orphanespresso wrote:Taiwan is 110 v. If you are serious about the ghost burrs you almost have to take the front cover off with a screwdriver and check...I have never seen the ghost burrs in one of these grinders and yes, they are in almost every cafe in Taiwan, that and the big one as well.

Doug did you notice grind differences between the big one and the little one?

Here are several pictures of the Jericho version of the Kalita Nice Cut (KNC), along with the Fuji Royal R220. Additionally, I also have some comparison pictures of the Kono "bumblebee" version of the Fuji Royal R220 with "ninja teeth", courtesy of Jano.

This Kalita Nice Cut is the 110V version from a long, long time ago, which probably speaks for the longevity of the grinder:




With the R220 side by side:


Dry grind of the KNC. Notice shaving like grind:


Dry grind of R220. Notice the more rounded grind:


Dry grind of the lowly Hario hand grinder Skerton. Of course, practically no residual.


The residual after grinding in the KNC. More residual compared to the R220:


Pretty much minimal residual in the R220:


KNC wet grind after three minutes of extraction using the Clever:


Similarly, with the R220:


Notice the "mud" with the Hario Skerton. Instead of using sieves, I have been just observing the mud atop the coffee cake. The shaking of sieves eventually produces more fines. Laser diffraction uses mathematical modeling and may not correlate. So here is my low tech way.


The outer burrs of various grinders. The bright yellow is the Kono version of the Fuji Royal R220, which also has a following in Asia.





The Feima 600N can be had with the "ghost teeth", at 110V, with a new model number called 610N.

Thanks for the photos and the info Henry. It looks like those strange burrs of the R220 produce a more uniform grind from what I see. Is that your impression?

That's true. If anyone has the Feima 600N kicking around (like me), it's just a matter of buying and installing the new burrs.

These grinders do last forever, though. I would get about 0.3g retention with mine. I don't use it anymore because I use hand grinders now.

I have a Kitchenaid Pro grinder that I use for brew. As has been mentioned this grinder appears to be basically identical to the Kitchenaid. Would the burrs from this grinder fit the Kitchenaid? If so, where can you buy just the burrs? Thanks.

I brought the Kitchen aid and there is no comparison to the cheap horrible inferior cutters of my kitchen aid and these Kalitas. I can tell just by looking at these pictures without having owned one that these chinese grinders have real burrs in them. They look symetrical and sharp. The other burrs (the knobs) look like they are specialized for drip.

The kitchen aid in contrast has rough looking cast (probably steel) metal burrs without any real cutting edge. Just one look at the kitchen aid burrs will give a quick impression that they are garbage, which is too bad since the rest of the grinder seemed to be well built.

To add insult to injury Kitchen aid apparently made their grinder hard to reconfigure to fit good quality cutters. The kitchen aid made great looking grounds until you squeezed a few of them between your fingers and watch the loads of dust fall as they partially crumbled without much effort.

Would this be one of the ones with the ghost burrs? Is there any way to actually be sure?

http://www.amazon.com/high-performance- ... al_qh_dp_t

I emailed the Amazon merchants yesterday and they indicated they did not have the burrs in question. I'm finding this an interesting challenge. I have emailed kalita and yang chia without response (admittedly in English). I had a Taiwanese friend who lives in the states call about the feima and my minimum order would be 48units. HKcoffee.com appears to sell the Feima 610n but my English emails haven't been returned. Still working on it...

From what I understand, there's two models of the Fuji Royal R220, a Standard model, and one for espresso. The Standard model comes with the Ghost Burrs. You might want to ask Henry about the Kono version as I can't find much information on it.

I'm wondering if I should make another thread about this, but perhaps it's a bit related.

My R220 (Ghost Burr) arrived today:





Long story short, this is currently my favorite brew grinder.

This is almost exactly like a Mini EK-43 as it shares some of its interesting quirks: the whole base moves when you turn it on, it creates the same mess that you get with an EK, and the hopper has a shut-off valve. The included catch cup DOES have static retention, but honestly that can be a good thing as it just collects fines and chaff.

Brewed around 30.2g of beans and around 29.5g came out, with the rest of the .6 .7g (mostly chaff and fines) stuck on the plastic catch up. The resulting brew was exceptionally smooth and clean, and tasted very similar to cups I make when I over-sift a tad. There are very little fines with this grinder and I was quite astonished to see it. Looks like I'll be putting in some of those caught fines next time.

Any chance of getting a photo of these "ghost burrs" ?
I really am confused as to exactly what we are referring to .
Thanks.