this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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Does anyone use a coffee grind sieve to evaluate their grinder performance? (self.coffee)
submitted 9 months ago by evasive_chimpanzee to c/coffee
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You can use a methodology from soil testing for this that doesn't require extra gear. Sieves (like with soil texturing) will give you a faster more accurate answer. Here it is:

Get a narrow glass jar. Fill it a little way with ground coffee. Fill with water. Shake. Set on shelf and wait a few hours up to a day.

The larger pieces will settle first and the finer settle last. You can see the sorting of them through the glass. If you use consistent amounts of coffee and the same container, you can measure depth of layers. I.e. this grinder makes .5cm of fines to 3cm of ideal to .2cm of too large.

Bonus is you can use this method for making cold brew, so you don't waste the coffee or water.

[–] evasive_chimpanzee 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ooh, that's a good idea. I've seen that used to get clay from soil. Part of why I think my grinder has gotten a little inconsistent is that I've noticed the bed of grounds after making a pourover appears to be a little more "silty" than it used to.

I even have a skinny graduated cylinder that would make it easy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That would perfect for sure! It pays to keep lab equipment around some times :)

[–] evasive_chimpanzee 1 points 9 months ago

In school, I had to buy an organic chemistry set (separatory funnels, condensers, round flasks, etc.), and then sell it back to the campus bookstore at the end of the semester. Too many people broke pieces that the school was losing money on just doing rentals or having a deposit. The amount of money I got back at the end of the year was really small, though, compared with the worth of the set. Like with textbooks, I guess they just assumed no one would want it afterwards, so they'd give it up for cheap.

To this day, I still regret selling all that equipment back.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] evasive_chimpanzee 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

too bad opportunities to taste multiple grinders side by side are rare!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] CrayonRosary 2 points 9 months ago

Forget the Kruve. You need this:

https://www.amazon.com/Retsch-60-159-000999-Standard-Vibratory-Diameter/dp/B00C1NM660

[–] fritobugger2017 1 points 9 months ago

Some folks do but it that is just a bridge too far for me.