So, I am looking at the video thread on how you pull your shots and technique and noticed that almost all the grinders feature in the videos had no coffee beans on the hopper. Moreover, they had no grounded coffee left over on the grinder either. In other words, people seem to add enough beans to make enough grounds for a single shot. New guy observation...

Since I am in the process of buying a grinder now, I keep looking at some of the larger machines and see these huge hoppers on the top that can get as much as 1.5 Lb of beans in it, but since nobody seems to use them they appear as waste to me.

Is it that common to simply add enough beans to pull a shot each time you grind? I presume you maintain your beans in a sealed container elsewhere? What would be the longest you would leave beans or ground extra coffee sitting on the grinder's hopper before use? I am looking at pulling 4-6 shots/day (1-2 early in the AM before work and a few later in the afternoon/evening), so minimizing the routine steps would be nice. I don't want to do it at the expense of considerably altering the taste. Any particular type of coffee seem to do better or worse by leaving them out for a few hr?

There is a lot of debate here about the virtues and drawbacks with single dosing. It seems some grinders are better suited for single dosing (most notably the K-10 which is what I would buy if doing so now). I didn't like the look of my pours with the RoburE single dosed. I don't use a hopper though. I use a PVC pipe fitted to the throat and only use a couple of inches which I top off as I pull shots. My waste is in the order of a couple of grams a day but that is worth the increase in consistency. When I single dosed, my waste was near zero but consistency suffered.

Jim claims he can single dose his K-10 with consistency, and I believe him since I've tasted his impeccable shots. I can't seem to make my Robur work as well. It's ok, but that's not why we're here. We all want the best and for that, I can waste a few grams a day.

I don't use a hopper because I freeze a lot. For that, I use Ball jars and pull them out as needed. With so little left in my PVC at the end of each day, I don't worry about the beans going bad.

Here's what I did:

I buy around 2 lbs of beans at a time from various roasters (this lasts me about 2-3 weeks, 2 21 g doubles a day) and pour about 1/2 to 1 pound in my big K30 hopper at a time. I store the rest in a vacuum sealed container in my bar fridge until I run out in the hopper. I started out weighing beans and keeping less in the hopper but I didn't taste any difference in the final product as with just leaving more in the hopper. The K30 leaves a little in the chute as well but I don't even purge it out after letting it sit in there even overnight. The taste is still wonderful and my routine is fast and efficient.

Alberto, you've probably seen by now that the big grinders you often see were originally designed for commercial use, and the huge hoppers are appropriate in that environment where a several pounds of coffee vanish quickly into a long line of lattes, and where multiple grinders handle the various options for decaf, coarser pour-over grinding and so forth.

But these big grinders, often with big conical burrs and slower motors, not only handle higher volumes, but in general provide better and more consistent grinding than the smaller units. So, there's an entire cult of home baristas who try to gain these advantages by taming big commercial units for home use, some via straightforward hopper-ectomies, others by adding or subtracting other components (e.g. the Schectermatic Schnozzola) or progressively intricate or complex modifications.

And some "Titan" grinders are more adaptable than others, as evidenced by the replies from Mitch, Derek Chris above and others. You will find many other threads here on the subject (check the "Grinder" area). I recently went through one such project based on a Macap M7K for example, and posted some text and pictures about the process which can give you an idea of at least some of possibilities that exist.

Thanks so much for the replies.

dgasmd wrote:So, I am looking at the video thread on how you pull your shots and technique and noticed that almost all the grinders feature in the videos had no coffee beans on the hopper. Moreover, they had no grounded coffee left over on the grinder either.

You haven't seen my technique video then

spiffdude wrote:You'll notice i'm jealous of Titan owners, it's not the cost of the machine, it's more that i'll never have enough brownie points to introduce such a monster in the kitchen

So do what I do - set up shop in the basement