The Anfim Haus Self doserless burr grinder.
Every grinder involves a set of compromises. The general trend is that these compromises can be reduced in correlation to the amount of money forked over. Having gone through 6 or 7 grinders in the last year, I am all too aware of the pitfalls. Currently I have two grinders on the go, a Macap M4, which I use for espresso, and a Nuova Simonelli Grinta which picks up the slack when it comes to all other grinds. While the Grinta could also be used for espresso there were certain drawbacks which I felt necessitated a dedicated grinder. Clumping is probably primary among these drawbacks. Clumping, for those unfamiliar, generally affects fine espresso grinds, on flat-burr grinders. As the grinds are ejected from the burr chamber they adhere to each other in little balls. This is a problem as it creates an uneven density of grinds in the puck, which leads in turn to uneven extractions and channelling. Of course there are ways to alleviate this effect (such as the Weiss Distribution Technique), but I was unhappy with having to introduce this extra step. So I bought the Macap which has a doser that conveniently breaks up any clumps prior to entering the portafilter. Another issue with the Grinta is grind retention in the region between the burr chamber and the exit chute. This leads to unnecessary waste, having to grind several grams through the grinder if there is more than a couple of minutes between shots (to avoid stale grinds). To a greater or lesser extent this is a problem with nearly every grinder. (more…)
