Ground coffee temperature

Grinders are one of the keys to exceptional espresso. Discuss them here.
bongani
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#1: Post by bongani »

It's common knowledge that coffee gets warmed up during grinding and the taste thereof gets altered. Depending on the burr speed, there's a varying degree of heat imparted to the coffee by the burrs.

My question to all is, the Mythos Clima Pro heats up the burr chamber and hopper and holds the temperature as long as it's ON. How does the Mythos manage to churn out 'exceptional coffee' with warm beans and a run of the mill grinder only pulls 'satisfactory' coffee after warming the burrs during the grind?

Is it perhaps the sudden temperature rise that works against the run of the mill grinder? All parameters being equal, if one warmed beans before grinding, are there chances of equalling the Mythos?

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Terranova
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#2: Post by Terranova »

bongani wrote:It's common knowledge that coffee gets warmed up during grinding and the taste thereof gets altered. Depending on the burr speed, there's a varying degree of heat imparted to the coffee by the burrs.
Is it effecting the taste ? Do you know any faster spinning grinder than the EK43 with 1400 RPM, their new model EK43 Barista which comes out next spring will grind till up to 1800 RPM, so is it common knowledge that they both perform bad because of the grind speed and ground coffee temperature which is pretty high and above 40 degrees C ?
Or can it be that it is more some kind of "clever" marketing by some italian grinder manufacturer from last century and some hand grinder makers ?
bongani wrote: My question to all is, the Mythos Clima Pro heats up the burr chamber and hopper and holds the temperature as long as it's ON. How does the Mythos manage to churn out 'exceptional coffee' with warm beans and a run of the mill grinder only pulls 'satisfactory' coffee after warming the burrs during the grind?
Like I mentioned above, the ground coffee temperature till a certain range doesn't have a negative impact on taste, just because people or some manufacturer repeating these things again and again, doesn't make it true.
You will get this "burned" ground coffee from some blade grinders or some $100 grinders for sure, but that is another story.
The Mythos Pro performes also good without warming the burrs and grind chamber, the reason why the heated parts were adapted is because of consistency.
When grinding large amounts of beans durind busy periods a "normal" grinder will heat up, this effects the grind profile / amount of fines and therefore the flow rate is changing, thus the grind setting has to be adjusted finer and finer during the day.
To avoid this counterproductive workflow the heating elements have been invented for the Clima Pro to work through the day without readjusting the grind setting and compensating the lower amount of fines when the burrs and chamber are getting "hot".

bongani wrote: All parameters being equal, if one warmed beans before grinding, are there chances of equalling the Mythos?
Yes, absolutely. (if you don't keep them warm for ages)
It will perform pretty consistent through the day in a busy bar.
Also fines will stay in the same range if the temperature is kept equally, the warmer the beans (again till a certain range) the less fines will be produced.
It is like breaking a warm spaghetti and a cold one, the colder one will break in much more pieces than the warm one.
Less fines doesn't automatically mean better taste, most grinder manufacturer these days are paying more attention to the worries of the baristas, cupping champions and freaks like that.
Their biggest worry are the boulders which are having a much bigger impact on taste because of underextraction of these bigger particles.

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bostonbuzz
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#3: Post by bostonbuzz »

I don't know what temp the mythos keeps its burrs, but pro baristas like the mythos for one reason CONSISTENCY. It can put out a consistent amount of coffee and has less retention than other commercial grinders (mazzer designs). The other factor is that as grinders heat up in a shop during a busy time, the grind setting seems to change and shots start flowing differently. When there is a line out the door, that's exactly the time that you DON'T want to be re-dialing in your coffee and fussing with the adjustment on the grinders. So heating up the burrs seems to be a way of solving this problem before it even happens - that is, the grinders are already at the setting for hot burrs and never need to be changed throughout the ebb and flow. I have NO IDEA if this is actually true in practice.

I *THINK* this is the real reason people care about temperature of burrs, and it morphed into people thinking that any increase in temperature is a bad thing. We are all aware of the sous vide coffee beans that were heated up to an exact temperature before being ground and turned out very well in competition.

(Side note) This sort of conflation/morphing of ideas also happened to the "twist" at the end of tamping. People started that because if your tamper is a little wet or the humidity is weird, then the puck can actually stick to the tamper when you lift it. Twisting it will prevent this from happening. A lot of people now talk about "polishing" the puck and spend considerable time twirling the tamper for absolutely no reason!
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yakster
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#4: Post by yakster »

Seems like the acceptance of the Mythos One Clima Pro grinder in the industry seems to disprove the old idea that the heat of grinding actually damages beans instead of changing how they extract. This would seem to be bad news for the Mazzer "Kold" grinder.
-Chris

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leozava
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#5: Post by leozava »

I never understood all the fuss about heat generated during grinding when you're grinding into a 200+ degree portafilter?? I've always wondered if I was missing something??

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aecletec
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#6: Post by aecletec »

The heat of the beans as they grind will change the way they break...after that it's unlikely a big deal.

bongani (original poster)
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#7: Post by bongani (original poster) »

I now think I understand the variables in warm unground beans and cold ones. I had forgotten Mazzer's Kold as I was mulling over the temperature issue.

It's unfortunate that hand pounded coffee is almost impossible to use for espresso shots. There's plenty Ethiopian folk in my neck of the woods that I join for the coffee ceremony and the coffee is almost always hand pounded.

To answer an unasked question, I'll hunt for someone with a Mazzer Kold and throw a comparison session. That will be easy to do.

On the table I can put a Super Caimano, Mythos Pro and Mazzer's Kold. For another variable I'll get good ol' pestle and mortar and two hand grinders.

Now, to convince a friend to let me babysit - grindersit?? - his Kold for a few days.

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bostonbuzz
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#8: Post by bostonbuzz »

This would seem to be bad news for the Mazzer "Kold" grinder.
Not necessarily. The opposite side of the mythos coin would be preventing things from getting hot in the first place. The motor gets hot and getting the burrs away from it has merit for sure. Of course the beans create heat when they are torn apart, but I don't know which is responsible for what % of the heat.
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