I just retrofitted my basic hand crank mill with a 10mm nut, and drove it with a drill. It’s so much faster now, but I do wonder if there’s actual properly motorized versions of what I just did.
Like this. I’m running it through a variable frequency drive to limit the revs
Dave smash coffee big rock
I could not tell the difference between pre-ground and home ground coffee. I am happy with not having a discriminating palate, since pre-ground is easier.
With dark roast I haven’t found much difference either.
With a local medium roast, I don’t know if it was the beans, but I was able to get a pleasant fruity acidity out of my brew that I haven’t been able to find with supermarket medium roast grounds.
Shit i gotta try this with weed
I’m using a Breville Smart Grinder Pro that I modified to be single dose. I just ordered a DF64 Gen 2, but it hasn’t arrived yet.
Enjoy the DF64 😃
Thanks, I’m looking forward to it! But also a little nervous that I won’t be able to tell the difference. 😅
It’s a flat burr grinder, you definitely will. Do you know about aligning it or whatever?
The vendor (df64coffee.com) say they align the burrs. Would they need further alignment?
They should be aligned then, but it could be tested with the dry-erase marker test. I will link the process, butI want to give you some general need to knows.
For reference, I have the first Gen one.
- Whenever you remove the adjuster top. (The thing you turn to adjust the grind. When you loosen it all the way.)
a. Use a dry-erase marker and mark somewhere on the top burr section so you can put it exactly the way it was. (Before you lift it up). Not marking it is a good way to mess with alignment because it is only aligned one specific orientation.
b. The threads are very fine. So make sure to be careful not to crossthread them when you screw it back on. Whether you are removing it to clean or whatever.
- You will want to zero out the grinder. To do this, first thing before you put grounds in. Or when it is completely cleaned out. With the power off and unplugged, tighten the adjuster gently until the burrs touch. You tighten and turn the burrs by hand, I believe clockwise, keep doing it until you hear and feel that the burrs are touching. Then take the grinder setting pointer thing and orient it where zero is.
This is the marker test: https://youtu.be/mIugzsjzEUI
Thanks very much for that, I really appreciate it! How have you found your DF64?
I absolutely love it. I also have a comandante C40 but cups from the DF64 are better.
I used to grind beans at home. But I just don’t care anymore. I just run them through the grinder at Costco.
I have a pair of Breville/Sage SmartGrinders (which I didn’t pay anywhere near list price for).
One for caff, one for decaff.
I love them, as once I’ve dialed in the grind size for a bean, and set the timer per shot to hit the correct weigh, I can just bonk the button with a portafilter, and get a correctly sized dose.
While I love experimenting with coffee, once the conclusion is reached, I like to nail down the process so I don’t need to think about it until the next bean change.
The 10-15 dollar grinder at Walmart or Target, I forgot which. Can’t tell any real difference between that and my wife’s burr grinder that is much larger.
Wnh not just buy an electric grinder at this point? People use hand grinders because they enjoy the process.
Good electric burr grinders are very expensive.
Not really. A Baratza Encore can be had for just over $100 and is perfectly fine for 99% of the coffee population that isn’t doing espresso.
Yeah, my partner bought me one for my birthday and it works great for my different coffee needs. My only gripe is that it’s loud as hell.
When I was choosing between entry level electric grinders, I was down to the Baratza Encore ESP and the Fellow Opus. One of the main reasons I chose the Opus is because it was so much quieter than the Encore.
And you can upgrade the burr in the Encore to the M2 found in their higher end grinders very easily. That’s what I did and it’s quality is top-notch
$100 for a kitchen implement that grinds coffee and does nothing else is more than a lot of people are willing to spend. I have one that was given to me and I really like it, but I wouldn’t pay that much any day of the week. If I had an extra hand grinder, I’d honestly probably do something like this for fun, because I already have these tools for work.
I understand. I hate single use tools. But if I am spending fairly decent money on beans, I want a tool to properly process them. A $20/200g bag of beans is wasted on a Skerton. Other than the beans, a good grinder is the single most important tool in making good coffee.
Also keep in mind that now it is possible to get a far better hand grinder than the Skerton for almost the same money. The Timemore C2, the 1Zpresso Q, Kingrinder K1, P1, and P2 are the same price or only $10 to $20 more than the Skerton and all produce far better grinds.
So are good burr hand grinders. My friend paid as much for his hand grinder as I did for my Breville electric burr grinder.
The Hario burr grinder in the OP is not on the same level. The one I had was about $40, and was so slow to grind that the drill was a gigantic upgrade. It cost me $.50 in parts to use with a drill I already had, which was great for college me. Cost was the deciding factor.
And yet the Skerton is still a terrible grinder. Not much better than a blade grinder. Too much boulders and dust. Grind uniformity is just plain bad.
I agree. Glad I got rid of it.
That’s cool then. I’m all for cost saving measures, especially for niche stuff like this which seems to always be overpriced.
Because i wanted an all metal burr grinder with no plastic in it at all
Hey! You’re not OP! Everybody, this guy is a big phoney!
I had that Harrio as my first grinder, it was alright but the adjustment of grind size was annoying and a single espresso shot took like 10 mins to hand-crank. Within a week I ordered a Eureka Mignon Chrono. Best decision.
Ive since retired my budget espresso machine because having no time to dedicate to upkeep ment it was constantly getting nasty and was just too much hassle, now I have found my happy medium with a chemex.
I’ve been using a LIDO 2 for a few years, but am considering the move to 1zpresso…
Other than possibly being easier to hold due to the smaller size of the 1zpresso, I wouldn’t expect much difference in grind quality between the Lido 2 and even the best 1zpresso
I can sift out about 10% fines with a typical Lido grind. Not inherently a bad thing, but I’m intrigued by the almost-zero-fines of the 1zpresso ZP6. A friend of mine has one, and said he did the same thing – was sifting daily with his other grinder, but decided to stop throwing away 10% of his coffee. :) Don’t get me wrong, the Lido is great and has served me well, and I wouldn’t even get rid of it. It’s just a different thing, going more unimodal.
So you motorized a burr grinder?
Larger amounts of coffee go in a Baratza Virtuoso, single cups go in my 1zpresso hand mill.
I can’t recommend a nice hand mill enough - a hario is fine as a starter grinder but a better mill will be immensely more consistent and much quicker.
I like Baratza for electric grinders, they’re a wonderful company. If anything breaks or you need support or parts they’re there for you.
I’ll add the obligatory note for anybody new to hand grinders — skip Hario and anything with ceramic burrs and go directly to steel burrs. Yes you’re jumping from $40 to $80 but they’ll last for many years instead of 6 months and you get consistent grind size. 1Zpresso and Timemore are the most recommended brands.
+1, my hario grinders were terrible for pour over, it was impossible to get a consistent grind out of either a skerton or a skerton pro. I wish I’d stepped up to a 1zpresso sooner. I tried aligning the burrs but never managed to eliminate fines and boulders in either of them, Hario seemed to have issues with the burr shaft being slightly out of true in both.
- The Skerton is a terrible grinder regardless of how you power it.
- You might be able to modify a good hand grinder in a like manner but good hand grinders take far less time to grind than a Skerton does. What takes 2 or 3 minutes in a Skerton takes less than a minute in a good 1Zpresso, Kinu, Timemore, Kingrinder or similar.
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The skerton was (is?) A good entry level grinder that will give you very decent results especially for immersion-type brews. It’s what I started on and what I still use for on the go use cases. I haven’t looked at entry level hand grinders in a while so I guess some developments have happened since I got mine. (Based on a comparison video from james hoffman at the time)
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God yes, I tried a friend’s 1zpresso and the difference in both grind speed and effort is noticable.
- Not sure it was ever a good entry level grinder. 20 years ago it was pretty much the only entry level burr hand grinder that wasn’t an old school box style. That was before the Pro version which is sold now that uses many of the modifications that users created to try to make the Skerton perform better. I had one for years and it almost drove me out of home grinding. Luckily better hand grinders came along which while more expensive were substantially better. Now we are in a golden era for good hand grinders at very accessible prices.
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Timemore C3 Pro. Fits perfectly with a 2 cup Bialetti for a ~250 mL americano.
