Anyone ever look at ground coffee under a microscope?

[rfc]

Here's one for all you techies wanting to take a break from E61 thermodynamics.

What is it about a good grinder that makes such a difference? Is it the size of the particles? The shape? The distribution in size?

Any geologists out there ever seive ground coffee in order to plot the particle size distribution?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[another_jim]

Funny you should ask.

Greg Scace gave Andy Schecter and me the heads up on a semi-toy usb microscope, the QX5, once distributed by Intel, that may serve very well. Nist types use it for preliminary peeks, so one can be sure it will work.

Since the images can be loaded into an editor, one can survey the particle size distributions, superimpose different grinder's grinds, and do other potentially informative stuff, like fitting the particle distriutions and edges to fractal generator patterns.

Andy has one, and I'll probably order one, since it's a cheap thrill (especially compared to a Versalab grinder). I've got a small collection of grinders, as well as old and new burrs for some. So in about 6 weeks, if it works, I should have something interesting or scandalous ( i.e. no difference at all between adequate grinders).

[miKe mcKoffee]

I've checked grinds out with a 10x jewelers loop but not a microscope. Pecan Jim (from Sweet Maria's email chat list) built a set of sieves to test grinds a while back. A bunch of use sent him ground coffee to compare different grinders.

[another_jim]

I've checked grinds out with a 10x jewelers loop but not a microscope. Pecan Jim (from Sweet Maria's email chat list) built a set of sieves to test grinds a while back. A bunch of use sent him ground coffee to compare different grinders.

Turns out the odd results he got may be an artifact. The new Illy edition says graduated sieves were used in big coffee plants in the past to check grinders (it's mentioned in Sivetz's coffee technology, and Jim based his work on that reference), but that they gave up on it in the 80s when it was shown not to deliver consistent results. There's fancy laser systems, or using a microscope with a grind to do a survey of particle sizes.

If I ever get round to this project, a usb microscope is ideal, since one can photoshop the pics and perhaps come up with a filter that makes the grind differences easy to see.