10,000 Shots

Mahlkonig ProM Espresso Grinder Review

Order of factors for classic Italian 4M’s of espresso is often disputed. I see it as: Coffee, Grinder, Machine and Barista in that order. You need high quality coffee, the basic ingredient of espresso, without it everything is lost. Then you need excellent grinder to get most out of that coffee. Finally you need good espresso machine to get best out of your ground coffee and finally you need barista to put it all together.

Each of these factors is critical, but as you can see, I think that grinder is just a bit more important than the espresso machine, in fact having excellent grinder is a sanity saver. 

I spent last 4 weeks using Mahlkonig ProM Espresso grinder and it is the easiest to live with grinder for espresso that I have ever used. Easiest how? Easy to use, quality of ground coffee and of course what ends up in a cup. And keep in mind that I love to single dose (grind only pre-measured amounts of coffee in grinder). I single dose because I change coffees often and there are at least 3-4 coffees in play every day.

 I single dosed Baratza Vario, Mazzer Major, Compak K-10 and of course Versalab M3, but for ProM I stuck to filling the hopper with about 5-10 shots worth of coffee and using timed grinding. Reason I did this is simply because grinder is designed to be used like that and I wanted to experience how that plays out given that I love single dosing. I also put the ProM on morning duty. In my house, nothing really tests grinder more than morning duty. Being barely awake I am not on top of my game before couple of cups of coffee and patience is in short supply. So if grinder can make everyone happy in my household during morning ritual it is indeed high praise.

Little bit on ProM Espresso model, which should not be confused with ProM All-Around grinder. ProM Espresso is designed for espresso only and it uses the touch panel on front of the grinder to adjust the timed dosing and setup the grinder. ProM All-Around grinder can grind from espresso to drip grind range and does not have touch panel with display. That’s the easy way to distinguish these two models when you see them. All-Around grinder is not model I used this time. 

In heart of ProM Espresso grinder are 65mm steel burrs with belt-drive motor. ProM Espresso and All-Around model do share exact same burrs. Mahlkonig K-30, the commercial grinder also uses the 65mm burrs, but they are different from burrs in ProM. Mahlkonig cuts their own burrs so these are burrs not found in other grinders.

 ProM Espresso uses timed operation, whereby you set the amount of time in 0.1 second increments for grinder to be turned on i.e. grind coffee which becomes proxy for weighing the coffee you put in basket. For this to work grinder should deliver always about the same amount of coffee in your basket for given grind fineness and time. 

Why is this important? Dose, amount of coffee you use in basket is critical. It determines your flow rate, timing and ultimately how your espresso tastes. In short it controls how much you extract out of your coffee. Inconsistent dose results in inconsistent espresso so using exact same dose every time you make espresso is critical. I don’t mean that amount of coffee you use is always the same for every coffee and even every day, but ability repeat your best espresso extractions is ruled by dose. Once you dial-in your coffee to get repeated results you have to have exact control over the amount of coffee you are using. So how good, meaning how precise timed dosing in ProM Espresso is? I did test where I dropped 170 grams of coffee into the hopper and then set timer so grinder grinds for 6 seconds. Here are the results from first to last dose:

Coffee in: 170g:

13.8g

16.4g

16.4g

16.7g

16.4g

16.0g

16.1g

15.0g

16.3g

15.0g

10.9g

Total out: 169g

Notice that first dose is low since burr chamber was not filled completely so the dose run short of target. Then the output is fairly consistent and something you can rely on until the point where it hits 15 grams out. That is the point where hopper was getting empty and there is no bean column on top to consistently push beans inside so the feed rate changes and thus the output.

Retention with beans already in grinder between doses is I estimate about 4-7 grams. This means that after longer pause (first thing it the morning for example) to purge stale coffee you should grind about 4-7 grams and throw them out. Perhaps setting single dose to 3 second purge is good idea.

Timed dosing is very precise as long as there are at least some beans in hopper that ensure constant feed into the burrs. And this is consistent with the grinder design, it is designed to be used with hopper on and timed dosing and it really excels at that.

Note that type of coffee, time for grinding, grind fineness and coffee output are all connected. Finer you grind coffee the longer it takes to grind same amount. For example, if at certain grind fineness you grind for 7 seconds and get output of 18 grams then if you adjust grinder to grind finer, 7 seconds will no longer give you 18 grams output. It will give less since it takes longer to grind finer. And if you grind coarser 7 seconds will give you more than 18 grams in the example. 

You can indeed single dose the ProM Espresso, but that in my mind defeats its designed purpose and overall usability. I tried single dosing it and you have to grind finer and grinding does take longer since you need to turn on/off, pulse grinder to get everything out. It also seemed to me that consistency of ground coffee was compromised when grinder was used this way. Trust me as hard-core single doser and just use it with beans in the hopper.

So what about taste? I would say that forgiveness of ProM Espresso is due to amount of fines it produces. I feel its noticeably more than either Compak K-10 and Veralab M3. This makes grinder incredibly forgiving. Its really my favorite grinder for the first espresso in the morning while I am half a wake. I really did not make a single bad espresso first thing in the morning with it. No fuss, no WDT, no nuttating tamp, no Stockfleths move, nothing at all. Just grind, tap portafilter down to settle coffee a bit and tamp straight down. That’s it. Always even extraction as result.

I wanted to show you this forgiveness factor so I made following video. Note that even and nice bottomless portafilter extraction does not guarantee good shot, but it is an indicator. Good looking extractions tend to taste good, bad looking extractions tend to taste bad. It is really that simple. I also wanted to come up with simple way to asses how forgiving and easy to use any random grinder is so this is what I came up with. You grind coffee into the basket, you are allowed to tap portafilter straight down to settle the coffee but no other  distributions of coffee in basket or manipulation should be done. You then tamp coffee down and pull the shot. Assess what you get out. This basically eliminates any basket preparation technique since there is no technique.  So here is video of ProM in action:

This incredible forgiveness comes at price. There is some grittiness to taste and I feel that these fines are making it into the cup. This taste profile is very similar to Mazzer Major with just a bit more grittiness. There is maybe some clarity of flavor lost due to this as well. The espresso is also a bit more chocolatey (how is that bad :-) ?). Flip side of this taste profile is that it goes very well in milk drinks and this grittiness even enhances them. So its matter of taste really and subjective. If all you drink are milk drinks there are no reservations.

One coffee I was very impressed with when made with ProM was Epic Espresso from 49th Parallel. I used 19 grams of coffee to make 30 grams of espresso and taste was really clean. Acidity and sweetness nicely balanced with tip towards acidity. Bitterness was of high quality, meaning not nasty. The grittiness I experienced due to fines with some coffees absolutely undetectable. Just beautiful cup.

What are drawbacks? The only thing I would improve is the grind adjustment mechanism. I feel like it takes some time for it to settle down so you start thinking nothing changed when you turn the knob. You must, just must, always keep grinder running while you adjust grind. For most grinders if you are adjusting grind to coarser side you don’t have to run the grinder, but ProM requires it. Otherwise it will take even more time for it to settle on new setting. 

Also of note is bit of clumping due to the static guard which packs down the coffee so when it exits it appears clumpy. However, I found that this does not create any extraction problems and the clumps are superficial and can be ignored. You just tamp them down.

All in all, I am very impressed by this grinder. If you despaired about your espresso grinder trying to get even nice extraction, if you used WDT, nuttating tamp, stockfleths or whatever voodoo that was required, here is a grinder that does not require all that.

Have questions? Feel free to fire away.

Roasting secrets

I’ve been reading the JimSeven recent post and his observations on roasting secrets is something I noticed too:

Another classic secret would be roasting techniques. The commercial roasting community is loathe to talk about roasting techniques and ideas in public. 

Agreed, if you talk to roasters directly they are not willing to share roasting profiles and how they roast. They’ll talk about generic stuff, but you will not be able to pin them on any specifics.

Now, I can understand that to some degree. The roasting profile and how they roast is in the core of their business. Roasting well is not easy so whatever insight roasters make into how to roast they treat as competitive differentiator so it will not be shared. Thing is, starting roasting business does not take lot of capital and pretty much you can get started with $10k. What differentiates you as far as making the best product then is the access to good green coffee and how you blend it and roast it.  And since roasting is key component I don’t think roasters will start to share any roasting secrets, or learnings if you want, any time soon.

I also agree that knowledge about how to roast and roasting profiles is fairly thin on Home Barista and elsewhere. There is lot of speculation but very little hard aplicable knowledge. You start with 9-10 minutes to first crack and stretch of 4 minutes to end of the roast after first crack, if you are roasting for espresso and that that is pretty much extent of knowledge out there. I am not kidding, that is it in nutshell.

But, if you tried to roast for espresso, and if you honestly compared your roasts to best commercial roasts you know as well as I do that roasting is really hard. And that there is more to it than just what I wrote.

So learning how to roast is a lot of trial and error. There is no book that you could pick up and learn it, its really strange. But so is lot of stuff that deals with coffee ;-)

But, if I ever discover some roasting secrets, and I hope I will have at least some learnings thanks to lot of trial and error, you can bet I will shout them from every roof top. I just don’t care about keeping them secret.

Huky 500 Roaster Update

Its been a while since I posted about Huky 500 roaster. I’ve been roasting like mad and learning. Roasting for espresso is really hard, at least for me. I have no problems roasting for other brew methods, but for espresso its challenging. Not fault of the roaster, I had same issues with HotTop…

But even a broken clock is right two times a day and I am finally managing to get better espresso roasts. Of note is Guatemala Concepcion Chuito that I roasted 2 days ago and it came out really good. Green apple acidity with nice honey like sweetness. I was really surprised at the excellent results I got.

I roasted 2 roasts, first stopping at 425°F and second at 430°F. First one turned out to be just a bit too bright for my taste and second one not bright enough. So what does man do? Well, blend them together :-) Very good results. I am very happy with how it turned out.

Here are profiles for both of these roasts:

I am also trying different working technique with Huky that if it works out I will be posting about soon. 

bestespresso asked: It seems like you are using a lot of the highest end espresso machines and gear out there - which espresso machine do you think is best out of everything you've used or had a shot from? Which espresso machine has poured the best shot you've ever had?

Good question without good answer :-) Truth is once you start using higher end gear differences are about some other things rather than which one produces best espresso, since they are all certainly capable. You start considering how easy to service machine is, ergonomics or even how good it looks in your kitchen (not my consideration though, but for lot of people it is)… 

Seriously, they all can and produce exceptional espresso. I remember memorable shots from every single machine I had.

What it comes down to though is coffee. You must have high quality coffee to enjoy this high end equipment and you also must have good grinder to get most out of that coffee.

Or put another way, if I had to chose, I would rather have high end coffee and grinder than high end machine.

Hope this helps.

bestespresso asked: Hey man - great blog here, I read it all the time. I had a couple questions for you since you are concerned with producing the highest quality espresso possible. What do you think is the best grinder to use at home for single dosing (weighing and grinding each shot individually, I assume you do the same). I just picked up a K10 WBC, aside from the Robur, I couldn't find anything that seems to be better.

Thank you very much. Most definitely, you just cannot go wrong with Compak K-10. I use it every day, single dosing exclusively. I have modified mine with the velcro strips on dozer vanes for clean sweeping and I have cut part of plastic that covers the exit chute for easier sweeping.

Quality of grind is top notch but it is more work to bump and sweep when single dosing. I also find to get best result with very quick WDT.

In the morning I prefer using Versalab M3 for ease of use. It is not as forgiving as K-10 but much faster and easier to use.

Robur is fantastic, but also more expensive. I hear people single dose it as well. All in all, for money K-10 is the best conical high end espresso grinder which you can single dose. Excellent choice!

Killer Coffee for Espresso Alert

Problem with espresso are highs. All the killer shots we drink from time to time. They set the expectations for everything that comes after that. They raise the barrier for all espresso we drink from that point on, and when we can’t match it, its frustrating. At least to me :-)

So two killer coffees for espresso that I just tried:

Coava Costa Rica - Finca Zarcero espresso profile. Balanced orange acidity with chocolate like sweetness. Really good. Pulled it on Speedster like: 20g IN, 24g OUT, 27 sec @ 200F

Klatch El Salvador Orange Bourbon single origin espresso. Heavy-weight, heck SUMO!, sweetness. Hints of orange acidity. Really, really good. Pulled on Speedster like: 19g IN, 20g OUT, 27 sec @ 200F

You’ve got to try them while they are around.

kjasonclark asked: Thanks for the reply, and sorry to keep pestering you, but did you get the Huky with perforated or solid drum? I'm quite torn between the two, and am having trouble finding any conclusive remarks on the internet as to which is "better." Mr. Li recommended the perforated, and says that his design of using direct flame or indirect flame recrates the same effect as a solid drum, and though ingenious, I don't really buy it. It's not the same. Thanks again. -Jason

I’ve been asked about the difference between perforated and solid drum for Huky 500 and thought I will respond publicly so others can benefit as well.

I’ll start by saying that I really do not know 100% what the difference would be taste wise on Huky 500 between perforated and solid drum. The only way to find out would be to buy both and then perform testing. I think that would be lot of work though. And likely even impossible since you’d have hard time replicating roast profiles due to the way solid drum changes roaster performance.

If I was asked which drum to get, I would side with Mr Li, who recommends and has designed Huky 500 with perforated drum. My recommendation is based on the design of the roaster and air flow. With perforated drum you have much greater air flow through drum when fan is on and roaster was designed with this in mind. This increased air flow helps Huky 500 be very responsive and you can use this to maintain the Environmental Temperature (ET) inside of the drum quite easily and with that you control your roast.

This makes Huky 500 very responsive roaster that turns on a dime so to say. This is very desirable quality in roaster since it allows good deal of roast profiling.

This air flow also has another crucial function during roasting. It sucks the chaff from drum up through pipe and into the collection tray.

With solid drum, this would not work the same. The air flow would be completely different and you will no longer be able to get air flowing through the drum as you do with perforated drum. This has wide ranging implications. From controlling ET using air to getting chaff out.

In fact I did some roasts with my Huky 500 where I completely closed bottom grate which covers essentially all perforated drum holes. The air can still move but it is obstructed.

I noted two things. First the roaster became noticeably slower to respond to fan. I could not use fan as I can when grate is open to control the ET. Roaster just reacts slower and this with my 20,000 BTU stove. You have problems putting all this heat to good use without air.

Second, since air flow is reduced the chaff could not be completely sucked out of the drum and during roast it clogged pipe completely thus nullifying any fan induced air flow.

I think both of these negative side effects would be found in solid drum where there would be even more air flow obstructions and I also question chaff collection on solid drum due to lack of air flow…

So in short, if you are planning to buy Huky 500, I say buy with perforated drum. Roaster was designed around perforated drum so stick with it.

I also recommend getting thermocouple instead of the analog thermometer for measuring ET. Now that I have installed thermocouple I find it an indispensable tool for controlling the roaster.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.