Planned purchase:
Looking to add (not really replace) to my grinder collection for single dosing and trying out new coffees for espresso. Planning on getting the tried and true EK43s. The benefit of improving my pourovers is a nice plus. I love that its been stress tested by almost every cafe in the world and have been delivering great results for a long time. With all the new grinders hitting the market - Ceado Hero, Flat Max, Mazzer ZM, just want to take a pulse of what's in the plans for the rest of you looking for an "end game" grinder (that will be surpassed by the next end game grinder a year from now). Looks like the ZM is available currently at Prima and WLL should have the Hero soon.

Thanks.

Current setup:
K30 for on demand grinding
Kinu m47 for single dosing
Virtuoso for v60
Aergrind for travel/aeropress

Likes:
- K30 is fast, great for grinding multiple shots of espresso
- m47 is super consistent. Once you dial in your coffee on the m47, you know exactly how your espresso machine will output, time after time.
- Nothing I dislike about the Virtuoso. Compared to the Aergrind, I feel I get fruitier flavors from the Virtuoso.
- Aergrind is the perfect travel companion to an Aeropress. Solid build quality (with the exception of the plastic cap that cracked already)

Dislikes:
- K30 just isn't a home grinder. Does not stay dialed in, fluctuates too much depending on the amount of beans in the hopper. You have to constantly re-dial-in causing lots of purging, lots of waste. My hack is to replace the hopper with 18g in every time I take 18g out. Its a pain.
- The 47mm conical burr on the Kinu is pretty big, takes some extra muscle to grind, lots of it. Not practical for volume.
- My Aergrind seems to produce lots of fines. I get a lot more bitterness with it than the Virtuoso or m47. Not terrible, good enough for travel. Will try to realign the burr. Feldgrind customer service is a joke - expect no reply and you will not be disappointed.

I think the differences in the top end grinders will be rather minimal, compared to say the difference between well roasted and less well roasted beans. The most important would be how convenient it would be use I think.

Depends on what you like. If you don't use light roasts then buying an EK43S or Flat Max is pretty useless and the Ceado (or Monolith flat) is the way to go (and you can sell your K30). If you do only drink light roasts the EK43S (Titus version) and Flat max will do great and I'd choose them over the Ceado which has normal espresso burrs. You do need to align the EK43S for espresso use or just buy it from Titus with the dosing unit and aligned perfectly.

I don't know much about the Mazzer ZM but in this case I'll prefer 98mm burrs over the 83mm burrs of the Mazzer for light roasts.

erik82 wrote:If you don't use light roasts then buying an EK43S or Flat Max is pretty useless and the Ceado (or Monolith flat) is the way to go (and you can sell your K30). If you do only drink light roasts the EK43S (Titus version) and Flat max will do great and I'd choose them over the Ceado which has normal espresso burrs. You do need to align the EK43S for espresso use or just buy it from Titus with the dosing unit and aligned perfectly.

I don't know much about the Mazzer ZM but in this case I'll prefer 98mm burrs over the 83mm burrs of the Mazzer for light roasts.

Thanks for the reply Erik. I plan on keeping all of my existing grinders and the K30 does a good enough job for me for comfort roasts. I currently use the m47 for lighter roasted single origins. Happy with the results, just looking for a bit more convenience ... and I like shiny new toys.

May just wait (a while) till people have actual in cup experience with the ZM and hero before deciding. I'd buy the flat max just on denis' reputation and the rumor he taste tests a cup from every grinder that ships, but alas, the flat max might as well be a unicorn, the possibility of seeing one available for purchase is next to nothing.

I recently purchased an EK43S with Turkish burrs. I am using it strictly for espresso and have no intentions at present of grinding for pour over with it. I drink primarily medium roast coffees at this time but have been experimenting with lighter roasts so chose to go to the EK. The Turkish burrs are allowing me to grind in the 5 -6 range on the dial so I have latitude to go either way rather than being close to the finest point when using the coffee burrs. My other grinders are a Kafatek Monolith Conical and a Mazzer Major E. The Kafatek does a wonderful job on the majority of coffees I drink at present but has tended to not give the best results when I tried it on light roasts. This seems to be a common trait of conical grinders so really no blame there. My Major E with 83mm flat burrs does a better job on light roasts and truthfully I prefer the flavor profile of the big flat but it is more fiddly to obtain those flavors on a day to day basis. This may be due to manufacturing tolerances or just plain my inability to make very fine adjustments that the beans require to be at peak flavor in the cup. The heavy friction required to hold the fixed burr carrier in place is an inherent design factor of the Mazzer and allows the adjustment to "jump" further than desired. Also the burrs being horizontal tend to hold more grinds in retention than the verticals of the EK series. Hence my choice to try the EK43S.
It checks the boxes I presently desire, 100mm burrs, vertical burr position and flat burrs capable of grinding very fine. I also admire the Mahlkonig reputation (and Mazzers) of being used in coffee shops under heavy use so they will both hold up to my needs for years. Kafatek (Denis) makes very fine machines, I own one and am happy with it, but I apparently have too slow an internet connection to get into the queue to obtain another one with the sheer numbers of folks that desire to own his products. I have tried each time since the flat has been released to get in line to no avail. This is not Denis fault but a shortcoming of where I live and the internet service in my area. I am absolutely sure his upcoming Flat MAX would meet my expectations but I am too impatient (and possibly too old) to wait for the buying fervor to abate and even then possibly not get in line for one, so chose to go another route. I heartily recommend Kafatek products if you have the opportunity to get one but am very happy with my EK43S.

I can only report that the ZM seems to have quite sloppy design. Plastic bag holder that doesn't hold bags at all, but holds a lot of static coffee, filter burrs totally unable to grind for espresso (can't be compared to EK by any means whatsoever), espresso burrs basically Major type (so bi-modal, oldschool design). I can't report anything on the alignment. And we had one piece (from 4 that run through out hands so far) that constantly (every start-up) calibrated itself - annoying, we sent it back to the factory.

Good to hear. I kind of expected that. Just a decent brew grinder.