I'm waiting on my niche to give this a try (should be coming later this month). Currently, I have a Kinu hand grinder which I use to grind for espresso and brew. I have the standard burrs which are great for espresso but not really great for brew methods. For the last couple of weeks, I switched to grinding only a 2-3 of beans at a time when I grind for my v60, and pretty much all the fines that were muddling up the coffee went away. I had to grind way finer to get the right brew time for the v60 but clarity and flavor are way up. The only problem is it takes forever to hand grind this way (~5 min).

Once niche comes I'll give it try (with the paper method) and let you guys know but I totally expect the same results as what I am getting with the Kinu.

I've been feeding my beans into my Niche ~2g at a time after watching the James Hoffman video. I only use my Niche for espresso... I've been grinding around the 5 mark as well when doing this method and getting much clearer, cleaner, sweeter, and fruiter flavors. You definitely lose a lot of body, very similar to a flat burr profile. There seems to be some decent wiggle room with how fast or slow you feed the beans, I think it just has to essentially be slow enough to ensure that all beans in the grind chamber are being ground with no beans "waiting".

I do think the reducing gear off of the burr is a bit ridiculous, but I'm not quite sure how else you'd do it since you want the speed of feeding to be somewhat in sync with the speed of grinding.

This makes me curious as to whether or not the OE Apex maintains uniformity more through the ghost burrs or just how beans are fed into the grinder.

ok, first I think this experimentation is great.

Second, if enough people agree that the changes are true. Then something great may come of it.

However maybe because I'm a fan of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke; every time I read this thread I picture someone dropping beans into a grinder to The Blue Danube. You know bean two three, bean two three....

Of course maybe doing it to a waltz might be more enjoyable than a metronome.

Afiwrx wrote:How about something like this attached to the top.

3D printed bean doser

If I understand the goal here, and I may not, the trick would be to size the auger appropriately so that it feeds the minimum necessary amount of beans for a given degree of rotation. You could use a small stepper and just have it run at the right speed to get a reliable bean drop.

That seems to be what Tom Jagiello (who seems to have come up with this regrinding thing) believes to be the way to go.

false1001 wrote: This makes me curious as to whether or not the OE Apex maintains uniformity more through the ghost burrs or just how beans are fed into the grinder.

The grind from the apex changes based on load in the hopper just like the niche. I have been grinding ~4 grams at a time for a while now. I grind about 2 clicks finer when grinding a small dose. It does seem that the auger feed action allows grinding more than 2-3 beans at a time. I get reduced fines up to a hopper load of maybe 5g.

Note that I am basing "reduced fines" on how my v60 bed looks after brewing, and drawdown times. I can do a kruve test if anyone is interested.

Afiwrx wrote:I'm waiting on my niche to give this a try (should be coming later this month).

Did you have any luck with this method?

Eklektik wrote:They are perfecting single dosing as we speak but did they think further? Did they think they maybe the route was to perfect single bean dosing? Niche Zéro 2.0 here we come!

Fine with me. I'll gladly accept anyone's Niche V1...and I promise to pay you on Tuesday!!
I also have to throw out a kudo to the OP for sheer doggedness and invention. I'd imagine a $50 a 120 gram bag of someone's Gesha would be worth this bean at a time treatment.

My niche arrived last night! I'll be painstakingly funneling my beans though a paper chute for tomorrow's v60!

Congrats. You MIGHT want to just grind a lot of beans quickly through it. Like most grinders, you'll need to put 5-6 kilos through it to season the burrs. I think the bean at a time, you'd slloooowwwww doooooowwwwnnnn thhhhhhhhhhheeeeeee prrrrrrooooocccccceeeesssssssss.