[Music]
welcome to episode four of the ultimate
grinder showdown
five reviews over five days and on the
sixth day a big head-to-head of some of
the best grinders that money can buy
today we're looking at this it's the
lever craft ultra
and there's a lot going on here there's
the grinder there's a box there's
another box what's
what's this all about it's an
interesting approach and there's some
genuinely new technology
inside this thing let me give you a
little bit of backstory on this grinder
and the companies behind it
because there is more than one now leave
a crafter based in the us
uh it's founded by a guy called eric
mann he started off i think
kind of repairing vintage lever machines
he has a coffee roasting company in a
cafe
in austin he does not build these
grinders
the ultra is a grinder that is built in
china and is available in china also
direct from the manufacturer levercraft
have built a relationship with that
manufacturer
where they're having a customized
version of that grinder brought into the
u.s
this grinder is 2 600 which seems
kind of surprising when you can see that
the ultra is available in china for 1100
but know that that's shipping within
china if you start to export it from
china then you're going to pay all sorts
of shipping and duties and other things
like that there seems like a price
discrepancy but i can understand whether
money is going in this particular
situation i also don't know without
putting a normal ultra
next to it what the difference between
an ultra in china is
versus the the sort of lever craft
version i don't know what's been
customized
inside this are 98 mil burs and this is
the first i think of the run
that has blind buzz so by that there's
no screw holes similar to the eg1 that
we talked about before
now at 98 mils like the marconi ek-43
and the monolith max
that's a very large burst compared to
the 80 mil burs of the eg-1 or the 64
millibars of the p-64
98 mil burs are huge they're they're
monstrously huge and so
these three grinders are kind of
comparable in that particular regard and
this burst
is certainly interesting but we'll grab
some coffee in a little bit it's a few
more things to talk about
namely what is this big giant box next
to the grinder in fact what's this
little box here
we'll start with a little box because
it'll explain the big box here on the
little box
is your controller this dial adjusts
your rpm
and it goes down to zero which isn't
particularly useful but up to 2500 and
ultimately the burrs weren't really
turned below 150 rpm
certainly without any resistance and if
you put coffee in there
you'd need a little bit more torque to
get things going this button starts and
stops the grinder
and you'll notice it's very quiet
now it's obviously louder when you grind
coffee but when it's running
you could easily leave this running and
not realize there's some pretty hefty
power connections the back of the
grinder connecting it to this controller
box now what this grinder is able to do
beyond just
variable rpm is rpm profiling where you
can
program the grinder to run at different
rpms for different periods of times and
ramp up or down
between different speeds as you desire
this is
interesting but also a kind of
it reminds me of pressure profiling
there was a technology
that was an answer in search of a
question and i think at this point we're
getting closer to finding uses for
pressure profiling because we ultimately
understand flow within espresso better
than we did before but i don't yet have
an obvious use case for rpm profiling
now eric does suggest one which is you
could run your grinder at say 500 rpm
for 10 seconds
and then ramp it up to 2500 to kind of
blast out any coffee that might be
remaining in the bird chamber
then you could do this manually if i
wanted to i could start the grinder and
twist the dial at the end to ramp it up
or you know an automated version of that
is kind of nice though i will say
that's not really a problem i've never
solved it it doesn't really retain a ton
of coffee in here so
so i haven't really wanted to bother
setting that up it just doesn't seem
super useful but i get it's an
interesting idea
i can't get away from the fact that this
is a lot of
stuff it's a lot of stuff to put on a
counter this is an expressly domestic
piece of equipment this is not designed
to go into cafes and i'm kind of
confused by the idea that i've seen this
discussed as kind of a box
go under counter in my kitchen the
sockets the power is above counter and
so i'd have to kind of drill a hole in
my bench
where i'm powered down to my control box
run the two power cables back up from my
control box into the back of the grinder
just to hide this thing if i've got a
big kitchen or if i've got a big
espresso making space
i could probably accommodate that i'm
sure you could put the box under the
grinder if you wanted to it's sturdy
it's sealed i wouldn't worry about that
but
it's a lot of stuff it's not
particularly heavy the grinder itself
is extremely heavy this thing is an
absolute monster in terms of weight
design wise i i like the red on there
it's you know
there's a pretty monochrome feel across
the other grinders here so a little
splash of color i think is quite a nice
thing that seems to be custom to leave a
craft
from what i've seen of the ultras made
in china and sold in china anyway and
then the rest of the design
i have kind of mixed feelings about
there's a kind of heat-sinky vibe around
the motor here
this to me has become a place to collect
dust that is not particularly easy to
clean and so
i i don't love that aspect of it if you
like the styling and the design
you know it looks nice it's well made it
feels solid
tolerances seem extremely tight and
they're very pro
talking about the the very well aligned
burst in this thing too
which is a good thing before we make
coffee i just want to go through the
accessories because
here i think livercraft have done a
fantastic job first up
uh i'll go with this it's the
portafilter dosing ring this one is
magnetic which is just
very pleasurable now it's designed so
you just click it on
it sits on top it's great and you put it
under here
and everything sits level and and this
sort of holds everything in place and
that does work
really very well i haven't had any falls
nothing's gone awry with this
that is a nice little accessory second
up is the
distribution tool this is a very nice
one this is lots of little needles it's
very easy to use it's very satisfying to
use it feels very nice
of all the tools that have been included
this is my favorite it just pleases me
to use the the one extra they had sent
me after the grind had shipped
is this bellows which also is a little
dosing funnel
and it's quite clever it's actually two
pieces uh there's a compressible kind of
rubber bellows here but this sits inside
it and and this is very clever because
at the bottom
it's kind of sealed but when you press
it
it opens so that means you put it on top
of your grinder you put your dose in
there
you run the grinder and when you're
ready to start grinding
push your hand down it'll drop the beans
in uh and you'll start grinding
and then afterwards you can pump this as
a bellows to blow through a little bit
of air
to clear out the chamber that is a very
nice
very simple very clever piece of design
hats off to leave a craft for that one i
really
i really like it what seems slightly at
odds with this is the little bean dosing
cup that comes with it that's clearly a
3d print
and it's not bad it just doesn't feel as
nice as everything else but it works
pretty well
as uh dosing cups go and initially i
think it was designed that you could
also
use it as a bellows inside there this is
okay this is very nice
let's make some coffee
now if you've seen my recent video on
spray bottles you might have seen that
this grinder
doesn't just benefit from a spray of of
water onto the beans
it needs it it really doesn't work very
well without it it's kind of essential
in this particular regard
so beans into the little dosa and
nothing has yet fallen through
now from a workflow perspective this
grinder is clearly designed to be used
for espresso
it doesn't seem to acknowledge the
existence of filter coffee the way that
the
eg1 or the p64 does but this
it's a portafilter fork there's no
dosing cup for filter coffee
it really feels more espresso focused it
doesn't mean it doesn't do a great job
with filter coffee
it really does and it's easy to adjust
um
two filter coffee settings i'm bringing
v60s up around
10 through 12 most of the time on the
ground setting where i'm brewing
espresso
down at three most of the time
i can run the grinder and when i'm ready
to go
a little piece of metal here that you
can flick to catch the last few bits
and there's nothing else coming out with
the bellows i'm going to shut it down
so a little distribution out comes our
distribution tool just to break up any
clumps of which there are almost none i
would say
but it does help just distribute things
so let's talk taste shots have been
great
very enjoyable again it's that unimodal
style of espresso where you're going to
have
clarity you're going to have balance
it's going to be
tons of sweetness all of those good
things without necessarily a ton of
texture and it does push you towards
slightly longer brew ratios this is an
18 and a half grams in to about 42 grams
out
and you've got a bit of space to go
bigger if you want to just to really get
a bit more clarity
but you will again deplete your textual
experience
it's very tasty it's very enjoyable now
talking about taste in this regard is
difficult an isolated experience is hard
to talk about
comparative testing is really everything
and that will be in
the showdown video coming up after all
the reviews where we'll taste them all
head to head and talk about
the kind of espresso that they each make
and how it varies from the other
to help you decide which one you might
aspire to own
now in terms of accessing bits and
pieces of this parts of it are quite
easy for kind of cleaning or
scraping every last bit out the little
exit point here
can easily be removed with magnets this
also comes off as well
it's pretty easy to access there the
burrs are much more difficult to access
it's a little bit of a procedure
there's four bolts here you have to take
them off extremely carefully
it's a it's not something you're going
to do every day by any stretch it's not
easy to access the bird chamber
the way it is and some of the other
grinders that we've looked at not the
most complicated
but but one that would be a little bit
stressful the first couple of times that
you do it
it's something that you could get wrong
and that stresses me out whereas
opening up the eg1 you just pull the
pieces off
when you're there so a little bit of a a
con
in that regard and again the other cons
would be
the just the volume of stuff here the
weight and the volume of grinder that
you have here
for that reason i probably would never
have something like this in my kitchen i
live in a city kitchens are small
this just just i can't allocate this
much space to a grinder in my home
here in the studio yeah i've got space
and that becomes less of an issue if
you've got space
you don't have to worry about that but
but at home a lot of people don't and
that's a bit of a
a difficult one to really overcome the
design is is a bit frustrating because
of that mess issue the accumulation of
dust and dirt around the sort of
basin and the fins here on the upside
it makes very nice coffee it's quiet
shockingly quiet beautifully quiet the
kind of experience from a
tools perspective is very nice the
grinder is easy to adjust it's pretty
pretty repeatable
you know where i've come back to a grind
point it has done what i've wanted it to
do
we'll do more extensive retention tests
and a few other things as part of the
showdown video to really get
into the the minutia of the details
between each of these though
overall at 2 600 it's mid-range on price
which is
a shocking thing to say about nespresso
grinder i feel a little bit like a
sports child just
fussing and complaining about all these
little details and not being grateful
for the amazing coffee that they all
brew
but that's my job and i revel in it so
the levocraft ultra
super interesting some very new tech in
there some new ideas some potential
for exploration really feels centered
around espresso more than anything else
uh though it is as i said very very
capable around filter coffee
2600 it's enjoyable but it's big
now i don't get to keep this unit i'm
giving this away to one of my patreon
backers because patreon allows me to go
and buy these things
to buy all of these things and review
them tell you my honest opinion
and not be beholden to manufacturers
lending me things or giving me freebies
or any of that kind of stuff
so i look forward to giving all of these
grinders away and now i'd love to hear
from you down in the comments below
do you have one do you want one do you
have one of the ones manufactured in
china is it different in some way i'd
love to hear a little bit more about
that
do you have one of the liver craft ones
have you enjoyed your coffee
have you had experiences that other
grinders haven't given you let me know
your experiences down in the comments
below
but for now i'll say thank you so much
for watching i hope you have a great day