Excessive Fines w/ KitchenAid Proline Burr Grinder

#1: Post by **SonVolt** » September 16th, 2015, 9:19 am

Used exclusively for drip. With a 20 gram dose I'm routinely losing ~5 grams of fines through the sieve. That's 25% of the dose lost down the trash. Are excessive fines just the unfortunate nature of this grinder? Is there anything I can do to help prevent this? I've read about the Mazzer burr upgrade, but I'm not using this grinder for Espresso so I'm not sure if that will help.

#2: Post by **Shife** » September 16th, 2015, 10:19 am

Did you sell your Forte? If not, sell that KA and put the Forte on brew duty. That would be my solution.

September 16th, 2015, 10:36 am

The Forte is at home and my wife would leave me if I took it away from her. When I got the Ceado it moved the Forte to drip duty and demoted the KA to my grinder at work. I love the aesthetics and industrial look of the KA so I hate to get rid of it. I was just hoping there was something that could be done to improve it. The grind consistence is not too bad once you filter out the fines. I'm just getting a ridiculous amount of them....

#4: Post by **Shife** » September 16th, 2015, 11:20 am

I guess it would depend on how tight the shaft tolerance is and if there is any way to increase the parallelism of the burrs. It may be easier to pick up a Lido 3. I'm looking at picking one up to replace the lowly Porlex Mini I use at work.

September 16th, 2015, 11:26 am

The people at work already think I'm running a meth lab. If I threw in a hand-cranked grinder I'd probably be escorted off the property.

September 16th, 2015, 12:05 pm

If you want a project, then there is the Mazzer Mini burr conversion ...

For less of a project, use a small triangular file and sharpen your existing burrs. It won't work miracles, but it should help.

(I used to have a Rosco/Rossa HC setup at work but it proved to be a bit much among other staff. Also, like you, my Aeropress aroused some comment. Now I have an Espro Press and a Lido2 on my desk and nobody says anything. I think that if it looks 'right' - like stainless steel does - then it will be accepted. I am thinking of testing my hypothesis by bringing in the Silvia.)

#7: Post by **yakster** » September 16th, 2015, 12:23 pm

The nice think about the Lido hand grinders is that it fits in a drawer with all my other numerous coffee gear at work.

#8: Post by **wsfarrell** » September 16th, 2015, 2:10 pm

Lido is a good idea. My Lido 1 is putting out .2g of fines per 20g dose. 5g in 20 is really huge.

#9: Post by **aecletec** » September 16th, 2015, 5:49 pm

Do you have access to a microwave? I have tried heating my grinds prior to grinding for brew and it seems to reduce fines visually as well as speed pourover times. If it works, sure would be cheaper than dropping more cash on another grinder!
Some suggest the ghost teeth burrs also produce fewer fines? I don't know where one would buy them but your grinder reminded me of the popular models which use them...

#10: Post by **Bill33525** » September 16th, 2015, 7:14 pm

Any chance you are grinding too fine. Some grinder profiles show more fines as the grind is tightened.
Curious what size sieve you are using?