now I suspect I'm about to make both
grinder manufacturers and vendors of
grinders a little bit nervous they're
thinking am I going to tell you to put
ground coffee back in your grinder well
maybe before we get to that I need to
tell you how he got to this point about
why I'm making this video now one of the
good things about having a YouTube
channel is that people with interesting
ideas often get in touch with you and
this whole thing started with someone
else's idea now someone I've known a
little while is go called Tommy Ogawa I
have known for a few years now he is an
engineer he built his own grinder and
sadly I never got to look at it because
I had a conflict of interest working
with Victoria Arduino and he did
recently sell me an oz me o ro unit that
I will be reviewing on the channel if
you sure but more importantly he wrote
me an email about regrinding coffee and
he said have you tried this have you
tried grinding really really really
coarse way coarser than he would use for
filter coffee and then grinding that
again to see what happens and so I
thought mmm interesting idea let's let's
let's give it a go I have some
expectations about what might happen
let's try it this is just the setup I
have in the studio right now there's no
sponsored products or anything like that
I took the setup and I dialed in some
coffee and on my little niche grinder it
was setting number 25 for espresso that
it was pulling a shot of 18 grams in and
about 40 grams out in about 30 seconds
that's where we were that was my my
benchmark of like a good grind setting
and then because it's quite easy to do
in this grinder I wound it to full turns
course just pretty coarse and I grabbed
a bunch of coffee and then I wound it
back to where I started and I checked
and the grind setting was where it was
before everything was okay and so I did
what Tom suggested I ground my already
ground coffee and I pulled a shot and
what I expected to happen was that by
grinding it twice I'd kind of gone
through the process of generating a ton
of fines twice and so I expected the
shot to choke and it did it brewed
really slowly it took about 42 seconds
at the same grind setting
get my desired ratio of espresso so I
thought I was proven right but I was
confused why why did Tom send me this
how'd I miss remembered something the
email so I dug it back out again and I
missed a really really important point
he said that the rate that I ground the
coffee the rate that I fed the grounds
into the grinder was really super
important if I put it in too quickly it
would grind us if it was much finer but
if I put it in really slowly it would
grind as if it was much coarser
so why do we suggest it kept it at 25
that same grind setting from before and
I fed the coffee in very very slowly and
I took those grounds and I pulled a shot
lo and behold yeah it poured a 15 second
shot at the same grind setting this was
surprising shocking even the difference
that you were seeing based on the rate
of the coffee going into the burr said
it was a massive massive variance in the
way that the coffee ground and I had a
theory back when I worked on the mythos
1 grinder it had a part in it called the
clump crusher and that was a piece at
the exit of the burr set designed to
break up any clumps of ground coffee as
they left the burr set and what we
noticed very early on is if it offered
too much resistance then it was harder
for the grounds to get out of the burr
set they spent longer in that burr set
and it was if they got reground finer so
similarly just by changing the
resistance on exit you changed the way
that the coffee ground
wellmaybe regrinding maybe leaving the
coffee in the birds too long is really
bad and not only did it grow and finer
but those shots didn't taste as good
when you adjusted the grind setting to
get them to pull as normal so what we
called regrinding back then we thought
that was a bad thing if you didn't have
enough resistance then he had a lot of
static and coffee would go kind of
everywhere but if he got it right then
you had fluffy coffee grounds and
everything was ok and so my theory works
like this the exit of a burr is that the
smallest space that the ground coffee
has to fit through the speed of which
coffee will pass through a burr set is
determined by how much coffee is kind of
ahead of it on the journey outwards the
more coffee that's inside the burr set
the more congested that it is the slower
that it passes through it spends more
time being ground being cut being milled
and that might be causing a problem now
we've seen this for a long time with a
phenomenon that we've called popcorn
where when a hopper gets pretty empty
and the last few beans are very slow to
feed through their grind notably cosa
and we thought that was very bad because
everything was good except this last
section that was much coarser but here
you might have a country argument the
argument might be that actually that
last section when there's no resistance
that's a better grind profile it's just
too coarse for you to use at that
particular setting and so I did what
anyone would do I adjusted my grinder
and fed ground coffee very slowly into
it to get what was a good shot for me 18
in about 40 out in 30 seconds their
shots tasted great perhaps even sweeter
than the shots where I dialed in
initially using beans and not grounds so
to reiterate by slowly feeding in very
coarsely ground pieces of coffee into my
grinder I was able to grind at a much
finer setting and was able to produce
what I think is a sweeter tastier more
delicious espresso I want you to try
this too but I am extremely hesitant to
ask you to put ground coffee into your
grinders while I'm reasonably sure that
this kind of grind setting where it is
very very very coarse it won't have any
issues but I just don't feel necessarily
smart telling you to go and put coarsely
ground coffee back into your coffee
grinders a variety of grinders might
have an issue they might Jam I'm very
comfortable potentially damaging my
equipment because I'm comfortable fixing
it and I'm also fully aware of the
liability being entirely mine I can't
ask that of you I have a different
experiment to ask of you
but before that there's two pieces of
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here's that the last experiment that I
did that I want you to replicate at home
and let me know your findings down in
the comments below what I thought was
this if it works - very slowly feed in
coarsely ground big pieces of coffee
well would it work - just very very
slowly feed in whole beans there should
be a very similar effect if there's
limited amounts of coffee passing
through the burrs there should be no
resistance there should be no impediment
to the beans very quickly being ground
through I might have some very good
results and so that's what I did I took
18 grams of coffee and this should work
on any grinder there's a single dose
grinder any grind of you are comfortable
using as a single dose grinder that
doesn't really retain anything there in
my case I'm knowingly gonna have to
override the safety switch on the niche
that's just a thing I'm gonna have to do
to make this work please be safe if
you're doing this with one of your
grinders and now very very slowly we're
going to feed the coffee in
[Music]
the limit here is your patience the
slower you can go the better is the
might the funny will be able to grind
there we have it
[Music]
now one key aspect of this is trying to
be consistent in the way that you feed
the beans in the slower you go the finer
you'll need to grind and you can pretty
much replicate feeding in ground coffee
with feeding in beans very very very
slowly
it's painfully slow its frustratingly
slow you'll want to just speed it up but
you won't get the results you won't have
the same experience I think the shots
that I'm getting this way are a little
bit sweeter a little bit more balanced
they're a little bit more enjoyable what
interesting thought on this is that I
have added the anti pop Corning disc to
to the niche and I think the shots
tasted better but they might have tasted
better because it slowed the flow of
coffee into the burst a little bit the
more extreme that slowing is the better
the result potentially or not maybe I'm
wrong maybe this is just an isolated
case I think it's interesting that you
want to avoid regrinding inside the bur
set leaving the coffee in there too long
and potentially the answer is grinding
coffee once and then re grinding it
again which is very confusing but I'm a
very small sample set I'm a very small
number you are a huge community I want
your input I want to know what you find
did you find a difference is this
interesting does this turn on its head
everything we thought we knew about pop
Corning being bad in espresso grinders I
don't know but I'm intrigued to find out
more but for now I'll say thank you so
much for watching and I hope you have a
great day
[Music]
you
[Music]