Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
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KNOWING YOUR BURRS First things first, the basics: The vast majority of modern espresso grinders are burr grinders, meaning they use two hard surfaces to do the grinding, and conical burrs and flat burrs are the two most common types. One of a grinder's goals is to produce uniform particle size with very little "fines," which are particles of coffee that are smaller than the rest of the grind. At grinder manufacturer Nuova Simonelli, president Roberto Bresciani says all of the company's grinders use flat burrs, largely because of the "fines" issue. "We find that the conical grind profile produces more fines, so the fines migrate and choke off the extraction and you don't get a smooth flow," says Bresciani. "With the flat burrs on our grinders, we find that we get a very uniform pour rate." At New Jersey-based 1st-line Equipment, which sells grinders from several manufacturers, business partner Jim Piccinich says he'll recommend both flat and conical burr grinders, and that the size of the burr can be more important than the type. "I do have a preference toward larger burrs because they will allow you to grind more coffee continuously and have less heat buildup on the burrs," he says. TO DOSE OR NOT TO DOSE One of the decisions the user must make when choosing a grinder pertains to dosing—espresso grinders come in doser CONICAL BURR COU RTES Y OF 1 ST-LI NE EQU IPM E NT W hen David Schloss was pondering which grinders to buy for his two-location Gypsy Donut and Espresso Bar in New York State, he knew it was a major decision. "We're really particular about the way we make espresso," he says. "We're the only shop I know in the area that weighs every shot we pull." The shops are also busy, and Schloss knew he wanted something that could stand up to constant use resulting from long lines of customers. "A more powerful machine is going to give you durability," he says, "plus that consistency from shot to shot." Schloss finally decided on Mazzer electronic espresso grinders, with different models for the different needs of the two locations. At his primary shop in Nyack, he installed a Mazzer Robur E for the main espresso grinder and a Super Jolly E for decaf or single-origin. At the second, smaller location— a café inside a bicycle store in Piermont—he installed a Major E for espresso. Because very few decaf orders are placed at that location, Gypsy Donut turned to a smaller retail grinder for decaf. With grinding fresh for each order now a common practice among top-quality cafés, having reliable, high-performing FLAT BURR commercial grinders in your arsenal is a necessity. But when you're spending the big dollars to achieve that, how do you decide exactly which direction to go? Conical burrs or flat burrs? Dosers or doserless? What about keeping the grinder cool? And with the rising popularity of single-cup brewing, what type of grinders produce the best results in that realm? We checked in with the experts for the latest in heating technology, dosing performance and much more. models and doserless models. In the former, ground coffee goes into a chamber from which it is dispersed, while doserless grinders empty directly into a machine's portafilter. Dosers are common in high-volume environments because they work quickly—coffee is ground into allotted slots that rotate as a lever is pulled to provide the proper dose of grounds into the portafilter. However, one criticism of the doser method is that coffee can get stale as it's sitting in the doser waiting to be dumped into the portafilter. "Coffee's optimal flavor profile is within seven minutes of when it's ground," says Piccinich, "then the grinds start degassing, and you also start losing some of the aroma." Doser grinders are still common at high-quality shops, but they were virtually the norm until recent years, when enterprising shop owners and baristas began creating their own doserless models by removing the dosers and emptying the grinder directly into the portafilter. However, that practice didn't always result in the fresh coffee users expected. "What everybody figured out with a lot of those modified doser grinders was that there was still a large channel of pre-ground coffee in them," says Bresciani of Nuova continued on page 38 freshcup.com | January 2014 37