Top 5 Grinders for Light Roast Espresso Application - Page 12

February 13th, 2019, 4:48 pm

Denis wrote:Kruve is excellent, but I would take the fines results with a grain of salt. Because if you look closely you can see fines sticking to your 600 microns + particles. So the fines percent in general is bigger.

Point noted on fines...

February 13th, 2019, 5:43 pm

Denis wrote:For us it is pretty easy because we have the Nordic roasters who deliver light filter roasted coffee, and we make espresso with it. Their espresso roast is to dark for me, and I am buying only filter roasted coffee (for brew methods) for months. People tend to mistake medium roast with italian coffee and 3rd wave coffee with light roasts. A light roast is a coffee that is not advertised by the roaster for espresso, but they call it roasted for filter/brew. The omniroast is something that is good for both filter/brew and espresso, but it is on the light side. I tend to stay away from omniroasted coffee.

The picture you posted with the 2 type of roasts are pretty easy to distinguish:
-the darker roast you call medium is similar to an Italian roasted blend from North Italy. Here is a Lavazza medium roast, this is just out of question that is to dark roasted.
<image>

- the lighter roast you posted is to developed to be classified as a filter/brew roast. The beans are to developed, they are inflated. This is your traditional 3rd wave specialty coffee espresso roast. This is how you get coffee if you ask for espresso roast. The guys from Square Mile or Hasbean in UK roast approximately the same if you buy the espresso roast.

Here is a picture of an espresso roast from 3rd wave specialty coffee, I got coffee from them many times but it is to roasted for what I am searching.
<image>

There is no problem in drinking what you like. And there is no shame or harm that you don't use light beans. I find them hard to work with, and they are demanding in therms of workflow/equipment. I am glad we can clarify what light roast means.

on 1st image the beans are a little broken so that would mean into 2nd crack,
nordic do they reach 1st crack? or just pulled when it starts?

#113: Post by **nuketopia** » February 13th, 2019, 5:49 pm

Aguirre wrote:I thought it was kind of clear since the beginning, but as I'm the OP, let me clarify then:

We're not talking about "espresso light".

We're talking about a lot lighter than that.

We're talking about nordic light, filter roasts, that just some very fortunate people with very capable equipment can turn into really good espresso shots. And let's not forget: this group of people can't be considered the norm. It's really a very small group of espresso drinkers that will like this type of beverage. It happens to be that we do have a good representation of this group here in this forum.

And by the way I agree with this comment

Not judging the roast level, just how badly sorted that coffee is.

Again - these are all subjective terms. There's not a number or a scale reference to go by.

Your original post stated this:

...delicious light (really light) roast espresso....

We need a number. We need a standard of measure that is the same in Norway and Denmark as it is in Canada or Australia or the USA or Austria.

How dark or light is a roast? Is it "bold" or "intensity level 7"?

We're lost from the word go here.

I have prepared very light roasts, much lighter than the ones I have at hand at the moment, quite successfully with the equipment in my list.

I still disagree that conicals are unusable for "nordic" espresso.

February 13th, 2019, 5:57 pm

Denis wrote:Here is a grinder that will dethrone a lot of competition specially in Europe...

New Grinder.
Austrian guy (is it you?)in Switzerland, designed in Germany produced in Italy, interesting grinder for all with only 63mm steel burrs not to small compared to the Monolith's, EG1, E37Z Hero and so on?

#115: Post by **NelisB** » February 13th, 2019, 5:58 pm

So Denis, you don't recommend a conical for anything? It won't even do a dark roast coffee any good?

#116: Post by **Denis** » February 13th, 2019, 6:21 pm

Conical are great, they do better than flat for single dose in general, and for anyone looking for upgrades to a certain level I would always choose conical instead of flat (sette, niche, kony, robur, manual hand grinders). It is easier to extract with a conical, and for espresso roasted coffee it will taste good.

If you like normal roasted coffee medium, dark, 2nd crack, light but espresso roast then you are probably good with a conical. A big amount of subjectiveness comes because of the taste and what people like and don't like, but in general this is true, conical grinders are great.

Only that this topic started as a request of top grinders for lights roasts. And for what a light roasts is in my perception, a conical will not be enough. For me it doesn't do it jobs.

Sure we can talk about this to turn it on all sides, but we won't get a result. Why? Ill give you a short example:

In Italy, in the north coffee is roasted on the light side. In south, they roast way darker and oily. If you are going to ask a person that likes Italian roasted coffee about this, for him light will be coffee from Venice/Torino and so on. This is what I am understanding here.

#117: Post by **guydebord** » February 13th, 2019, 7:22 pm

Denis wrote:Optimal grind for light r is as close as you can get in the 250-300 microns zone. You don't need bigger and smaller (you get them but in a small amount).

I don't want to talk more about conical grinders, for me there is no interest in them for many reasons, not only the distribution they produce, but he lackness of SSP burrs and many more reasons). I had some conical grinders, I still have the Kony but it will go away hopefully this weekend.

Kruve is excellent, but I would take the fines results with a grain of salt. Because if you look closely you can see fines sticking to your 600 microns + particles. So the fines percent in general is bigger.

The OP is right there are very few individuals that like the taste of an almost green coffee and at the moment there is no standardized denomination of what is a light roast, which makes it even more subjective and no one can claim authority in subjective matters by taking down on anyone that doesn't have the same opinions/equipment . If some prefer large flats for almost green coffee, good for them, but to say they are better without evidence, well... its just an opinion.

#118: Post by **bakafish** » February 13th, 2019, 8:01 pm

Denis wrote:For us it is pretty easy because we have the Nordic roasters who deliver light filter roasted coffee, and we make espresso with it. Their espresso roast is to dark for me, and I am buying only filter roasted coffee (for brew methods) for months. People tend to mistake medium roast with italian coffee and 3rd wave coffee with light roasts. A light roast is a coffee that is not advertised by the roaster for espresso, but they call it roasted for filter/brew. The omniroast is something that is good for both filter/brew and espresso, but it is on the light side. I tend to stay away from omniroasted coffee.

I also used filter roasted coffee in my tests.

February 13th, 2019, 8:40 pm

nuketopia wrote:Again - these are all subjective terms. There's not a number or a scale reference to go by.

Your original post stated this:

...delicious light (really light) roast espresso....

We need a number. We need a standard of measure that is the same in Norway and Denmark as it is in Canada or Australia or the USA or Austria.

How dark or light is a roast? Is it "bold" or "intensity level 7"?

We're lost from the word go here.

I have prepared very light roasts, much lighter than the ones I have at hand at the moment, quite successfully with the equipment in my list.

I still disagree that conicals are unusable for "nordic" espresso.

Numbers :
< 15% roast development (1:15 or less into first crack, dropped during the crack)
Weight loss < 12%

These are very generic and still subjective numbers, but generally descriptors of a very light roast.

And this of course in addition to the already discussed color scales

#120: Post by **nuketopia** » February 13th, 2019, 9:23 pm

The thing is, if we're not the ones roasting, no one has these numbers.