The classification of coffee grinder, understanding of bean grinder, how to soak coffee powder with tools?

Coffee grinder classification, understanding grinder, there are tools coffee powder how bubble?

Before I said coffee brewing equipment, I didn't have time to say coffee bean grinding equipment. This is also one of the core appliances. Today we will learn about it.

Old Lin has seen many people who would rather spend a lot of money on other coffee making equipment than configure a good grinder. In fact, the size, shape and uniformity of the ground particles will directly affect the extraction rate of coffee, and further affect the quality of the whole cup of coffee. To some extent, the grinder is even more important than the coffee maker itself. If the equipment is not good, it can still make up for the defects of the equipment through constant practice and skillful techniques; The quality of the grinder is not high, but it is also powerless through practice. So when it comes to coffee equipment, I recommend that you invest at least 25% of your budget in the grinder, and even 50% is not too much.

From a mechanical point of view, it is broadly divided into two types:

1. Hand-operated bean grinder: almost all single bean grinders

2. Electric bean grinder: Italian style and single items are available, but they are all independent.

What is a good bean grinder?

A good coffee grinder is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Uniformity of grinding: Uniformity is the most important thing to judge the quality of the grinder, uneven grinding will cause uneven subsequent extraction, often some parts of the coffee powder has not been fully extracted, some parts have been extracted excessively, and finally the whole cup of coffee has a miscellaneous taste. One of the most common problems is that coarse grinding produces fine powder, which causes coffee to be bitter. Although even the best grinder will have fine powder phenomenon, but some low-end grinder fine powder phenomenon will be especially obvious.

Heat generated during grinding: As mentioned in the previous article, the aromatic substances in coffee powder are very volatile, and the heat generated during grinding will accelerate this volatility. A good grinder can control the heat generation within a certain range through reasonable torque. However, if you drink your own coffee at home and grind only a small amount of beans, the effect of fever can be ignored.

3, grinding speed: needless to say, the more time and effort, the better. However, it should be noted that some low-end grinding machines simply rely on increasing the speed to improve efficiency, which will cause a lot of heat generation mentioned in the second point. Good bean grinders generally achieve a balance between heat generation and efficiency through low speed and high torque

PS: The characteristics of hardware products are one point of price and one point of goods. If you want a good bean grinder, a certain investment is essential.

grinding disc classification

Since it belongs to the grinding machine, its core component must be the grinding disc; there are roughly three types of grinding discs that are more common on the market:

flat-bladed disc

That is, the parallel cutter disc, when in use, the coffee beans will be pushed from the inside out grinding. It is easy to generate heat when rotating at high speed, but the uniformity is better than that of cone cutter.

conical cutter head

That is, conical cutter disc, when in use, coffee beans from top to bottom grinding. The grinding speed is fast, the heat is low, the uniformity and accuracy are not as good as flat knives, and the taste of the products is richer.

(There is also a saying that the cone knife uniformity is better, but in actual use, I tend to think that the same level of grinding machine flat knife uniformity is slightly better.)

In fact, it is difficult to say which is better or worse between flat knife and cone knife. More importantly, it depends on the design of grinding disc. Both kinds of cutter head structures have their own excellent products. The two kinds of cutter heads of high-end bean grinding machine with more than ten thousand yuan are also adopted. Most of the hand grinders that are easier to buy in China are taper knives, while electric grinders are flat knives and taper knives.

ghost teeth

In addition to the two most basic cutter head structures of taper cutter and flat cutter, in order to overcome their respective shortcomings, there are various combinations of flat cutter and taper cutter, as well as ghost teeth developed on the basis of flat cutter, all of which are for better balance of heat generation and uniformity. In addition, we should also pay attention to some low-end electric mill similar to the juicer's double-blade structure, dubbed "bean-cutting machine", uniformity and heat are not very good, try not to buy.

Compared with flat knife, it has less heat and higher uniformity. It is mostly used for electric grinding, but it can be seen occasionally on some foreign antique hand grinders.

Factors affecting grinding quality

Different coffee making methods have different requirements for the grinder, such as Espresso, which requires the finest grinding degree, and previously mentioned that the volatile speed of aromatic substances is very fast, so it is required to quickly complete the grinding, which is difficult for most hand grinders, so it generally requires professional electric grinders. If you choose the method of pressing pot production, the filter is coarse, and the corresponding particles that need to be ground are also relatively coarse, which also raises the requirements for the grinder, otherwise a large amount of fine powder is mixed in the coarse powder, which will not only cause uneven extraction, but also make the coffee turbid through the filter.

The fixed form of the axis is also an important factor affecting the grinding quality, many cheap hand grinders to save costs, only one end of the axis is fixed, so that the axis will be unstable, resulting in large axis shaking, uneven thickness, and the more coarse grinding, this phenomenon is more obvious. The double fixed axis of the hand mill is double the price, almost to thousand yuan. Therefore, if you don't have high requirements, don't worry about the fixed problem of the axis, or you can modify the cheap mill yourself, and the relevant tutorials can also be found online.

Bean grinder recommended

It should be noted that in this issue we strongly recommend hand-operated bean grinders, and in the next issue we will share electric bean grinders.

We recommend hand-operated bean grinder from entry to advanced. This is also [RMB from entry to advanced](*^_^*) hee…

1

entry-level handmill

The Hario 2TB is what I consider the entry-level of a hand grinder and couldn't be cheaper.

2TB

Grinding core is Kyocera OEM, ceramic grinding core, easy to disassemble, can be washed all over the body. Small size, good portability. But be careful that although the grinding core is ceramic, but the central shaft is plastic, less grinding very hard beans. In addition, the plastic lower bin is relatively light, so it is not easy to fix it on the table, and it is slightly difficult to use.

Reference price: around 180-200

Porlex

Mini version on the right, more uniform grinding

The grinding core is ceramic grinding core, the heat generated by grinding is lower, and the coffee flavor loss is smaller. But over time, fine powder will gradually become more

Reference price: around 300

advanced version

Anonymous 2

This grinder, in fact, is made by a technical talent himself. Now it is the second generation, which is optimized and improved on the basis of the above-mentioned entry-level models.

The grinding center is made of stainless steel by CNC precision machining to ensure accurate and stable grinding; there are double brackets and double bearings inside the machine body to fix the middle axis, uniform grinding, little fine powder, strong and durable!

Reference Price: 480

Helor 101

This is also a bean grinder carefully built by a studio. It is also equipped with Italian knives. At the same time, there are single-piece ceramic knives to choose from, and the feel and face value are also extremely high.

Single cutter head produced in China, made of martensitic stainless steel, washable, rust free. "Old Lin" also uses this bean grinder. After using it, I found that there is really less fine powder and the uniformity is very good. It is more than a little stronger than the two beginners mentioned before.

Reference Price: 700 +

Advanced

LiDo2

American brand, to this price, the advantages are not much to say, nothing more than less fine powder, clean taste, less residual powder, easy to change beans. The disadvantages are that it is large and heavy, and it is not portable; although it is fast, it is not easy to grind.

Personal feeling, LiDo's production, and Helor is about the same, almost the same feeling.

Reference price: around 1200

HG-one

This high-end, high-class bean-grinding machine, made in the United States, 83mm cutter head, at this level, there is no need to consider the grinding level, it must be enough. Its weight is about 14KG, can only be placed at home inconvenient to carry.

The price is better, suitable for real local tyrants when crafts or major household grinding machines.

Reference Price: 8000 +

All of the above mentioned bean grinders are single-product bean grinders, which are not suitable for Italian bean grinding. Helor and Anonymous have Italian knife discs, which can grind Italian beans.