Re:Why a spritz of water before grinding coffee yields bette...
by chongli on Saturday December 09, 2023 @04:30PM
(#38586281)
I totally appreciate the low tech approach. I think my dream machine is an Elektra MCAL!
Do you use a manual grinder as well? I’ve never used one but they seem rather clumsy to me. Maybe one of those old fashioned ones that mount firmly to the table and have a big brass crank and brass hardware with a wood case!
Re:Why a spritz of water before grinding coffee yields bette...
by bch on Saturday December 09, 2023 @05:24PM
(#38586723)
> Do you use a manual grinder as well?
I have, in my life - I associate them with pour-overs (V60, Chemex) for myself. In my espresso setup, I have an electric variable-speed single-dose conical burr unit. It’s naturally fairly quiet, and I run it at ~30rpm so about all I hear is bean crushing/grinding.
Re:Why a spritz of water before grinding coffee yields bette...
by chongli on Saturday December 09, 2023 @05:53PM
(#38586986)
That sounds pretty nice! I have a Niche Zero and it's fairly unobtrusive, but still somewhat loud. At least it doesn't have any high frequency noise though.
Re:Why a spritz of water before grinding coffee yields bette...
by bch on Saturday December 09, 2023 @06:31PM
(#38587310)
I haven’t personally used a Niche, but have studied them a bit and think they might be a high water mark in the performance/$. A busy cafe I frequent uses them commercially (modified, for extra cooling) with success.
Nice - I've been a Cremina operator for the last few years, thoroughly enjoy it.
> Spring levers give you a ton of control with more precision [...]
At the expense of feedback. And to be fair and clear, most of my experience is with a direct lever, and I like it, but I'd happily have a spring lever too if I had the space.
To move things away from strictly hard-tech and measurement though, all this is also so experiential that I'm happy to keep things low-tech and manual, to degrees. My morning coffee routine is fantastically quiet for example: this doesn't (directly) affect the quality of the coffee, but I sure appreciate the experience. And the experience of being in charge of the pressure at the puck - a different way of being involved where I'm interacting with the differences in grind settings, or one bean/roast vs another...
Good luck in your lever-machine quest!