Grinder and taste...
Here I want to share my experiences with the subject and I'll start with stating that this is the toughest subject to describe and investigate. And in terms of understanding the reasons behind the experiences it is well beyond explanation for now, really.

What we taste in the cup?
The green coffee is processed, then it is roasted, and then it is ground. Fresh coffee (fresh roasted, and fresh roasted and fresh ground) smells wonderfully; yet it smells different before being ground, during being ground and freshly ground. The differences are obvious and easy to smell. Then we brew the grinds and have a cup of coffee - my focus is espresso, so let me say we have a cup of espresso. Assuming we have flawless preparation of the grinds for brewing, what we taste is provided by the processed and roasted greens - that's the most, but the means to provide it - it is the grinder.

When I was reading the reviews of TGP first time, I was fond of machines and I was reading it with acceptance that bigger is naturally better and wasn't thinking twice about what I read. But then I became much more taste-aware, exploring the potential of the coffees I was having and became a little sceptical about the review. Mainly because of very satisfying results with my own setup - not passive satisfaction, but active one - active with the exploration of coffee's taste potential, and secondly because I noticed that tiny changes in brewing - like small doze changes, or flow stopping changes - gave significant changes to taste. So thinking logically I concluded that the review results could not be taken seriously considering the format they were made in - same dose, same time, temp, flow etc. for diferent grinders for comparing the taste they were providing. Yet, I must admit, that this approach makes sense too - the grinder treated as the means and checking its capability - but then, it would need to check every review run against different coffees. Otherwise, I thought, the results aren't telling much.

Then I got a hand grinder capable for grinding decently for espresso and I started my own observations on its taste versus my electric grinder. Then I got another one. But I didn't consider the results telling anything up to the moment then I got another two grinders of the same brand.

Here are my observations, in a bit summarized way.

First, I was right that matching up grinders and comparing the taste they provide on a certain given brewing parameters is not telling much. In fact, it doesn't correspond to the way we make espresso. We search for the best spot for certain beans. This is always in the frame of given equipment. Th grinder isn't transparent part of the setup - that is one main point the TGP reviews have demonstrated and this is my own experience. What I did was to find the brewing sweet spot for my coffees on my different grinders. My experience with different machines and the exploring of different beans taste potential was very helpful here for me to understand what I am really searching for.

Before I go to details, one more generall observation and then break.

Mostly the grinder affects nuances of taste, yet quite significant nuances and the differences are very detectable. As to the sweet spots, this is even more of nuances of brewing - when to stop the flow, taste specifics of stopping or letting shot go definitely belong to the grinder profile, and the subtle higher taste notes like woods, smokes, and the clarity of acids - highest picks citrus, juices - belong to the grinder. And over all, I would characterize grinders taste space as smoothness/sharpness, depth/flatness and messiness/cleanness.
Could be helpful to imagine this therms in relation to a picture and then translate it to espresso taste, if it doesn't at first sound familiar and adequate for your espresso taste experiences.

t.b.c.

As I said before, observation of grinder differences concludes in pointing out nuances of taste for given beans brewed after being ground on different grinders. I believe this is great observation but honestly, on its basis again it would be hard to tell anything about the grinders apart from one or another being perhaps better suited for some coffee and less for another, or that some notes of given coffees are lost on one and accentuated on another. After trying out many coffees for specific grinders comparison it would be possible to point out pluses and minuses of both. But that's quite practically impossible to do in real life!

But I did find (a bit accidentally) something else can be done!
It is actually to smell the grinder's differences!
How you practically do it?

For hand grinders you should smell the grinds while you're grinding them, you should sniff above the hopper, while opening it a bit. The grinder profile will pop up in your nose.
It may be difficult to point out from remote what we're searching to smell out, but if you have two different models of hand mills (really I mean two different brands, because in my case it is so that the mills I own are quite consistently in good shape) you can smell this way both of them and then if you notice the difference between them, then this is what makes the difference in taste - that is the difference in the mills taste profiles.
For electric grinders, you should remove the hopper and sniff right after you just stopped grinding. It is confirmed for Mazzers but I'm certain it will hold onto other brands as well.

This way of sniffing together with tasting the shots from the grinders is really giving away the grinder's profile, not just differences for certain coffees. I can't say if it tells the full picture, because I don't have possibility to compare my grinders to a grinder that is significantly inferior - I have the Mini and three working perfectly KyMs and a Mocca also working, though grinding on it for La Spaziale is at the border of its capability (it will never make a choke ) and a Zassenhaus which I didn't want to push (the Mocca has different bearing that makes it possible to push it to very tight settings while the Zass doesn't). I've come up with this after comparing among my mills family and a tiny bit outside. This is also how I came about with the grinders taste description (the smoothness/sharpness, depth/flatness and messiness/cleanness).

The differences showing up in this way of checking are all over the taste map, it shows the nuances in acids (these are most apparent at least to my nose), bitters, sweets, earthiness. I think the more experience the person doing the smelling has in tasting coffee, the more it will be able to tell.

For example my KyMs vs my Mazzer Mini taste smoother, a bit softer; more clean in higher acids but then loose on bitters and Mazzer gives fuller sweetness while being less clear in the higher notes and sharp. But it has advantage in the sweets (vs another electric) with being deeper-cut and not rounded-cut.
Then my Mocca vs my KyMs taste deeper overall, and its profile is more balanced, yet again the bitters are a bit less visible then in Mazzer while the rest stands as deeper too, though a bit lacking in body (it is logical - deeper in a sense means more 'inner space' of taste, then the body may easily be lacking if it is not cared specifically in the design). (But with all this depth of this Mocca's taste - it takes over 200 turn to grind a double... ) Then the KyM's body vs Mazzer's is drier in taste - in smell it is a bit shallow.

So this is what I wanted to share. I will be happy to hear others experience - please try this out and speak, most of you have more possibility because you have access to more equipment easily!

This is very interesting. I'm going to try some testing. Someone, not to mention any names, would probably say, "But did you do it blind?", which is a good question. But I don't think blind will actually be helpful because the tests you describe should be done over time with different coffees, brewing parameters etc.

I have bought the following hand grinders to test: An American Crystal Arcade, an American Wright, a British Spong, a Zass and another American Arcade that is the art deco style that has a ball behind the shaft as a bearing and looks promising but needs it's shaft repaired, which I will do soon. I also have a new lap Zass from Orphan, which I don't use much, but could compare to the above.

All are wall mounted grinders (maybe I can use them as coat hooks) and all work well. However, the Spong takes 3 times as many revolutions as the Arcade and the Arcade doesn't seem to go fine enough to choke the Peppina, and I'm not sure the Spong does either. The Spong was unused when I bought it and I suspect that it needs to be worked in for awhile to get better. I think that it's possible that the burrs on these machines are designed to grind together until they find and make a good fit with each other. I haven't tried the Zass, or Wright yet.

All that said, all of them seem to be more than adequate for drip coffee, and using a Clever Dripper, it is possible to easily test them against each other because I can weigh the coffee in, let the coffee steep for 3 minutes and taste along the way by lifting the edge of the filter in a bit to get a spoon of coffee out. Far less variables than with making espresso with a lever.

If I come up with anything interesting, I'll let you know. Right now I'm hoping the Zass or the art deco Arcade will give me a good espresso. Otherwise, I'll give away or sell most of them and just keep one for drip.

I have also been toying with the idea of retrofitting burrs into on one of these. The burrs on the Spong and the American grinders are not sharp and I don't think they ever were meant to be.

dan

Dan, thanks for the input. I'm looking forward to what you find.

I have one more note, and this is something which held back me selling the Mazzer Mini.

I found out pretty soon that WDT is completely useless with hand grinders. First I discovered I don't need to do it, then I did it once when I put the grinds to basket chaotic way - and it turned out devastating to the extraction. It doesn't even anything probably because with hand grinders particles size distribution is wider and because of stirring the finer ones go to the bottom while the gros remain - it makes mess, not in the usual sense of messy extraction, it looks different, but anyway - spoils the extraction and taste.

So after I put the add for selling Mini I started secondguessing myself and doing more tests. Because this boils down to: am I going to get a bigger electric grinder eventually or not? hand grinding is very nice, but it is in a way loosing a reference point - very stable, repetitive, confirmed quality... for the hand grinders I have give smoother taste, but then for example nice chocolate note from one beans is a bit missing - much subtler then in Mazzer, and it can differ from hand grinder to another hand grinder.

So the testing... I gave up doing WDT with Mazzer and that opened something too - if you think the puck preparation method doesn't mater, you would be wrong. Without the WDT - doing leveling with my small finger - first, I got excellent extraction (so looks like I was bicycling with safety wheels all the time... was doing the WDT though I didn't need it) and second, what was the messed brighter notes - disappered. So now the taste from Mazzer Mini is still bright and some notes are sharp, vs smoothness of the hand mills, but the chocolatey notes - that means some bitters - are more present and balanced over all in the profile.
Concluding, it's like I got more clear separation of flavours without WDT, and pointed out some lacks of hand mills - like some notes are too subtle in them.

So I hold selling the Mazzer because for me getting bigger electric grinder makes not much sense. Everything is there (I did check), the top-of-nuances belong to grinder but to human too.

My limited experience with grinders has led to some interesting findings so far.

My very first grinder used for espresso was a Breville BCG450XL. It was originally paired with a Le'Lit PL041. I never achieved creamy espresso, and flavors were never very clean. I modded the Breville to go finer and to try and create a more creamy espresso, but it never quite got to the tipping point many people talked about.

I upgraded to the Le'Lit PL53 and noticed right away the difference in texture. A much more smooth and creamy espresso shot was made with very distinct notes.

Now this is where my experience with grinders end. I've stuck with the PL53, and have been extremely happy with the shots I have been producing. I am extremely curious to see how a hand mill would differ in taste and body. I've already discovered the difference that is made from a pump espresso machine to a manual lever.

Now as far as WDT, this was a tremendous help when I was using the BCG450XL. My shots came out more even and tasted better, but once I moved to the PL53 things changed. If the coffee I was using wasn't dialed in correctly, WDT saved the shot, but once dialed in WDT seemed to make things worse. Less even notes. Just as Pawel said, perhaps that the fines settle at the bottom to make the extraction uneven.

I'm hoping I'll be able to bring more to this discussion once I get my hands on a Zas or something similar.

I think the main contributor to taste when it comes to grinders is the consistency.

Just a small consideration, I'm absolutely in love with espresso preparation And not really the preciseness, but all the little things that can come into play to create the perfect shot for the drinker.

Skunkie wrote: all the little things

Tara, that's the most stunning description of espresso preparation I have ever read!

Hi Skunkie,

Could you please tell me how did you modified the Breville to grind finer? I have one and I've been tried to do this a few times, but it doesn't seem to work...thanks.