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Grinder for both espresso and pour over/drip coffee?

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eureka pour over
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Discussion starter · #1 ·
I am looking for a grinder that I can use both for espresso and pour over coffee.

I have this espresso machine Breville duo temp

https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/espresso/bes810.html

and I have looked at the Eureka Mignon silenzio

https://machina-coffee.co.uk/collections/eureka-domestic-grinders?page=1

which I have read should be really good except it's should be really difficult to change between grind levels, e.g when you want an espresso and when you want pour over.

is that true and is there some solution for this?
 
#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
This question comes up quite a lot. The general advice is that the Mignon in theory *can* do both but changing back and forth in practice is just not practical.

So people tend to buy a good hand grinder for drip, and keep the Mignon for Espresso at which it is really designed for.

The other option depending on your budget is the Niche Zero which can go back and forth relatively easily.
 
Discussion starter · #3 ·
Ok that was also what I was afraid of - that I need two grinders if buying the Eureka Mignon.

And there are not other alternatives in the 250-300£ price range - the Niche Zero you link to looks awesome but too expensive for my budget.
 
#4 ·
The Sage Smart Grinder Pro can do both espresso and everything up to french press. I owned one for a while, but found that the espresso side of things was limited. They're quite reasonably priced and come for sale quite often on the forum.
 
#6 ·
MildredM said:
As Lake_m says, dialling back and forth soon becomes frustrating. It's impossible to get it back to the espresso grind. The Wilma svart is a good grinder for pour over
;)
Click to expand...
Not to mention a 2nd grinder will eventually pay for itself with the amount you save from purging when dialling back & forth.
 
#7 ·
The Sage grinder can be set back and forth pretty well. The main thing is to always make the final adjustment in the same direction. I used finer. So if going coarser go too coarse and then adjust to the actual finer setting. Using a Mazzer is similar except in that case go either way and rock the adjustment lever slightly side to side to centralise the ears on the burr carrier. The Mignon may or may not have some sort of foible in the same area. Big difference with Sage is that it shows numbers for settings. They can be a little iffy at times but with a bit of practice it's easy to spot that and repeat the adjustment - the numbers change at some rate when it's being adjusted - the final one may appear more quickly than usual. It doesn't pay to turn the knob too quickly.

Main limitation of the Sage as I see it is steps and not continuous adjustment. It wont last as long as a Mignon could either but I doubt if many or any home users need to worry about that too much. People did find a certain internal part could wear out after around 18 months of heavier home use on an earlier model - the part has been upgraded. One model wouldn't always reach espresso levels and could need shimming, the burrs are adjustable now.

Taste between it and flat - subtle but people will tell me that I must get a model with larger burrs. I may do one day so don't bother telling me.

Purging them isn't too bad coffee wise. Some whole beans can be picked out manually when the hopper is removed but there aren't that many so a purge might consist of shutting off the hopper and then running the grinder until it's empty. Then stick the new beans in the hopper and grind a shot. There will be some carry over from the previous bean. I drink it as the taste can be interesting but not possible to reproduce. The shot after that may still have a bit of the same taste. Next one after that highly unlikely. Worst I found was some vanilla flavoured beans. Couldn't detect the taste of vanilla on the 4th shot. The grinder has a certain amount of permanent retention and some carry over that soon goes. If it's cleaned the permanent needs to build up again before output gets stable.

When there is a huge change in grind settings there is probably some carry over with that as well. Normally when tuning for espresso grinds have to be wasted after a setting change to get rid if the grinds from the previous setting. I do know that on the grinder on the Barista Express from lots of 10g shots it would appear to be less than that
;)
as i didn't think of the need to do this when I first started using it which caused a lot of repeat adjustments. The SGP due to certain differences probably needs to waste more than the BE.

It's also possible to weight beans in on the SGP. Personally even though it's a choir a grinder with a Mazzer style funnel is better for this than one with a spout on it as grinds are more likely to get trapped in a spout and be more difficult to get out. On a Sage grinds can build up on the exit from the grinds chamber. Lot less likely in the actual spout. I use a bean that comes heavily coated in oil and this happened to frequently for me. This is why I sold it. My Mazzer copes but needs 2 applications of the brush and the rubber lens hood mod. Tedious to say the least.
;)
I'm going to switch to the hopper shortly and see what happens with that on.

Some of that may seem off topic but people new to them may not be very clear about the problems of using them. To be honest if starting again and not buying a machine with a built in grinder and wanting to keep costs down and now being aware of what people do with grinders I would probably buy a Quamar as it's suitable for all methods of use - adding a lens hood mod may not be as simple as it is on some Mazzers but I could cope with that. That then leaves the question of are they any good as grinders. It's stepped and does have a decent setting scale on it. How that would work over the full range of brewing methods pass.

John

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#9 ·
Lots of comments here, so perhaps a different perspective. A Niche Zero will easily move from espresso to pour over, then back again with pretty much zero waste and no need to purge. A EM Silenzio is about £315 a Niche Zero at the moment is £440, that's a difference of £125.

With a Mignon, and most grinders with a hopper, unless modded and run hopperless (often then grind quality is impacted), you're going to have to purge some coffee to get the old out before you go to the new. The waste is even higher when trying to move grind settings, and some after opening for cleaning 18-36g can be wasted dialling them in again....we all know this. So lets take a conservative situation.

4 coffees per day average for a year.....with an average waste of 2.5g per grind based on dose variance and little discards to get the right weight+ purging. We are going to assume coffee at £6 per 250g bag (which is cheap) and no postage costs (which is unrealistic).

2.5g x 4 x 365 = 3.65 kg of coffee wasted....lets call it 14 x 250g bags (round it down). Doing the complex mathematics we come to an amount of £84 per annum (it's a super conservative amount, I think it would be much more)

With a Niche Zero the specific waste of coffee mentioned (2.5g per grind based on dose variance and little discards to get the right weight+ purging), simply doesn't exist, that 2.5g per grind, become 0g. This means that in 18 to months the extra £125 spent on the Niche Zero, has paid for itself, the Niche has become a cost neutral choice.

Even more interesting is that in 5 years 3 months, the saving in those two forms of coffee waste alone at £82 per annum, will have completely paid for the Niche Zero, it effectively becomes free!

  • At the end of 5 years your Mignon would have ground 150kg of coffee and in another 3 years you would probably be replacing the burrs.
  • The Niche will have ground 131kg of coffee and still have more than 23 years life left on the burrs
 
#10 ·
^^^ plus all those 15g/18g shots you dump because they are way off. Multiply that time after time and you've made inroads into your favourite new bag of [espresso] beans!

Two separate grinders or one Niche! And ajohn mentioned something about the Sage . . . .

I am starting to be tempted by the Niche myself
:)
 
#15 ·
u12345 said:
Hm based on this video:

Click to expand...
If Ben Piff says it to expertly produced sweeping video, shiny grinders and soft music....then it must be true? In fact the second grinder he mentions is the "best grinder he has ever used". If this is true and I have no reason to doubt a word of what Ben says, that comment might worry you. It's a great production though...way more professional that I could ever be bothered to do. Sounds like you like the Mignon and it is a decent grinder....not too expensive either. I used one extensively and liked it...it's a great entry level espresso grinder.

Have that cookie, buy the Mignon and pretty soon you will forget all this and feel just fine.....
:)
 
#17 ·
MildredM said:
^^^ plus all those 15g/18g shots you dump because they are way off. Multiply that time after time and you've made inroads into your favourite new bag of [espresso] beans!

Two separate grinders or one Niche! And ajohn mentioned something about the Sage . . . .

I am starting to be tempted by the Niche myself
:)
Click to expand...
The Niche makes a lot of sense from several perspectives.
;)
I have my own reasons for not buying one which i have mentioned before. Sage ? IMHO not as bad as some might suggest but yes it has limitations but in practice many grinders do one way or the other usage wise for home use and yes the Sage has some of those too, maybe not so badly as some.

My post was made with the perspective I had when I bought an espresso machine one difference to the OP though. I new that at some point I'd want 2 grinders as from experience I know that setting them up for a particular bean wont happen immediately. Like all I have drunk coffee in a number of places and I see someone poke a portafilter under a doser or spout on some grinder and pull a lever or press a button and out comes a dose. So I ran the Barista Express like that for some time. What I found was a need to keep adjusting the grind time to get the correct dose. Fortunately not that often once the grinder settled down. A little different to what I had seen in coffee shops. Then I find that many people weigh beans in. That way providing all of the grinds can be got out all of the doses will be the same. Obviously an attractive approach. The catch though is getting all of the grinds out.
:secret:
I'm currently using 14.5g and always aim to get that out. Say I accept 14.3g several times on the trot. At some point the excess left in will either cause larger errors or suddenly pop out of the grinder. So IMHO it makes sense to pick a grinder where getting all of them out is likely to easy to do. I would hazard a guess that any newbie will want to try weighing in at some point what ever grinder they buy when they get the whole picture of pulling a shot at home. Some grinders make this easier than others. Mazzers for instance often finish up with a rubber lens hood fixed to them. An idea I hadn't heard about when I started. Quamar - a lot cheaper new but may not be so easy to fit a lens hood to it. Even it's dial markings may mean the need for repeated tuning steps when settings are changed.

Grinders can also be used with the hopper on. One way is to check the weight that finishes up in the portafilter and adjust if needed. Also I am told that once a grinder has had several kg of beans put through it timed doses will be more accurate and consistent. Depending on beans the hopper can also result in more clumping in the portafilter. The answer to that is to use something to break them up. Clumping lessens pretty quickly when a new grinder is conditioned. Even 750g of wasted beans makes a difference and in my case 1kg has made 2 grinder usable but it has to be said that this aspect continues to improve with use.

The other aspect is later upgrades - very likely on grinders. It doesn't make much sense to spend lots when some one has no idea about the complications of using them.

Perhaps the best option for the OP has been suggested. He likes the Mignon and counting turns of the knob to switch from one setting to another or using the markings on the knob if they go far enough could work out with some loss of coffee when tuning. He'll find out when he tries it. He could also then buy a hand grinder for pour over or a grinder that grinds into a container. The chances are that any burr grinder that uses a container will handle coarser grinds pretty well but will probably choke up if it can be modified to cover the entire espresso range. Lots of these machines are very similar internally who ever makes them.

;)
One thing for sure until he settles on something and buys it he / she will have great difficulty making any coffee at all via any method. I think that many replies to questions like this aim at the asker achieving perfection from day one. I'm guilty too really. That can take people out of their budget range and it seems often does.

John

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#20 ·
MildredM said:
What complications, @ajohn?

[/color]
Click to expand...
I reckon he has been watching that video of the guy trying to use a Monolith..I know, I know it triggers @coffeechap every time I link to it....perhaps why I do it
;)
However, whenever I need a good laugh (Sorry Matthew) I watch it. If I was Kafatek, I would give him a free grinder just to remove that video. Sadly on a youtube search for "kafatek monolith" it comes out at number 1 in the list!

 
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