hperry wrote:Although they have listed a couple of espresso grinders that require as much as 200 to 500 turns which I'm guessing might take a bit more than a minute.

Yeah. Mine takes ~300 turns for 14 grams. Turns real easy, though. The way I see it, it keeps me from drinking too many shots back to back because I really need to commit to each one.

As far as getting ground coffee from the drawer to the filter basket, I find that a canning funnel works great - with a 58mm basket. I've already posted the following pictures elsewhere on HB, but if anyone hasn't seen them, here they are again. The funnel is a Norpro that I picked up from Amazon for $7.99. If you're using a smaller filter basket, I've got a solution for that too (just let me know) - I've been using one for my La Pavoni that works great.

Someone mentioned that another HB'er had discussed using a canning funnel before I (previously) posted the following pictures. I'd like to say that great minds think alike, but it's more a case of many people having a "duh" moment - it's an obvious solution... and it works great.


The next picture was taken after I dumped the coffee from the drawer into the funnel.


The next picture was taken after I picked up the filter basket and funnel, as one, and swirled them around in a circular fashion. All the coffee fell neatly into the basket.


The final picture was taken after removing the funnel. I've not leveled the coffee. Next I just tamped and pulled a tasty shot.

I use a cut-of yoghurt cup, and an old hotel room key (GVDub, tell me you don't have a coupla dozen of those around somewhere! ; > ) over the drawer to keep the exit hole small enough to hit a yoghurt cup.
It also makes a great leveling tool!

Psyd wrote:I use a cut-of yoghurt cup, and an old hotel room key (GVDub, tell me you don't have a coupla dozen of those around somewhere! ; > ) over the drawer to keep the exit hole small enough to hit a yoghurt cup.
It also makes a great leveling tool!

My wife usually goes through my pockets for hotel keys and sends them back. I'm not much on the road these days, so the opportunities for collecting keys (or hurled panties) are limited.

The scraper/scooper/doser thing is working out real nicely, though. Highly recommended. it would look to be a generally handy kitchen item to boot, especially for things like scooping up chopped onions and the like to transport to a hot pan. Since I'm not a fan of onion-flavored coffee, I'll be picking up a couple of spares for general use.

GVDub wrote:The scraper/scooper/doser thing is working out real nicely, though. Highly recommended. it would look to be a generally handy kitchen item to boot, especially for things like scooping up chopped onions and the like to transport to a hot pan. Since I'm not a fan of onion-flavored coffee, I'll be picking up a couple of spares for general use.

Amazing, isn't it what excites a grown man. Still, hardly a substitute for hurled panties.
I put some little rubber stick on "feet" on the bottom of my PeDe, so when I tap the grinder down lightly to shake down loose grind, it does it quietly.

I like the look of the canning funnel - might have to fit one to my doserless grinder mod!

(A tip to anyone in the UK / outside the US - you might find that searching for "canning funnel" gets you lots of US hits, which are too expensive. Search "jam funnel" or "preserving funnel" instead, and the UK sites show up)

(another tip - phone up your local cookware store - they're cheaper than buying these things online!)

The funnel that comes with the Aeropress works for this too.

having purchased a Zass about a month ago and having ground 4 doubles a day since then I have noticed that the adjustment screw is very sensitive and affects not only the grind size but the grind time as well. If fresh beans are taking 1 min to grind a double then week old (I still keep them vacuumed) will take approx 1.5 min with the finer grind setting. I really love this little workhorse though. The maximum adjustment I make from day to day is no more than 1/16 of a turn I'd guess.

I just did a test with 2 speeds of grinding. First I ground with a speed of about 2 rotations per second. This took exactly 150 rotations to grind a double shot. Second, I ground with a quicker pace of about 3 rotations per second. This took 175 rotations to grind my double. So even though a slower pace grinds with less rotations it still takes longer overall than the faster pace with more rotations to grind the same amount of beans. 75 seconds vs 58 seconds. Somewhere in between there's probably a sweet spot.