Richard wrote:Can you define what you mean by bulk burrs? And if you know, which burrs are used in this grinder?

I believe the Monolith flat uses the same burrs as the Compak R80. So bulk in this case refers to the R80 being a retail grinder designed for shops. Unless I'm mistaken.
http://www.compak.es/en/r80.php

Richard wrote:Can you define what you mean by bulk burrs? And if you know, which burrs are used in this grinder?

I always thought "bulk" referred to the duty cycle. i.e. you can leave them on and ground lbs and lbs of coffee without a break as opposed to 20 grams, break, 20 grams, break.

Bulk burrs are the type of burr used in grinders that are made to grind pounds at a time, like the EK43, Compak R80/120/140, Dittings, Bunns, and so on. In general (though with exceptions like Grindmaster that's only uniform at very coarse settings) they tend to make particles of one general size. Also called unimodal, which probably makes more sense here since these burrs are being used for the type of grind they make more than for the duty cycle they're capable of.

Grinders like the Monolith or EG-1 are clearly not supposed to be used for bulk grinding (regardless of whether they can handle it, it's just not a sane workflow) but still share a burrset with a bulk grinder rather than a more traditional espresso flat.

Bulk usually refers to a grinder being able/designed to grind bag/bags/pounds of coffee at one time. For example the ek can run for 45min and grind several kg of coffee without needing a break in that period. It is not made to grind small doses and to be engaged on/off several times in a row like a classic espressogrinder.

Burrs are made specifically with that in mind, so bulk burrs are long lasting burrs, designed and made to withstand and work under such usage, it is by mere chance that that design happens to deliver fantastic results as well, or that is what a more knowledge person have told me.

da gino wrote: Perhaps dialing in coffees is an excuse to get the Monoliths. I haven't used an HG-1, but have used a Pharos when a friend brought it over. We pulled good shots. That said, I could never do the comparison we did with the Monoliths with the Pharos as cranking out 30 shots on it to test all the nuances of different parameters wouldn't be as fun. So if you are looking for a reason to rationalize the purchase you could argue that while it is hard to beat the price to best possible shot quality ratio of a good hand grinder, you are more likely to go to the trouble of dialing in the coffee to your ideal taste with the electric grinder.

I've given up looking for rationalisation and have ordered the conical. Thanks for the extra reason, though.

Matt

Awesome, I'm jealous (although since I already have a titan conical I'm hearing the siren song of the flat, but I'm pretty sure if I had a titan flat I'd be pulled the other way). I'm confident you are going to love it.

canuckcoffeeguy wrote:
One question. 2 days post roast seems very early. Weren't the shots very gassy? I usually wait at least 4 to 5 days for espresso. And many beans taste best after 7 or more days rest.

Cheers!

A valid question. We used lots of different coffees, some of which weren't as young.

I used to dislike most coffees until 7 days or so post roast, but as my tastes have been pulled to lighter and lighter coffees I don't seem to mind the young taste as much. I have, however, found that coffee that young is far less forgiving. My experience has been that there are at least certain coffees that need to be ground and pulled just right until they are 4 to 5 days old and then they become much more forgiving. Because we were testing out a grinder I explicitly wanted a coffee that would be fussy to make it harder to pull good shots and that was why I made sure to have some especially recently roasted coffee on hand. (I stole this idea of picking fussier coffees from Dan aka HB as he has mentioned in threads like the following about testing grinders Baratza Sette 270 Review).

Good idea. A fussier coffee to see if a grinder is up to the challenge. Definitely makes sense.