I’ve been using my grinder (Baratza maestro plus) for ten years now, and I got it used. I’ve replaced some parts (e.g., burrs), but I’m wondering if it’s finally time to let it go. It seems like it’s not grinding as consistently as it once was, but I’m thinking it would be good to quantify it.
I’ve seen sieves used to classify ground coffee, specifically, the brand Kruve seems to be a nice implementation. It’s $90 for the cheapest version, though, which doesn’t quite seem worth it to me. It seems like it’d be better to just spend the money going towards a new grinder, but I figured it would be good to ask for anyone’s experience here.
I do/have used a Kruve an I’ve been very surprised with by my findings with it. In my experience, even very nice grinders I’ve tried still produce like 4% fines, and some midrange ones are maybe only 6%. By percent, that’s significant enough, but in the end it’s less than a gram difference, and therefore sorta hard to use as the comparison between 2 grinders. Sifting is also essentially worthless for that purpose if you didn’t take the same measurement when the grinder was new, since you have nothing to compare the present to.
I honestly think your best bet is going by taste. If you feel the quality of your cup has declined, that’s probably the best way to be sure. Everything else is just a proxy for trying to determine how the cup will taste.
too bad opportunities to taste multiple grinders side by side are rare!
Very true, especially because taste (and the calibration of the grinder you receive) don’t always line up with the grind size distributions you see other people make from experimenting. For me it’s always had to be one at a time, compared to what I was using before and returning if the intended upgrade isn’t satisfactory.
It would be amazing if coffee shops started doing equipment tastings/comparisons as well as beans. We have a lot of cool cuppings/tasting courses here, but nothing for hardware.
Yeah, seems like I might be better off putting that money towards a new grinder. I’m not a fan of getting something new when the old thing still technically works, though it seems like my model is old enough that there are not many replacement parts left that you can get right from baratza.
I just need to decide if I want to spend enough to grind espresso, too.
I feel ya, the number of times I’ve opened up my gear to get just a few more months out of it til the next thing breaks…
If you want to maximize versatility and quality for a good price, I’d consider getting a nice enough espresso-focused grinder and a really high quality hand grinder that can do coarse grinds well. Grinding coarse is fast and easy by hand, and you can get grounds as or more consistent than am electric grinder 3 times the price with something like a 1zpresso. But grinding for espresso can be harder, so that’s one that’s more worth a machine doing the work for you.