- Should you upgrade the burrs inside your coffee grinder?
That seems like a pretty simple question
with a very obvious answer.
If you could afford it, why wouldn't you upgrade?
But it isn't that simple.
I'm gonna talk about my experience
with a couple of different grinders to give you
a bit more understanding about the questions
that you should be asking before you upgrade your grinder.
Now, burr upgrading has been a thing
that's become popular really in the last couple of years
with the rise of one particular company
called SSP based out of Korea.
They've been a family-owned business since 1991.
And really, in the last few years,
have come to be seen as the kind of kings of grinder burrs.
Their burrs in testing produced better results,
better grind quality than other manufacturers.
And that's really interesting.
Now, those burrs are actually machine CNCd in Switzerland,
but the company is based in Korea.
I have in these two grinders, burrs by SSP.
And that's had a couple of interesting impacts
on the way that the grinder works.
The first obvious question is, does the coffee taste better?
Yes, yeah, it does.
Actually, I like the taste of the coffee
out of both of these grinders.
Now, in the case of the Fellow grinder, the Ode,
and you can watch the full review up here if you want to,
I had a big problem with the burr set that came with it.
They just didn't go fine enough for me.
And with the SSP burr set that's in there,
absolutely they can go very fine,
much finer than espresso even,
but that brings its own problems.
I know people have tested the original Fellow burrs
and had very good results with them
at coarser grind settings, but for lighter roasts,
it was definitely a frustration for me.
And more recently, I've upgraded the burr set inside this,
the Wilfa Uniform that I have at home.
This has changed the way the grinder works
in a bunch of interesting ways,
but also brought some problems.
This is really the crux of it.
A grinder is a sum of two different parts in a way, right?
There's the mechanism that spins the burrs
and the burrs themselves.
And that motor is often spec'd
to the burr set that it's using.
The design of the grinder is spec'd
to the motor and the burr set that you're using.
And when you change one part,
it can have unintended consequences.
I'll give you a very simple example, on this Wilfa grinder.
Now, because the burr set is so different,
it grinds much faster, and that's a real bonus.
This grinder was a little slow before,
now it's a much, much quicker grinder.
But that added friction actually has a weird effect.
While you're grinding coffee,
the grinder will often begin to move
its grind setting on its own.
More confusingly, it'll often drag itself finer
because of the rotation of the motor.
That's a massive problem.
If you're not paying attention,
your grind will be a long way from where you want it to be.
Your coffee is gonna taste bad.
You'll have a mix of grind settings in there.
But if it keeps its setting, well, yeah,
the grind is more uniform, it's faster,
it's better tasting coffee, it's a total win,
but the experience, that's a problem.
I really like the coffee that this produces.
This burr set, this grinder together,
I think make fantastic coffee.
It's a little bit sweeter, more complex.
The extraction's a little bit higher.
It's very good.
It's been, from a coffee perspective, a great upgrade.
But from an experience perspective,
I'm not sure I can keep this setup.
And it's not Wilfa's fault,
and it's not SSP's fault, it's my fault.
I messed with the equilibrium of this grinder.
I changed it and I used parts that were not spec'd
for this grinder.
That I think is really an important way
to think about that decision you're making.
You're gonna invalidate a warranty
by changing the burr set inside a grinder.
And there are gonna be unintended consequences.
And that I think is not talked about enough.
Now, like I said, with the Fellow Ode,
I like this combination,
but it's not recommended because once you're grinding finer,
you're requiring a lot more torque
and energy and power from a motor.
And the motor in this is not spec'd for that.
And you could say, "Well, I can grind it very fine."
"And I actually pull shots of espresso
"with this and it works."
The question is really, for how long?
Now, you could argue if you burnt this out
by using the wrong burrs, how would Fellow ever know?
But the realistic scenario is not that you burn this out
in three months and you're sending it back under warranty.
The realistic outcome is that what should have lasted
five to 10 years lasts two and it's still out of warranty,
and you've just burned out your grinder much sooner
than you needed to because you used the wrong burrs.
It's not built for that, it's not spec'd for that.
Now, I'm gonna have to interrupt myself here
because literally hours after filming this video,
Fellow started selling the SSP burrs on their website,
which was kind of a surprise to me,
a little bit and certainly not well-timed.
But it is important to update this whole thing
with some up-to-date thoughts
and comments from Fellow themselves.
Just to go back, a little tiny piece of history.
So Fellow initially were kind of okay
with you putting SSP burrs in.
And then, not long after they launched the grinder,
they were like, "Actually, please, please don't do that."
And I think they went and did some testing.
And interestingly, you know,
they're now saying, "Yes, you can,
"and we'll even sell them to you."
Now, this leaves me a little bit conflicted
in a number of different ways.
And first thing that I asked was,
"You say on the website you can't make espresso with it."
Well, I can, and I have.
I've pulled shots with this,
and you can certainly grind fine enough.
The steps are quite large in between,
each adjustment and that's a problem,
but ultimately you can go that fine
and the website says you can't.
I've got clarity there, you can, but you really shouldn't.
Fellow was saying,
"Please don't pull shots of espresso with your grinder.
"It's not built for it, it's not spec'd for it.
"So in doing so, you will wear the motor
"and incur further risk of damaging your grinder."
So even though it can, maybe don't.
Actually, if it was me,
what I would probably do is adjust my kind of burr setup
and my dial setup so that I could
never go that fine by accident, and therefore,
never potentially damage my grinder, wear my motor,
trigger a thermal cutout, all of that kind of stuff.
Now, I did actually shoot a version of this interruption
that had me pulling shots of espresso with it,
but I'm not gonna include those really,
because I don't wanna promote this thing,
this idea that could result in you doing the same thing,
testing it out and damaging your property, your grinder.
So I think I will stand with Fellow and say,
please don't do this.
The fact that they're selling these burrs
and promoting them, for me, is a little bit tricky.
This motor is not spec'd for SSP burrs.
It doesn't have the torque, it doesn't have the power,
and grinding finer than usual,
even finer than the previous burrs were spec'd
will place additional strain on your motor.
And I don't know at what point
you damage the lifespan of a motor.
I don't know whether you take its lifespan
from say five to 10 years down to three.
Then you're still gonna have a warranty issue regardless.
It'll be out of warranty after that period of time.
I don't think people are gonna kill their grinder
in six months unless they're grinding huge amounts of coffee
regularly through the day at very fine grind settings.
But I do think there is a longevity piece here
that is worth considering
and should be built into your decision.
And that's kind of the theme of this video
that I'll bring up again and again.
You should really just know what you're getting into
and make an informed decision about using
aftermarket parts on a grinder like this.
One more thing before I hand you back to past me,
you may have expected some taste-testing
as part of this video.
That really sort of fell outside of the brief
of what I wanted to talk about today.
Swapping burrs in and out and brewing is not a simple thing.
And it's quite a difficult side-by-side test to do
for a whole bunch of reasons.
But there's no real debate that the SSP burrs
produce a more uniform unimodal style grind.
Whether you like that or not is perhaps different.
But I think, certainly, at finer settings,
or medium to fine settings,
they are superior burrs to the ones that Fellow offer.
At coarser settings, that's up for a bit of debate actually,
but certainly finer, I think they're a better burr.
A lot of people agree, the tests show more uniformity.
And so it didn't seem within the brief
of this particular topic.
Anyway, that's enough from me.
I'll hand you back to past me now
to pick up where I left off.
Now, the reason I have this grinder at the end here
is that it's kind of interesting.
This is a relatively new grinder and there'll be
a full review in the next couple of months or so.
In different places it has different names.
It's called I think the G-Iota, the Solo in the UK.
It's a flat burr grinder and it comes with options.
In certain places,
distributors are offering it with SSP or standard burrs.
And there you would argue
that that is spec'd for different burr sets.
The motor is capable of different burr sets.
And there, it's really about how you wanna spend your money.
You're not incurring risk, you're not voiding warranties.
And in that case, it's gonna be,
what's the value of that upgrade to you?
Now, if it's say, 100, 200 to upgrade
a burr set inside a grinder at the point of manufacturer
or before you buy it,
I think that's a reasonable decision.
I think upgrading the burr set can produce
a more uniform grind, better tasting coffee.
If you like that style of coffee, I think it is worthwhile.
But as an aftermarket mod,
you just really have to understand
that you're incurring risk,
and you will have potentially unintended consequences.
Now, if you do wanna do it, generally speaking,
changing out a burr set is incredibly easy.
It depends on the grinder of course, but you know,
you wanna access the burrs and change them out.
Now, I've already changed the burr set
inside this grinder and to do so is incredibly easy.
So here you can see the SSP burr from inside the grinder.
There's just three holes,
and three screws holding this burr in place.
This is the top and fixed burr.
And to take it out is very simple.
Just undo the screws, pull the piece out.
Now, when you seat a new burr,
it's very important that the surface it sits against
is as clean as possible.
If there's anything causing it to be at a slight angle,
it will go out of alignment
and it will not perform properly.
And some people go so far as to check
the alignment of their burr sets.
I'll maybe link to a video down below
about how to check alignments and do all that kind of stuff.
It's a rabbit hole you can lose hours and hours
of your life in, not always necessary.
Now, if you look at the two burrs side-by-side,
you can see not just the materials,
but the shapes of the teeth are completely different.
And I will say that while SSP appear
to be leaders in the field,
the broader understanding of exactly how teeth shape
affect coffee is not widely understood.
I think a lot of trial and error still goes into burr design
and we're not yet truly at a point of understanding
cause and effect when it comes to grinding coffee.
But these teeth obviously have a much larger cutting area
compared to these ones here.
And that may explain how they are that much quicker.
This grinds coffee about twice as quickly as it did before.
And again, a combination of the material and the coating,
as well as the teeth shape will affect
the uniformity and the grind distribution.
It seems a very simple and neat upgrade.
And for the most part it is.
And it's one that I would consider
for many different grinders.
And it's a great way to explore coffee.
If you've got the budget,
$200 for a set of burrs is expensive.
It's a lot of money to throw at something.
And it takes a grinder from being
say a $300 grinder to a $500 grinder.
And would I be happy with a $500 grinder
that can't hold its griund setting?
No, not really.
Would I be happy with a $500 grinder that has
an underpowered motor for how I might wanna ground coffee?
No, for $500, I would expect more.
And I think I'm hopeful that this can do those things,
we shall see.
So that's upgrading grinder burrs.
And I'd be really interested to hear
from you down in the comments below
if you've gone through this process.
Did it feel like a worthwhile upgrade?
Have you seen a $200 improvement
in the quality of your coffee?
Have there been unintended consequences
or strange little bugs with your grinder
after making the change?
Let me know down in the comments below, but for now,
I'll say thank you so much for watching.
Hope you have a great day.