I've had good luck using tweezers and an electron microscope (Weber Workshops EM1) to pick out individual coffee particles. Using this technique, I am able to create any flavor profile imaginable. I prefer 100,000 fine particles to 500,000 medium fine particles. hope this helps!
I want to live in an alternate reality where Lance shatters the incomes of all his industry friends by making the best coffee in history with a porlex and a sieve. Just mass layoffs. International industry wide collapse bc one guy tried a mesh.
Finally, someone is actually using mesh sizes to quantify this stuff. I get that every grinder will have its own 'profile' of varying sizes but it's maddening to try and navigate this as a newbie.
Lance: there's a bit of a hack to getting better cups out of the porlex... Hold the base of the grinder on the table when grinding. Don't let it "lift" or "tip over" and try and keep the speed as regular as you can (you'll be forced to go quite slow). It's totally not-ergonomic - but once you get the technique it'll improve the quality considerably (not to an ek or anything, but better)...When you grind with the grinder in the air it's very easy to flex the shaft and cause the burrs to mis-align, the table trick helps keep things more central. This works with the skerton, rhino and all of "those" types of grinder
I just love the content Lance puts out. Really high quality, high level of thought and effort. Video and production is spot on. Love his unique personality and what he brings to the industry. Thanks again for a wonderful deep dive into this topic and looking forward to more as always
I’m hearing some music I know don’t like in the background. Seems like they are putting in some low base notes 🎶 really distracting. Is this on purpose? Can any one else hear it? You need to use your head phones
This was really interesting, I never would have guessed having some fines would yield a better cup than none but it does make sense to me in hindsight with your seasoning/char explanation.
@ thank you! To be honest, RUclips randomly recommended this video to me, I saw the opportunity, so I took it. I would like to thank the Academy, my friends and family, who would probably not be very proud of me making that joke, but most of all you, the people who find amusement in my comment. Thank you everyone and have a wonderful day! 😂
*another needlessly padded video to drag a few sentences worth of meaningful information over 18 minutes because he staked his livelihood on RUclips ad revenue
This helped me a lot 🙏 I actually use the Porlex Grinder and since I got more experience in the coffee world I started to really doubt myself. I didn’t understand why my cups weren’t tasting very great and started to understand that it really was the grinders fault. However I noticed, that when using a classic AeroPress recipe, the Porlex is doing okay. The particle distribution in coarser grind settings gets worse and worse since the grounds are really not homogenous. When grinding finer it turns out a little better. When I use the AeroPress I do a little bloom first and then fill the rest of the water. I stir it and let it sit for 30 seconds. Then I press it with a little bit of pressure for about 30 seconds. This recipe works pretty fine for the Porlex. I use 8 clicks to achieve that. That way there is not so much dripping through the filter before pressing.
Great video with some cool data. I have been testing sifting for awhile now, since I got the zp6. At first I felt a little duped by reviewers: "is the zp6 too clean?", "Too much clarity it wouldn't sell in Taiwan" etc. The zp6 is a great grinder granted but in no world is it too clean or even very clean. It is just high-clarity for a conical hand grinder. So I looked towards sifting to try and narrow the gap. The hollowness is immediately apparent and in some cases more astringency if you sift to much. I found using a 500 micron sieve works best, sifting 1-3g from a 21-23g dose depending on how much fines the coffee produces. This way - I hypothesize - the main particle peak narrows a bit but the amount sifted is small enough that much of the
As someone that spend a couple years testing particle size and surface area of powders. This could also double as a quick tutorial. Especially when you were talking about volume vs number differences
I don’t sift my fines, but I do blow out a lot of the chaff and shake a few times with a paper towel over the cup. The paper towel collects quite a bit of fines depending on the coffee. It’s not a foolproof method of removing fines, but I find that it does decrease the astringency of my brews by a small but noticeable amount.
amazing, thank you not only for taking the time to collect the data and beautifully contextualize it but also for sharing in such a fun way. my experience with sifting (years ago) was similar. the brews were cleaner but somehow lacking.
I think we need this kind of message every now and then in a community as obsessive as this, amounting essentially to missing the forrest for the trees. Yes, we want clarity, which is achieved through unimodal particle distribution, and so we think in terms of pushing that unimodality as far as it can go. But in practice, having some fines do still matter to balancing the cup and producing a grinder's unique profile. So I think these results mostly tell us that each burrset has its own uniqueness from its specific particle distribution, and that you can't just sift fines on another grinder to add up to another grinder. The more a burr already makes a good cup on its own, the more likely that interfering with its particle distribution may make the end cup worse.
Thanks Lance. I’ve wanted to learn more about sifting and the common sizes of fines and their effect on the whole cup. This is a great start. I could imagine the fines from different coffees having different effects with different brew methods. Sounds like a never ending research possibility. Then do it all again the following year with the next season’s crops.
love this. i started sifting directly due to the porlex being my only option. in my experience, the answer to this thumbnail is yes. it's night and day. upgraded hand grinders slowly over time and ended up needing to sift less and less in my opinion, if you're paying attention to exactly how much you need to get out, it's fairly surefire that you're getting a better cup until you get to a really good/expensive unimodally accurate grinder. one thing that should be addressed too is that sifting out fines over time creates a lot of waste - stacked over years is an absurd amount of money wasted on coffee, therefore investing in a good grinder actually saves you money/coffee
I cover the catch cup of the grinder with a stainless lid and shake that for like 20s. Tiny fines stick to the lid and other fines end up stuck to the bottom of the cup. When put into the brewer, fines end up on the top and shaking rounds the particles as was discussed in some previous videos
I started filtering fines years ago and it has been the single most impactful change to brewing consistently. I don't use any kind of sifting device to achieve it though. My grinder is a $75 Oxo conical with worn out teeth.
So I ordered that same sieve so that I can try myself what kind of difference if any it makes for my cups. I've always been really happy with my coffee but I love trying new things. I have more grinders than I can justify [my wife recently discovered how many I have ... oops] - so I have a variety of grinders I can test this with. I do have the Kruve sieves but I mostly used them just to get an idea of what my grind settings are roughly producing for boulders but I've found them tedious to use in my actual coffee making process. That said - I wasn't aware of the Pietro - that grinder looks amazing. I've been looking for a good flat burr grinder that's quiet for my office at work. Thank you, Lance, for everything that you do - I really appreciate your content.
This whole experiment was so exquisitely conducted in the most scientific methodology, I just loved the rigorous testing and interpretation. One really small nit picking observation, the graphs had a blue line and a purple line (I think?)…. quite difficult to distinguish between them if you are partially colour blind like myself 😊…. Otherwise, a perfect piece as always!
balance of fines and coarse - right! But I am missing the reflection on using different grades of baked beans. When beans are dark, you have more oil at the surface of the bean and that makes a huge different in grinding too, not only in flavor per se of darker beans.
First off - great video well put together. I especially loved the soundtrack on this one. It brought an Ex Machina vibe which was unexpected. But my question is I feel that you should follow your own advice!: if your brew tastes hollow then grind finer, or increase time or ratio. Each set of grinds (sifted, unsifted) needs to be dialled in rather than just matched in terms of peaks. It may be that you did this but wanted to check. Thank you!
i use kruve 500/1300 and Hg-2 because i think Hg-2 make many fines so i shifted and pour fine right after last pour. in my experience it reduce emptyniss and fines are captured by large particle .Recently, I'm wondering if large particles(1300+) go bottom will increase the extraction in the cone filter by make more flow to extraction shadow area(bottom part) , or if placing large particles on the top ( typical cone filter extract more in upper position and it increase the extraction of large particles) will have a better effect on the taste or mixing(with magic tumbler) and then adding it will give a better experience.
I want you to take a look at this, too. In the case of tricolate, non-bypass brewers require a large amount of beans. In Korea, people who could not purchase that kind of dripper due to cost problems tried to make a similar effect with an aeropresso. The same effect can be achieved in small amounts of bean. I'm curious about your opinion on this. ruclips.net/video/l-MwK8Z0Db8/видео.html
Personally enjoy my brews more with the fines knocker included with my 078s. I find I get a hollow brew with harsher acidity when I don't include what is in the fines knocker.
Just yesterday I "filtered" my ground coffee (grinded in a Varia VS3) with kitchen paper (I let the fines get caught in the relief of the paper), and I liked the result in the V60.
So, whenever Lance shows another piece of beautiful coffee gear I will repeat these DEVO Freedom of choice lyrics 'Don't be tricked by what you see You got two ways to go' 'Then if you got it you don't want it Seems to be the rule of thumb'
I know villager in brooklyn sieves the fines from their EK43. I've only been once, but it was interesting to see their take on it. I personally dont ever sieve because I have a ZP6 and enjoy the balance like you said.
On my Fellow Ode with SSP MP burs I tried sifting, and what I got were very hollow cups, almost no body "clean" but also bitter on some coffees. The coolest thing I've noticed was the flow of water through the bed, it was so smooth and consistent. So my takeaway was to try and improve that flow through other means, and that's where the Sibarist booster came into play and elevated my cups. This is not an ad, I swear 😅
The portion of the coffee beans that turn into fines have a different charateristic to the portion that are near the target particle size. I'm guessing it would be more the porous, perhaps darker roasted beans or part of the bean, with a higher tendency to crumble. So it's not surprising that removing these will remove some of the depth of flavour.
Fantastic video. One small note but around the 11 minute mark you show particle sizes and the colors are very similar. As a color blind person it is borderline impossible for me to differentiate them.
OMFG I totally missread the title and was thinking "huh when did our coffee stan start making videos about dating apps". The universe is telling me that I need to start looking at reading glasses 😵💫
I wonder if some of the hollowness of the sifted cups could be lessened by using a finer grind relative to the unsifted cups. So, the nominal peak would be finer on the sifted cup. Or is it that even if you "dial in" the sifted version separately, you'll still get the hollowness? Cool to see these tests!
Hey lance after like 1 year of waiting my friend finally managed to bring some Konos to me all the way from japan to Brazil. Loving them, especially the small blue one.
I live in Japan and 1 of the best coffees I ever roasted was a Brazilian Santos. Omg it tasted like I added cherry flavoring. I'll trade with you. Seriously... let me know.
Sifting grounds on cheap grinders was always wierd for me, especially if you already spend on good coffee. You save money on a one-time purchase on the grinder, only to have a recurring increase in cost from sifting out fines and thus needing more beans for a dose. Like, it just makes sense to spend a bit bigger for the one-time purchase, which will help you get the most out of each gram of the recurring purchase. It pays for itself eventually.
If you ever decide to do a follow-up, I'd love to see a comparison of the Pietro Multipurpose Burrs vs. the Pro Brew where you sift, then gradually re-introduce the fines (e.g. Pietro MP with 10% fines reduction, 20% fines reduction, 30%, etc.). At what point does the "hollowness" go away? What else changes as a greater percentage of fines is added back into the brew? Thanks for the video!
Here’s my question: could I use my fines to figure out if my grinder blades are dull? I.e., should be replaced?. Could I maybe test every hundred cups (or once a month - easier to track) ? Or, based on what you’ve learned from your porlex, do the cups degrade (flavor-wise) with age? Is a new porlex much better than an old one? I guess using a porlex it would take less time to see how much/little dull blades affect flavor.
A couple of questions come to mind. 1. Are the particles clinging to a dosing cup or left in the grinder mostly fines and should you avoid trying to get to zero retention by knocking or using a baffle? 2. What would happen if you grind very coarsely on a hand grinder and then grind them again at your desired setting relative to particle distribution and fines?
Trying some areopress stuff out and i simply used my hand air blower thingo to blow away some chaff...also a lot of fines went away and i was left with more consistent grinds, I think I lost
How about sieving the grinds from a budget grinder into several sieves of different mesh sizes, and re-create a particular PSD curve of another grinder?
Made it through it all, very informative........I'd like to see a few grinders cheap medium hand or powered, with wetted/misted beans for pour over, rather than espresso and see if there are improvements in any way. My bias is towards yes, for it seems to have helped my cheapo, and "good enough" burr grinders. power of suggestion, subjective, fact or fiction? Hollow is a great descriptor. I have ground a fresh espresso roast from a roaster that is quite in my cheapo cordless grinder then in a nicer burr grinder. both ways I for some reason have a soulless meh hollow cup.
This was a really awesome video. I love the results and the testing. One critique, the thumbnail came off as pretty clickbaity. Overall, great work Lance!
Should’ve matched the extraction instead of the nominal peak size. The former is what translates to the target experience of a good cup, not the latter. With my Chestnut C2 I have to go espresso-fine in order to see the benefits of the sifting. I do lose 24% of the grounds to sub-250 micron fines, which I do use for Turkish or whacky filter experiments, but it is a pain to grind that fine with a grinder meant for filter. The sifting is aggravating too.
How do you feel about pre breaking beans without an auger? I’ve used an espresso tamper and a bowl to crack beans lightly and remove chaff intact and do it a lot for washed coffees. Have you tried that before to see if it helps with more “uniform” grinding?
I would be curious as to what the ideal ratio of fines would be for a bimodal distribution. 1%, 5%, 10%? I wonder if you could isolate fines and unimodal grind and then combine them at different ratios to see what the ideal combination could be.
just a thought after watching your video, what if you created a ratio for particle size? using multiple sifts and controlling the ratio to brew coffee. seems interesting.
Lance, I commented on your previous video, but do you think blind shakers work partly by causing electrostatic interactions between the ultra fines and sides of container? I notice my catch cup get coated with coffee dust whenever I do gentle shaking after grinding
I see the pro brew burr has a light and kind of silver color to multi purpose burr. Is pro brew be the un final production that you said in other Pietro video?
I'd be curious to try sifting out as many fines as possible and adding some back in to mimic different burr profiles. Could I get a profile similar to SSP's unimodal burrs with SSP's lab sweets via sifting and adding some of the fines back?
It’s not a ‘theory’. It’s a hypothesis. That said, if you’re using a motorized grinder the easiest trick to getting better espresso is slow-feeding your beans. Get the grinder started, and then begin feeding the beans in. You don’t have to go nuts with this, take about 5-6 seconds to feed them in. Makes a huge difference in consistency of grind
@ yeah… and I was already doing it many months before you made that video. More for motor preservation than anything, but I couldn’t help but notice I was getting consistently good results in the cup.
I've tried sifting. Tastes empty. I liked sifting and adding before last pour because it prevents clogging. But too much hustle for the result. Just grinding a bit courser also does the job. Thus, sifting is just too much annoyance for me in the process of enjoying the making and drinking of coffee.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I've had good luck using tweezers and an electron microscope (Weber Workshops EM1) to pick out individual coffee particles. Using this technique, I am able to create any flavor profile imaginable. I prefer 100,000 fine particles to 500,000 medium fine particles. hope this helps!
Nice job
That's nothing - I have a small blower that only dust away particles based on Micron sizes - It's really cool and a bit faster
I want to live in an alternate reality where Lance shatters the incomes of all his industry friends by making the best coffee in history with a porlex and a sieve. Just mass layoffs. International industry wide collapse bc one guy tried a mesh.
I don't know about 'the best coffee in history', but 3rd place in the Canadian brewers cup in 2017 went to a guy grinding with a Porlex.
No wonder Lance is so jacked, he is handgrinding all day for us.
one of your best video in the vain of "explaining the science" yet Lance. Concise, understandable, and address all the biggest questions
Finally, someone is actually using mesh sizes to quantify this stuff. I get that every grinder will have its own 'profile' of varying sizes but it's maddening to try and navigate this as a newbie.
This simple trick makes your coffee 200% better! Grinder companies don't want you to know about it!
😅😅😅
Sorry, but that is ridiculous! I would say closer to 175% better.
Lance: there's a bit of a hack to getting better cups out of the porlex... Hold the base of the grinder on the table when grinding. Don't let it "lift" or "tip over" and try and keep the speed as regular as you can (you'll be forced to go quite slow). It's totally not-ergonomic - but once you get the technique it'll improve the quality considerably (not to an ek or anything, but better)...When you grind with the grinder in the air it's very easy to flex the shaft and cause the burrs to mis-align, the table trick helps keep things more central. This works with the skerton, rhino and all of "those" types of grinder
I just love the content Lance puts out. Really high quality, high level of thought and effort. Video and production is spot on. Love his unique personality and what he brings to the industry. Thanks again for a wonderful deep dive into this topic and looking forward to more as always
Your videos are always great quality, but there's something about this one that just stepped it up a notch! Well done Hugo!
I’m hearing some music I know don’t like in the background. Seems like they are putting in some low base notes 🎶 really distracting.
Is this on purpose?
Can any one else hear it? You need to use your head phones
@@yogs888 I, on the other hand, liked the music a lot. The video had kinda chill artistic vibe.
This was really interesting, I never would have guessed having some fines would yield a better cup than none but it does make sense to me in hindsight with your seasoning/char explanation.
I generally just put suggestive photos as my main profile picture, that usually improves my Grindr…
Oh wait… you meant THAT grinder
sir, your comment won hahaha
@ thank you! To be honest, RUclips randomly recommended this video to me, I saw the opportunity, so I took it. I would like to thank the Academy, my friends and family, who would probably not be very proud of me making that joke, but most of all you, the people who find amusement in my comment. Thank you everyone and have a wonderful day! 😂
Groan
Gotta use your hand grindr James 😅
The "DaVinci of Drip" just dropped another masterpiece video! ;-)
*another needlessly padded video to drag a few sentences worth of meaningful information over 18 minutes because he staked his livelihood on RUclips ad revenue
This helped me a lot 🙏
I actually use the Porlex Grinder and since I got more experience in the coffee world I started to really doubt myself. I didn’t understand why my cups weren’t tasting very great and started to understand that it really was the grinders fault. However I noticed, that when using a classic AeroPress recipe, the Porlex is doing okay. The particle distribution in coarser grind settings gets worse and worse since the grounds are really not homogenous. When grinding finer it turns out a little better.
When I use the AeroPress I do a little bloom first and then fill the rest of the water. I stir it and let it sit for 30 seconds. Then I press it with a little bit of pressure for about 30 seconds.
This recipe works pretty fine for the Porlex. I use 8 clicks to achieve that. That way there is not so much dripping through the filter before pressing.
Hey i just want to say, the production quality of your videos are impeccable.
I love how meticulous you are testing these myths and methodologies.
Great video with some cool data. I have been testing sifting for awhile now, since I got the zp6. At first I felt a little duped by reviewers: "is the zp6 too clean?", "Too much clarity it wouldn't sell in Taiwan" etc. The zp6 is a great grinder granted but in no world is it too clean or even very clean. It is just high-clarity for a conical hand grinder. So I looked towards sifting to try and narrow the gap. The hollowness is immediately apparent and in some cases more astringency if you sift to much. I found using a 500 micron sieve works best, sifting 1-3g from a 21-23g dose depending on how much fines the coffee produces. This way - I hypothesize - the main particle peak narrows a bit but the amount sifted is small enough that much of the
As someone that spend a couple years testing particle size and surface area of powders. This could also double as a quick tutorial. Especially when you were talking about volume vs number differences
I don’t sift my fines, but I do blow out a lot of the chaff and shake a few times with a paper towel over the cup. The paper towel collects quite a bit of fines depending on the coffee. It’s not a foolproof method of removing fines, but I find that it does decrease the astringency of my brews by a small but noticeable amount.
That's so clever and relatively easy to incorporate into a daily brew.
I just started sifting 1 week ago. I have a 1zpresso JX, it has improved both my v60 and brewista cups
amazing, thank you not only for taking the time to collect the data and beautifully contextualize it but also for sharing in such a fun way.
my experience with sifting (years ago) was similar. the brews were cleaner but somehow lacking.
I think we need this kind of message every now and then in a community as obsessive as this, amounting essentially to missing the forrest for the trees. Yes, we want clarity, which is achieved through unimodal particle distribution, and so we think in terms of pushing that unimodality as far as it can go. But in practice, having some fines do still matter to balancing the cup and producing a grinder's unique profile. So I think these results mostly tell us that each burrset has its own uniqueness from its specific particle distribution, and that you can't just sift fines on another grinder to add up to another grinder. The more a burr already makes a good cup on its own, the more likely that interfering with its particle distribution may make the end cup worse.
+1 to the sound engineer - keep the moody suspensy sound track
Thanks Lance. I’ve wanted to learn more about sifting and the common sizes of fines and their effect on the whole cup. This is a great start.
I could imagine the fines from different coffees having different effects with different brew methods. Sounds like a never ending research possibility. Then do it all again the following year with the next season’s crops.
1:48 cute little trolley car on the fines peak :)
choo choo all aboard
love this. i started sifting directly due to the porlex being my only option. in my experience, the answer to this thumbnail is yes. it's night and day. upgraded hand grinders slowly over time and ended up needing to sift less and less
in my opinion, if you're paying attention to exactly how much you need to get out, it's fairly surefire that you're getting a better cup until you get to a really good/expensive unimodally accurate grinder.
one thing that should be addressed too is that sifting out fines over time creates a lot of waste - stacked over years is an absurd amount of money wasted on coffee, therefore investing in a good grinder actually saves you money/coffee
I cover the catch cup of the grinder with a stainless lid and shake that for like 20s. Tiny fines stick to the lid and other fines end up stuck to the bottom of the cup. When put into the brewer, fines end up on the top and shaking rounds the particles as was discussed in some previous videos
I started filtering fines years ago and it has been the single most impactful change to brewing consistently. I don't use any kind of sifting device to achieve it though. My grinder is a $75 Oxo conical with worn out teeth.
This does explain why I had to drastically change up my Aeropress recipes going from Ode to ZP6, thanks!
So I ordered that same sieve so that I can try myself what kind of difference if any it makes for my cups. I've always been really happy with my coffee but I love trying new things.
I have more grinders than I can justify [my wife recently discovered how many I have ... oops] - so I have a variety of grinders I can test this with.
I do have the Kruve sieves but I mostly used them just to get an idea of what my grind settings are roughly producing for boulders but I've found them tedious to use in my actual coffee making process.
That said - I wasn't aware of the Pietro - that grinder looks amazing. I've been looking for a good flat burr grinder that's quiet for my office at work.
Thank you, Lance, for everything that you do - I really appreciate your content.
The sudden goofy moments in your videos are what makes these so enjoyable to watch. Never change Lance, you are the best!
Will coffee made with a yellow V60 taste the same as the one made with a dark brown V60, though?
Thanks for yet another very thought provoking video Lance, and your new short hair cut looks great.
Editing quality is unreal, thanks for this one cheers
Agree with everything. Would be interesting to see using two size sifts and adding them together
That's actually a great and very informative video, thanks Lance!
This whole experiment was so exquisitely conducted in the most scientific methodology, I just loved the rigorous testing and interpretation. One really small nit picking observation, the graphs had a blue line and a purple line (I think?)…. quite difficult to distinguish between them if you are partially colour blind like myself 😊…. Otherwise, a perfect piece as always!
balance of fines and coarse - right! But I am missing the reflection on using different grades of baked beans. When beans are dark, you have more oil at the surface of the bean and that makes a huge different in grinding too, not only in flavor per se of darker beans.
First off - great video well put together. I especially loved the soundtrack on this one. It brought an Ex Machina vibe which was unexpected. But my question is I feel that you should follow your own advice!: if your brew tastes hollow then grind finer, or increase time or ratio. Each set of grinds (sifted, unsifted) needs to be dialled in rather than just matched in terms of peaks. It may be that you did this but wanted to check. Thank you!
i use kruve 500/1300 and Hg-2 because i think Hg-2 make many fines so i shifted and pour fine right after last pour. in my experience it reduce emptyniss and fines are captured by large particle .Recently, I'm wondering if large particles(1300+) go bottom will increase the extraction in the cone filter by make more flow to extraction shadow area(bottom part) , or if placing large particles on the top ( typical cone filter extract more in upper position and it increase the extraction of large particles) will have a better effect on the taste or mixing(with magic tumbler) and then adding it will give a better experience.
I want you to take a look at this, too. In the case of tricolate, non-bypass brewers require a large amount of beans. In Korea, people who could not purchase that kind of dripper due to cost problems tried to make a similar effect with an aeropresso. The same effect can be achieved in small amounts of bean. I'm curious about your opinion on this. ruclips.net/video/l-MwK8Z0Db8/видео.html
Personally enjoy my brews more with the fines knocker included with my 078s. I find I get a hollow brew with harsher acidity when I don't include what is in the fines knocker.
Just yesterday I "filtered" my ground coffee (grinded in a Varia VS3) with kitchen paper (I let the fines get caught in the relief of the paper), and I liked the result in the V60.
This video's editing had kinda artistic vibe to it with the music and a lot of B-roll footage and I definitely liked that.
So, whenever Lance shows another piece of beautiful coffee gear I will repeat these DEVO Freedom of choice lyrics
'Don't be tricked by what you see
You got two ways to go'
'Then if you got it you don't want it
Seems to be the rule of thumb'
Since we're already here, what about regrinding? Maybe the better option to make cheap grinders better?
Amazing work, thank you for your hard and methodical work! Coffee world is better thanks to you!
I just came here to see you flex while explaining grind particle distribution!! 😂 Another great video, Lance!
I know villager in brooklyn sieves the fines from their EK43. I've only been once, but it was interesting to see their take on it. I personally dont ever sieve because I have a ZP6 and enjoy the balance like you said.
On my Fellow Ode with SSP MP burs I tried sifting, and what I got were very hollow cups, almost no body "clean" but also bitter on some coffees.
The coolest thing I've noticed was the flow of water through the bed, it was so smooth and consistent. So my takeaway was to try and improve that flow through other means, and that's where the Sibarist booster came into play and elevated my cups.
This is not an ad, I swear 😅
I use use the Sibarist booster came away with 3 extra inches - not an ad, I swear
This is super cool. Given how quickly fines extract, I think I might play around with tossing the bloom water now…
The portion of the coffee beans that turn into fines have a different charateristic to the portion that are near the target particle size. I'm guessing it would be more the porous, perhaps darker roasted beans or part of the bean, with a higher tendency to crumble. So it's not surprising that removing these will remove some of the depth of flavour.
Ace video Lance. Loving the diagrams and video effects, definately helps with understanding the concepts you're trying to get across.
Spanish, I love it!!!! More videos like this, please.
If you can manage to nail this you end up with a phenomenal Coffee
15:32 Answer: No, not really.
To the ones that do post: "The sound around 9:40 onwards is very nice, keep up the great work folks!"
Do you know the name of the tune?
I did this for months by hand with a tea strainer. Very laborious. Great coffee. Couldn’t keep it up.
Fantastic video. One small note but around the 11 minute mark you show particle sizes and the colors are very similar. As a color blind person it is borderline impossible for me to differentiate them.
Love this look mate.. look like an absolute geezer!
OMFG I totally missread the title and was thinking "huh when did our coffee stan start making videos about dating apps". The universe is telling me that I need to start looking at reading glasses 😵💫
Super das das Video auf Deutsch ist. Besten Dank
I wonder if some of the hollowness of the sifted cups could be lessened by using a finer grind relative to the unsifted cups. So, the nominal peak would be finer on the sifted cup. Or is it that even if you "dial in" the sifted version separately, you'll still get the hollowness? Cool to see these tests!
Hey lance after like 1 year of waiting my friend finally managed to bring some Konos to me all the way from japan to Brazil. Loving them, especially the small blue one.
I live in Japan and 1 of the best coffees I ever roasted was a Brazilian Santos. Omg it tasted like I added cherry flavoring.
I'll trade with you. Seriously... let me know.
A good dose of science and coffee. I’m here for it bro
Sifting grounds on cheap grinders was always wierd for me, especially if you already spend on good coffee. You save money on a one-time purchase on the grinder, only to have a recurring increase in cost from sifting out fines and thus needing more beans for a dose. Like, it just makes sense to spend a bit bigger for the one-time purchase, which will help you get the most out of each gram of the recurring purchase. It pays for itself eventually.
You’re looking great, Lance! 💪
If you ever decide to do a follow-up, I'd love to see a comparison of the Pietro Multipurpose Burrs vs. the Pro Brew where you sift, then gradually re-introduce the fines (e.g. Pietro MP with 10% fines reduction, 20% fines reduction, 30%, etc.). At what point does the "hollowness" go away? What else changes as a greater percentage of fines is added back into the brew? Thanks for the video!
Here’s my question: could I use my fines to figure out if my grinder blades are dull? I.e., should be replaced?. Could I maybe test every hundred cups (or once a month - easier to track) ? Or, based on what you’ve learned from your porlex, do the cups degrade (flavor-wise) with age? Is a new porlex much better than an old one? I guess using a porlex it would take less time to see how much/little dull blades affect flavor.
This is great! Fascinating and highly illuminating.
Your best video yet... I am sure!
I love this! I love, love, love this! I love coffee! Love it! This is awesome! Coffee is awesome!
A couple of questions come to mind.
1. Are the particles clinging to a dosing cup or left in the grinder mostly fines and should you avoid trying to get to zero retention by knocking or using a baffle?
2. What would happen if you grind very coarsely on a hand grinder and then grind them again at your desired setting relative to particle distribution and fines?
Trying some areopress stuff out and i simply used my hand air blower thingo to blow away some chaff...also a lot of fines went away and i was left with more consistent grinds, I think I lost
How about sieving the grinds from a budget grinder into several sieves of different mesh sizes, and re-create a particular PSD curve of another grinder?
I was hoping you'd break out the SG-1 for this
Made it through it all, very informative........I'd like to see a few grinders cheap medium hand or powered, with wetted/misted beans for pour over, rather than espresso and see if there are improvements in any way. My bias is towards yes, for it seems to have helped my cheapo, and "good enough" burr grinders. power of suggestion, subjective, fact or fiction? Hollow is a great descriptor. I have ground a fresh espresso roast from a roaster that is quite in my cheapo cordless grinder then in a nicer burr grinder. both ways I for some reason have a soulless meh hollow cup.
This was a really awesome video. I love the results and the testing. One critique, the thumbnail came off as pretty clickbaity. Overall, great work Lance!
Is no one commenting on how much weight Lance lost! Good for him!
Should’ve matched the extraction instead of the nominal peak size. The former is what translates to the target experience of a good cup, not the latter. With my Chestnut C2 I have to go espresso-fine in order to see the benefits of the sifting. I do lose 24% of the grounds to sub-250 micron fines, which I do use for Turkish or whacky filter experiments, but it is a pain to grind that fine with a grinder meant for filter. The sifting is aggravating too.
That's your opinion.
How do you feel about pre breaking beans without an auger? I’ve used an espresso tamper and a bowl to crack beans lightly and remove chaff intact and do it a lot for washed coffees. Have you tried that before to see if it helps with more “uniform” grinding?
Thanks, Lance that was… fine 😂
I would be curious as to what the ideal ratio of fines would be for a bimodal distribution. 1%, 5%, 10%? I wonder if you could isolate fines and unimodal grind and then combine them at different ratios to see what the ideal combination could be.
just a thought after watching your video, what if you created a ratio for particle size? using multiple sifts and controlling the ratio to brew coffee. seems interesting.
Every video needs more scott stapp impressions
What's up with a slow feed vs non slow feed blind tasting for the pro brew burrs?
Thinking of purchasing a specialty coffee subscription. Have any unbiased or affiliated suggestions and tips?
Why Lance looking more like the gigachad each video??
Lance, I commented on your previous video, but do you think blind shakers work partly by causing electrostatic interactions between the ultra fines and sides of container? I notice my catch cup get coated with coffee dust whenever I do gentle shaking after grinding
For a second at the end I thought you’re going to forget to wish us to brew something tasty, phew!
Does the coated and un-coated Pietro grinder has any difference on grind quality and taste?
I see the pro brew burr has a light and kind of silver color to multi purpose burr. Is pro brew be the un final production that you said in other Pietro video?
great production on this one!
I'd be curious to try sifting out as many fines as possible and adding some back in to mimic different burr profiles. Could I get a profile similar to SSP's unimodal burrs with SSP's lab sweets via sifting and adding some of the fines back?
Wished for a lido og this Christmas, am I going to have a $25000 grinder? Time to watch the video
The outro 😂
Poor Hugo that have to go through
Was there no comparison to slow feeding the lower quality grinder at a larger grind size?
Hey Lance, will you tell me the brand of your turquoise dosing tray?
Do you have a recommendation for a travel grinder to upgrade from my trusty porlex? Looking for something that’s the same form factor. Thanks.
1zpresso q2.
1zpresso q2.
It’s not a ‘theory’. It’s a hypothesis. That said, if you’re using a motorized grinder the easiest trick to getting better espresso is slow-feeding your beans. Get the grinder started, and then begin feeding the beans in. You don’t have to go nuts with this, take about 5-6 seconds to feed them in. Makes a huge difference in consistency of grind
Lol you realize i made a video on slow feeding like a year ago
@ yeah… and I was already doing it many months before you made that video. More for motor preservation than anything, but I couldn’t help but notice I was getting consistently good results in the cup.
I was listening to that song while watching, haha
I've tried sifting. Tastes empty. I liked sifting and adding before last pour because it prevents clogging. But too much hustle for the result. Just grinding a bit courser also does the job. Thus, sifting is just too much annoyance for me in the process of enjoying the making and drinking of coffee.
Fines, in my pour over? It's more likely than you think. Free grind size check!