A decade in trade espresso grinding.
Over the last years, grinders have changed for the better. In food-service, we had the evolution of the K30, the first decent grind on-demand grinder. This machine was a revolution, to the espresso and coffee world. I grabbed the first one in the country, from a stand (post-show and yes, of course, we paid!). The thing that amazed me most was the fact that no one else was raving about this idea of grinding as you go. Even then, I could see this was the future. Please note, the link was not to the original!
Over the next 8 years or so, Mahlkonig (king of grinders and manufacturer of the K30) kept on making almost the same grinder. In this time the Mythos became the specialty coffee grinder of choice, for many. They had ironed out some of the K30 issues and improved some parts of the grind on-demand (G-O-D) model. Also, there was a degree of snobbery (surely not in the coffee world?!!). Mahlkonig retaliated too little too late and the King was not really worthy of the throne until about 2 years ago. The E65 and the Anfim Pratica launched. These grinders are great, affordable coffee shop grinders. If you are running 6-15Kg per week. Both have their place and are very similar. The game was back on. Once the imperfections had been ironed out, these grinders were and still are great “standard” grinders and they repay their investment very quickly. We like this!
As we hit lock-down, the long-awaited specialty, upgraded grinders missed their launch. First of all, Mahlkonig launched the “Grind by weight”.This is a great idea as one of the biggest issues every grinder has is the consistency of dose. If your shot is 1g out it can make sizeable changes to your brew. So, you can have a dose that is between .1g and .2g accuracy. This is fine, however, it takes 7 seconds every time you grind, which is like a 2-minute tyre change in a formula 1 race these days. This neatly leads me on to the E80 Supreme. This grinder is rated to be able to grind 90Kgs a day. Yes, that’s mad and also 5300 shots based on a 17g dose. This is mind-boggling maths. It would be something like grinding a shot every 6 seconds over the course of a 10 hours shift. I am sure I have a few clients that would like that queue more than others!
The consistency of the E80 is incredible, however now grinding is this quick, we have to adjust what we do with the extra few seconds.
I have added a mini video to show how fast and accurate this is.