is coffee drinking so complex that you can become an expert in it? Get over yourself, you’ve been drinking the koolaid, not the coffee. People who own v60s tend tie the promotion of v60s to their personal character so i know this might fall flat but; every real study ive seen, thats blind, has shown no no added benefit to slightly more consistent grounds. Ive noticed the same when testing between the two myself. Feel free to share otherwise if you have data to support that ;)
      • mbakke 3y ago
        Do you have a link to such a study? My google-fu is failing. I don't doubt you but would like to read it and try to confirm my bias anyway! My experience is mainly with completely crap grinders vs high-end burrs which is very distinguishable. Probably low/mid end burrs do okay as long as there aren't too many fines. Grind size variability may even be advantageous :)
• c0pium 3y ago
  I’ve double-blinded a burr hand grinder, electric blade spice grinder, and a fellow grinder. It’s pretty easy to tell, although it depends a bit on how well you make the coffee.
• nosefurhairdo 3y ago
  Your argument is "I dare you; you won't notice a difference." That's not convincing. Those of us who've spent time in the industry can even detect differences between high end conical vs flat burr grinders, let alone the difference between a bladed spice grinder compared to a burr grinder. There are substantial differences to be found in many variables of coffee brewing. Just because you don't have a palate for it doesn't mean others don't.
  • esperent 3y ago
    Are you aware of any blind tests done on this? I'm fully aware that I can taste the difference between my Specialita and a blade grinder. What I'm less convinced by is that more and more expensive grinders taste better to any noticeable and consistent degree. Personally I'd say that the taste changes day by day, maybe according to my mood, whether I brushed my teeth or ate something sweet in the last hour or two, the humidity, bean freshness, whether any defect beans got into a particular cup, and probably a ton of other factors. I'm willing to accept that my tastes are not developed enough. But I need real double blind tests to back that up, not just people saying I should trust them because they claim to be an expert. Are there any?
    • RevEng 3y ago
      Yes. Check out James Hoffman on YouTube. He tests many machines, including grinders, using double blind taste tests, and he can reliably tell the difference between many machines. Though keep in mind that his palate is especially refined. Average Joe buying a coffee at Baskin Robbins isn't going to notice the difference between different high end grinders.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • esperent 3y ago
        I meant by real scientists in a lab, not a YouTuber. Like a consumer testing lab maybe, or a university. Besides, I've watched a good few Hoffman videos - including his high end grinder reviews - and while they are great, they aren't scientific standard double blind tests. They're just him in his kitchen. I did search in case I missed anything, but can't find any videos that you might mean. If you have a specific video in mind, please link it.
• andy_ppp 3y ago
  The difference in filter and espresso is quite a lot at the blender to burr grinder stage and a little bit from 200-1000$ getting better throughout. I’m sure you’ll be saying you can’t tell the difference in lots of areas because you can’t tell the difference. Which is fine btw!
• mafuyu 3y ago
  Seriously? The grinder is the most important part, in my experience. When I first got into aeropress and pourovers, I was frustrated for years with bland and inconsistent brews. It was only after I upgraded to a decent burr grinder that everything fell into place. It’s just impossible to tweak anything else without first starting with a good grinder. I make adjustments of a few micron at a time with my grinder, and the difference is significant for both espresso and pour over. It’s much rarer that I make adjustments in water salts, brew temp, and brew method.
  • c0pium 3y ago
    Quality of beans and water in some order, followed by temperature and time, then grinder. Grab some 6 month old beans and brew them with metallic water at 85c, no grinder in the world will make that palatable. > adjustments of a few micron at a time Lol, no you don’t. Microns are much smaller than you think.
    • klausa 3y ago
      >Lol, no you don’t. Microns are much smaller than you think. You absolutely do. Many stepped grinders will have steps on the order of magnitude of 5 microns, EG-1 being probably the easiest one of the bunch to prove [1]. But note that this is talking about the difference in the _burr distance_, not the ground particle size difference. In a world where we figured out how to make perfect burrs that produce uniform particle sizes these _might_ be the same, but even the most expensive and fanciest coffee grinders produce a relatively wide distribution of particle sizes. [1]: https://weberworkshops.com/products/eg-1 https://weberworkshops.com/products/eg-1
      • michaelt 3y ago
        Speaking as a someone who does DIY CNC, it's easy to add an adjustment dial labelled in 5 micron steps. But those labels are basically decorative if other imprecision in the machine means adjustments aren't reliably reflected in the output. Even if your coffee grinder is in a room temperature-controlled to within 1 degree, the heat output of the motor could easily cause more than 5 microns of thermal expansion. But obviously, if the coffee tastes good to you, then that's a coffee making success regardless of how precisely you're grinding things.
• helsinkiandrew 3y ago
  That's nonsense unless your the kind of person who says a cup of instant is indistinguishable from a freshly ground brew (and post covid there probably are many more people who can't). The size and consistency of the ground coffee makes a huge difference in extraction of coffee and therefor the taste, so a grinder that can make a consistent, repeatable grind will be noticeable (perhaps not as noticable as purchased ground vs freshly ground), but for some the difference between instant, and fresh ground with a $50, $500, or $3000 isn't worth the price. $50 vs $500 Vs $500,000 Coffee Grinder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkYqHWThIpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkYqHWThIpA
  • elhudy 3y ago
    >That's nonsense unless your the kind of person who says a cup of instant is indistinguishable from a freshly ground brew No, it isn't nonsense. And yes, I can tell the difference between a cup of instant and a cup of freshly ground brew. This video actually proves my point. James not only avoids tasting the coffees blind, but you can see that at 6:35 the particle volume is all basically the same size with extremely minute differences - looks like a factor of less than 10% volume density with very little distribution difference between grinders.
• chongli 3y ago
  I make my morning coffee on a Lelit espresso machine. I use a Niche zero espresso grinder. I can easily tell the difference between grind sizes a mm apart on the dial, when it comes to taste in the cup (and even with milk). The espresso machine can tell the difference too, because even a minute difference in grind size can make a significant difference in the coffee puck’s ability to withstand the water pressure. You see, when you make espresso there’s a pretty narrow range of grind sizes that produce acceptable coffee. Too coarse, and the water gushes through the puck without building much pressure. Too fine, and the puck essentially turns into coffee cement and the machine isn’t able to squeeze out more than a drop or two of (very bitter) espresso. Within that narrow range you can find the needle on the water pressure gauge hitting numbers anywhere between 4 and 10 bar (I’ve set my machine’s overpressure valve to 10 bar so that excess water pressure is shunted away and circulated back into the brew circuit). I find the coffee tastes best when I can hit the sweet spot between 9 and 10 bar without the OPV kicking in. This is subject to uncontrollable factors such as differences in tamping but generally occurs at a very specific grind setting that I find after dialing in a new coffee. As for differences in flavour? It’s all about extraction. Underextraction (from failure to reach a high enough pressure) results in sour, thin coffee. Overextraction yields very dark, bitter coffee with a powdery mouth feel. Proper extraction avoids both of these problems and tastes sublime, nutty and chocolatey (with medium-dark roasts) or fruity and juicy (with lighter roasts). There may be a lot of gadget-headery going on in the espresso world but I can confidently say that correct grind size makes an enormous difference in the quality of coffee. Whether you need a $2000 grinder to achieve that is debatable, but you absolutely will not achieve it with a $40 blade grinder (which cannot control grind sizes at all).
  • elhudy 3y ago
    Do you live in Europe by chance? When people in the USA talk about coffee they are typically not talking about espresso, which is a different beast altogether, and something I have no experience with.
    • chongli 3y ago
      I live in Canada. I’m not Italian. I only got into coffee a couple years ago. If you ask the experts, much of the physics of espresso apply to pour-over coffee as well. Grind size and distribution, water flow rate through the coffee bed, channeling, fine migration and filter clogging. Of course, the ‘typical’ coffee drinker is just looking for some caffeine with sugar and milk to help start their day, so they don’t care about this stuff. But if you make pour-overs and drink black coffee made with specialty roasts then all of this technique applies, and so a good grinder can help a lot. Pour-over fans tend to prefer lighter roasts and flat burr (as opposed to conical burr) grinders, which are said to produce a more unimodal grind distribution with fewer fines.
• stcroixx 3y ago
  It’s a millennial generation thing. Nobody older or younger takes it this seriously.
• timvdalen 3y ago
  You can absolutely taste the difference between a crappy grinder and a good grinder. I'm not sure what a carbon fiber grinder is, but a proper flat burr grinder that produces a relatively uniform grind size makes the biggest difference in coffee taste, as long as the coffee you're drinking hasn't been burned to ash.