Hello everybody, I'm a new member and this is my first post in the board.

It's been roughly 12 months (i'm in my 30s) since I began my journey into coffee (eith Aeropress)..

In the past week the desire to move into Espresso has constantly increased, been gathering a lot of info (many contrasting theories) in order to better understand this subject and make the right gear purchase.

Right from the beginning I've been pulled toward the single dose grinders, already eyed few candidates, but then I started wondering wether a SD was really the best optional for me.

I'm gonna describe what I imagine my Espresso experience to be like, and then I'd be really glad to hear your suggestion between SD / on demand grinders.

- I'm the only one drinking coffee, targeting a single Espresso a day in the morning (Ideally I wouldn't like to go past 16 gr as a dose)
- I have "in use" only 250 gr of roasted coffee at a time, a single bag and I use it till it's over. No desire to swap beans half way
- don't like the idea of purging.I'd be fine in purging just few grams per bag (because It's hard to dose exactly and not have few g left at the end)
- I'd appreciate the convenience of not having to do SD...
- But I'd hate to "significantly" (relatively speaking) hinder the Espresso results (by maybe not being able to dose precise enough, or by having a lot of ground coffee from 24h prior ending up in the portafilter)

I haven't set in a budget yet but I'd like to stay below the 1000 mark.

Thanks in advance for the suggestions!

Is that$1000 for grinder only?

For only 1 shot a day, you as single user, either a hand grinder or SD grinder would really be the only way to go.

I love my k30 and use it as intended with hopper full, but I'm usually pulling 6-8 shots in the morning and several in the afternoon. I either do a short purge, or use that first dose in a milk drink. I have a niche and several hand grinders I use if I am only going to make 1 drink or want to explore with different beans.

For your use case I would look at high end hand grinders - kinu, 1zpresso, HG1 prime, etc or if you want motorized a niche, df64 or df83.

I reckon this is gonna be something you hear A LOT in the following posts, but recommend single dose and that the Niche is near the top of your list. There are also a couple offerings from Eureka that may make some sense for you.

Other considerations could be the X54 or DF64.

Home user? You want a single dose grinder. Really no discussion anymore, I'm my opinion.

Single dosers are a pretty loud bunch on coffee enthusiast forums such as HB, so you'll clearly be steered in that direction no matter what. Since stating you only drink one coffee a day I might be inclined to agree this time, even though I don't like single dosing.

For me it is too much hassle for too little benefit, but I do have a low retention grinder and drink about 5-6 cups a day (+/- 100g) and often get visitors, so purging isn't necessary. Also roasting my own beans the problem is more often that beans are too fresh rather than the chance of going stale.

You are going to notice if beans stay in the hopper for 4-5 days or if your grinder has 5-6g of retention. Also most hopper fed grinders need some beans to create downward pressure so the machine can work as intended. All of that doesn't work great with just one cup a day.

So to sum up, it depends. Hand grinding might probably be the cheapest option without sacrificing coffee quality.

Hi!

Yes, it would be € for me but it's grinder only. I'd be happy to save couple hundred bucks of course.

Hello and thx for the input! I alredy own and use the 1Zpresso Jx Pro, listed ad espresso capable, but I tried grinding at espresso range by error (a little in the fine espresso range i reckon) and it was too hard for me, not something I'd like to do regularly. Plus I want to try that flat burr clarity

Thx for the input.

I'm familiar with the Niche and I know it has a good workflow, but I want a) flat burr b) be able to dose in the portatiler

I was eyeing the df64P (the P64 is out of budget) before i had this crisis over SD vs on demand

Ypuh wrote:Single dosers are a pretty loud bunch on coffee enthusiast forums such as HB, so you'll clearly be steered in that direction no matter what. Since stating you only drink one coffee a day I might be inclined to agree this time, even though I don't like single dosing.

For me it is too much hassle for too little benefit, but I do have a low retention grinder and drink about 5-6 cups a day (+/- 100g) and often get visitors, so purging isn't necessary. Also roasting my own beans the problem is more often that beans are too fresh rather than the chance of going stale.

You are going to notice if beans stay in the hopper for 4-5 days or if your grinder has 5-6g of retention. Also most hopper fed grinders need some beans to create downward pressure so the machine can work as intended. All of that doesn't work great with just one cup a day.

So to sum up, it depends. Hand grinding might probably be the cheapest option without sacrificing coffee quality.

Thanks for the kind message.

I'm aware of the pros and cons of the different solutions. I know about the need of downward pressure to work with an on demand grinder, but I believed that If i had like 20 gr left in the hopper I could dose 16 gr without trouble (cause the 16th gram had the pressure of the 4 g that remained). Isn't it enough?