manual grinder for french press - what to get

French Press, Vac Pot, Drip or any other - air your views and results

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Postby Jules » Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:23 pm

I just bought a refurbished manual grinder from Orphan Espresso. Turnaround time was within a week before it arrived at my doorstep. The burrs were in great condition too.

http://tinyurl.com/6bhypr
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Postby jon » Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:44 pm

Bean_Believer wrote:Hope I'm not too late: Hario Glass Ceramic Coffee Grinder


Looks 8) and I could cancel Amazon - but that would come from Canada? tbh, not overly confident in my chances of getting a glass grinder arrive safely, esp at this time of year...
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Postby al_bongo » Sun Dec 07, 2008 9:38 pm

Anyone any experience of the Hario Skeleton grinder? Still looking for a hand grinder which works well to replace Zass.
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Postby SlowRain » Wed Dec 10, 2008 4:14 am

I'm curious about the Hario grinder as well, particularly for French press usage.
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It ain't working

Postby jon » Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:56 pm

Got the La Cafetierre now (after a delay courtesy of Royal Mail). It's not working right :(

The grind that gets through the burrs ranges from medium-ground through to nearly intact beans. I've adjusted the grind so it's only 2-3 turns away from the finest grind, but doesn't seem to have helped. Am I doing something wrong? I'm using small-ish yirg beans, but clearly something isn't right...

Any suggestions would be great.
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RE: It ain

Postby Narra » Thu Dec 18, 2008 4:40 pm

I find to adjust the grind best way is to take out the grind drawer and hold the centre burr about where you think you want it then screw the adjustment ring into place then lock in with the handle.

Grind some coffee and adjust finer/courser until your happy. You need to make sure the handle cap is screwed on tight otherwise when your cranking, the latch that slots in the adjustment ring skips and makes the setting courser and courser.

I had the same problem as you at first but once you remember to keep the handle cap on tight it doenst miss. Re-tighten after each use.

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RE: It ain

Postby jon » Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:04 pm

Ah - that may have been it. Will have a try grinding again tomorrow morning.
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RE: It ain

Postby jon » Fri Dec 19, 2008 1:04 pm

Right, more success this morning - produced something that looked like a decent grind, after tightening things properly. Thanks :)

The resulting coffee still tasted a bit weak/underpowered, but suspect I may just have got the dose too low. Measuring whole beans, I used 3 level desert spoons in what must be about a 4-5 cup bodum cafetiere - try 4-5 spoons next?
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RE: It ain

Postby Neo » Sat Dec 20, 2008 1:23 pm

I am using a Hario Skerton grinder.
Well its burr is made of ceramic and is easy to clean.
One drawback is that there isn't a lid so fragments of the last few beans may jump out due to popcorn effect. If you are grinding really vigorous, then you might find some beans fleeing from the grinder. Of course you can use a plastic film or whatever to cover the opening on top and it shouldn't be too difficult to do.
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Re: RE: It ain

Postby SlowRain » Sun Dec 21, 2008 5:43 am

Neo,

What brewing method(s) are you using the Hario for? Does it give an even enough grind, without too many fines, for French press? How much did you pay for it?
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Re: RE: It ain

Postby Neo » Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:26 am

SlowRain wrote:Neo,

What brewing method(s) are you using the Hario for? Does it give an even enough grind, without too many fines, for French press? How much did you pay for it?

I'm using cloth filter to brew. IIRC it's also called chemex. I didn't check whether there is a lot of fines but the cup tastes fine. Erm, I don't exactly remember the price but probably less than 1000 taiwanese money.
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RE: Re: RE: It ain

Postby SlowRain » Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:57 am

Thanks
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RE: Re: RE: It ain

Postby jon » Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:39 pm

I've now got the La Cafetiere grinder working. Grinds evenly enough to make a nice, smooth cup of french press, with very little 'sludge'. Bit of a fiddle to adjust grind, but when you've got it right it works well. Gives at least as good a cup as my bodum burr grinder, and not sure if you'd get an improvement with an iberital MC2. Using Monmouth Brazillian Fazenda, and it's very tasty :)

In terms of downsides, it does take a while to grind. Also, the drawer is slightly small - four desert spoons of beans is a bit too much for it to hold... For twenty quid, though, it's a very decent grinder imo, assuming you've got time to grind beans this way.
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RE: Re: RE: It ain

Postby triptogenetica » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:58 pm

I'd recommend the Hario Skerton / skelton / skeleton (some confusion about the name, around the net).

Admittedly a big criterion for me was its looks - I'm not a fan of the "little wooden box with drawer" style hand grinders. So I wanted a Hario, and I'd heard good things about the burrs.

There's a bit of float on the burrs, less for finer grinds than for coarser ones. I think a sleeve round the spindle could cut this down, but I've yet to fit one. (Only brought the Hario back from hong kong this January).

To be fair, there's nothing I can say that hasn't been said, better, at:

http://blog.jeremey.com/jeremeys_weblog ... inder.html

(His review has great pictures, too) :D
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RE: Re: RE: It ain

Postby syscrusher » Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:30 pm

I picked up a couple of old PeDe hand grinders on Ebay - the burrs look way sharper than either the Hario mill pictured in the link tripogenetica posted, or a new Zassenhaus I briefly owned (was returned to seller as it's a piece of crap).

I grind my 30g for pour-over in about 1min (that's fast enough for a hand grinder), and it produces a very even grind.

The only negative point would be that the drawer is somewhat awkward to get the coffee out of (I like to just tip it out - but there's no spout or aperture so it requires a little dexterity), and of course with old grinders, you don't really know what condition they're in, till they arrive.
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