Entry level burr grinder (De'longhi burr KG79)

[carl]

Recently got back into home espresso's after finding a spare portafilter for my ageing Krups machine on ebay (original spare is £50 as it a twisty size changey one) and thought I would invest in a grinder and do it properly.

Not wanting to spend a fortune on a grinder I was going to buy the Krups entry level burr at £30 but a lot of the forums I read said it would be a waste as the grind would not get fine enough for espresso, they were recommending spending over £100 on a grinder, which i'm afraid was not an option.

I found a de'longhi burr KG79 that had been reduced from 45 to 36 at a few online spots and settled for one from Curry's. Had it a week now and I am quite happy, it has auto cup level so you can find the right grind time and then just press the button and leave it till it stops.

But…..(this is where the free advertising possibly stops) it has several levels of grind, I started off at the finest which to my eye looks like it should be fine enough, but the draw time of my double espresso seems short and that is with all the tamping I can muster. Possibly about 10 seconds draw time.

I shall experiment with a stopwatch & make sure I take measurements this weekend (50-60ml is what I am aiming for right?)

I read a single espresso should take 25 seconds, should it be double for a double? Or as my Portafilter has two spouts does that half the time for both single & double draw??

I get a crema and it tastes good but am worried it could be better (I have to say the crema was twice as thick with the batch of signature blend I had delivered from you yesterday which was very nice).

So, do I take the grinder back and fork out for a more expensive one? Is there another budget model that will do the job? Is a £30 hand grinder the best option?

I shall get back with results from my tests when I can.

[Gary]

[Gary]

HI Carl

One of the problems I find with older machines is that the pressure from the boiler diminishes. Try going the other way to check it out. Instead of leaning on the tamp.. let it be a compact one at about 10lbs. See if that helps.. we can test further once we know the results.

g

Opinions:

use somewhere around 17 grams of coffee in a double basket, with a brew time between 26-30 seconds for two ounces

The Italian definition of a double espresso is 2 ounces in 25 seconds from 14g of coffee.
My preference is (triple ristretto) 1.75 ounces in 35-45 seconds from 20-22 g of coffee.
Some of my blends taste sweetest at 2 ounces in 25-35 seconds

[roby]

Hi Carl

This is the problem with entry level grinders they struggle with espresso grind resulting in under extracted coffee shots that you can't control.

I did come across an entry level grinder in Australia that was up to the job although I don't think it's available here. It is so good that some cafe owners use it as the decaf grinder for espresso. It's a breville smart grinder bcg800. I'm on the case and will keep you posted as I would like to stock them.

As far as dosing and extraction I use for a single shot. - 25 to 30 ml - extracted in 25 to 30 seconds - using 7 to 11 grams coffee.

For a double shot you double everything except time I.e still 25 to 30 seconds.

Hope that helps

[carl]

Thanks for your replies.

I didn't have time for any serious testing, but then the draw time is so far out it's obvious something is wrong. I did lighten my tamping pressure but the results were just the same.

What I did do last night was sieve my grind, about two thirds went through and and the final third was too coarse.

This slowed my draw down noticeably, still not as it should be but I will increase the dose & tamp pressure tonight and I reckon that should get me the desired result. (the reason I will have to increase my dose to be able to increase my tamp is that my tamper doesn't slide into the portafilter like I have seen with the more professional looking portafilter types, and I was just slightly out with the amount of fine grinds I recovered from sieving, and not being bothered to grind and sieve a bit more)

Hopefully I will be able to get the results but this is obviously a wasteful solution unless I bag up the coarse third and take them to work with a Cafetiere.

So it looks like I will be returning the grinder. As you say its hard to find that Breville one in the UK but that will still be over £100.

Do you know if you can get the desired results from a hand grinder? I'm sure it tastes even better when you have had to put a bit of elbow grease in.

Half tempted to take the upper burr off the mount and make a shim to decrease the clearance slightly and see if that gives a finer grind but guess this would have been done by the manufacturers if it could be.

Just seems crazy to me that nobody has been able to produce a suitable espresso grinder for under £100

[carl]

Finally beginning to realise that the grinder is as, if not more so, important than the machine. And I will have to stump up the cash for a decent one.

Called Comet (wasn't currys as stated above) and told them I have had the KG79 for just over a week and it's not fit for purpose and without a quibble they said bring it in at the weekend and they will refund me. So kudos to Comets customer service.

Bad news is I need a new grinder quick sharp so I shall be scouring ebay.

[Gary]

When the grind position is at its finest setting on the indicator dial, grip the top burr in your fingers preventing it from turning in any direction, then use a bit of force to turn the indicator dial a half turn around to the coarse setting, (the dial will click loudly however this does not appear to damage any part of the dial). Now release your grip on the top burr and then turn the indicator dial back to the fine setting. You have effectively tightened the burr cones by half a turn.

You can repeat this process as often as you want however just make sure that the burr cones are not touching as you'll knacker the burrs. I tested the grind and found an instant improvement in the quality of the grind. I now have a very good coffee grinder.

From customer comments on AMAZON

[carl]

Ooohhh thats a mighty good find there Gary - nice one, I shall give it a go.

Cheers

[Gary]

HI Carl
The reason I got this particular machine was simply because a friend of mine actually did this in the USA...

Of course, Id rather you tried it first here in the UK just in case... ;D

then I will..tomorrow when it comes. (ordered it today online)

I dont actually need anything other than a medium grind as Im hooked on Siphon. BUt I will do it regardless.. for when I get the espresso going....

I paid 34:99 quid for mine.

g

[carl]

Well I took the plunge

[carl]

Well I took the plunge and am happy to say there was no catastrophic failure.

Now, if in the finest setting and rotating to the coarser I get one click (the legitimate click you should be getting) and then there is a dead zone, where the dial floats without any adjustment for maybe 10 degrees or so, then it continues with the clicks as normal. So after the dead zone moving towards the fine end there are two levels of adjustment.

So far I have only tested these two levels of adjustment; both settings after sieving still had a little that didn’t make it through but a negligible amount maybe 10%, much better that the third previously achieved.

In the machine the finest setting barely dripped through and I gave up and started again at setting two, this had a draw time of maybe 40 seconds with very light tamping. These results may just be highlighting poor performance on my machines behalf now, I plan on descaling the machine tonight to see if that makes any difference. If not I will then give it a go beyond the dead zone.

So, it definitely works in achieving a finer and more consistent grind, it needs more testing to see if it can provide a usefully tuneable grind (I’m thinking there will be a bit of a jump on the other side of the dead zone, but that is an assumption)

I had to increase the cup selection and guess the cup selection measurement is done on grind time and this has increased due to doing a finer grind, I am assuming this is putting extra strain on the motor which may shorten its life.

So a lot of assumptions there but the ‘fix’ certainly works, I shall carry on playing, if you don’t need your for espresso quit yet you may as well wait until I have found out some more.

Incidentally, a cursory search for spare burrs turned up nothing, is that because low end devices are considered so low usage the manufacturers assume the standard burrs will last the life time of the product?

[Gary]

www.4delonghi.co.uk/cgi-bin/search.pl?query=Delonghi%20KG79&brand=Delonghi&model=KG79&path=54533&model_pre=KG79&model_ref=985102&brand_ref=8

This is a discontinued model. The only spares are as above from the agents.

For 35 quid... burrs will be at least half that.

As long as the burrs are not touching on your modification.. it should not put any extra strain on the motor. I ran my machine through several grindings, and now have it set on 4 cups. This gives me approx 35 grams of coarse ground coffee for my siphon at 25 oz liquid volume. Seems their idea of a cup grind is stronger than I like.

I rectified my grinder two clicks. I did it because I could

Cant test it without an espresso machine.

[carl]

2 Clicks eh? Show off! That's got to be close to Turkish grind.

Well I seem to be having a lot of success now and can get a draw time of 25- 30 Secs, and what a difference it makes. I had some crappy old beans that I had been doing grind & tamp testing with and when I had got it right I tried some of the Mocha Java and the results were quite surprising.

It does mean that the Signature blend I had before was probably wasted so I shall have to try that again with a proper extraction. I have just ordered the monsooned Malabar though as that one sounded too interesting to wait for.

In short I shall be keeping the grinder and will not be upgrading my machine quite yet as I think my results are more that reasonable now (certainly better that the previous years I had been using it when I had my previous supplier grind the beans for me in shop).

So thanks for the 'fix', it seems we have found the cheapest, effective, electric burr grinder for espresso.

Now I just have to perfect my frothing, guess that can be another thread.

[Coffee-Lion]

Hi All.

I personally would not go for the cheap option on the grinder. There is an argument that it is the most important piece of equipment to the barista.

In our coffee shop, we realised quite a while ago that we could do with a better grinder, i.e. Mazzer, for the volume of beans we were grinding every day. We had to wait a while before the money was available to buy it so made do with our existing Compak K30, which is still being used to grind decaf.

So, I would recommend Mazzer first and foremost (if the money is there). Second would be the Compak (quite often re-labelled with the espresso machine manufacturer's name) - quite often available used on eBay for less than £100. Thirdly, as you're only looking at home use, then a hand grinder would suffice (Hario Skerton gets good reviews). I would not go with a cheap-end electric grinder, as the blades will not last long at all. Just remember, you get what you pay for, and with a cheap grinder you will end up with inconsistent grind quality, and therefore will waste perfectly good coffee beans.

[jules]

Carl I admire your inventiveness with sieving your grounds! That's dedication for sure...
Took me several years to move up through blade spice grinder, to cheap burr, to kinda better burr but slow and VERY NOISY!, to current secondhand commercial grinder with hopper removed. It does seem crazy looking objectively...

But each step means an increase in the evenness of the individual grounds. Whereas a blade grinder gives you chunks and dust, so you get an 'averaged out' kind of flow rate through the various sized grounds (and possibly wider range of flavours??), more even grinds increase your controllability of flow rate AND direction through the puck, providing semi-even packing and tamping of course! Clearly if there are nice large chunks for the water to run down through in favour of the harder work of pushing through dust, not much will travel that way...

All good fun! And try not to let the possibility of a 'God Shot' of perfect espresso detract from "I get a crema and it tastes good".