but I cant adjust any further without the gears sounding like they are touching or grating each other, are you saying to ignore this sound and adjust till it is fine enough.
It sounds like your grinder is defective. Maybe the burrs are not aligned or maybe it's something else. Both KA and WS have excellent customer service and on-the-spot replacement and return policies.
My advice, FWIW: Take the grinder back to Williams+Sanoma and exchange it, or demonstrate the trouble to them and get them to either give you one that works properly (maybe aske them to demonstrate it in the store) OR refund your money.
Posted Sat Sep 10, 2005, 9:55am Subject: Re: KitchenAid ProLine Grinder First Look
I live across the street from a WS store, so I decided to pop over there and take a look at it, since I've been curious about them for a while, but not willing to pay the price of $199.
I chatted with the nice employees for a while, imparted a little bit of "coffee knowledge", and played with one of the Jura Capresso F9 and Z5 machines (BTW, the "extra strong" short shots on these are pretty tasty. I was reasonably surprised).
What I didn't realize is that Willams-Sonoma has a return policy that may surpass that of Costco. While there, I watched a guy bring and return an 11 year old Delonghi food processor! If you have your receipt, you get a refund, no questions asked. Even if you don't have the reciept, you can get store credit.
So with this in mind, I picked up one of the grinders, since basically I can't loose. I have no intention of abusing it, but I really want to know if it will do what I want for drip coffe mostly. If it doesn't, I'll take it back. I'll likely try it for espresso too, but I already have a Cimbali Jr. for that.
On a side note though, I'm wondering if I'm missing something about brewed coffee (be it drip, vac, etc.). I would think that the more even and consistant the grind size, the better, since you are trying to minimize over extraction from pieces that are smaller than others.
All of the best drip coffee I've ever had has one thing in common. It was ground in a Ditting. When I look at commercially ground coffee, it has a very even particle size (and horrid flavor) which ideally should promote even extraction. I've got a number of grinders, and what I've been trying to do is find one that will grind a drip-vac-press grind evenly. So far the search has been futile.
So I took the KA pro-line I bought earlier tonight, and have been running some old coffee I had laying about through it. When you get towards the smaller size particles (ie espresso) the coffee is very even, and looks as though it would do wonderfully, if I were pulling shots. But what I want it for is drip and vac. When I adjust the grind up (while running, as you said mark) I'm getting more variability than I would like, basically no better than what I was getting out of my Lux. Sure there doesn't seem to be the same "fines" but there are definitely larger chunks, and very small pieces, all mixed together. I've tried several different grind sizes.
So the question is, "how is the coffee?". Honestly, I made up a vac pot (bodum santos, cory rod) with the grind setting on 4.5 and let it brew for 90 seconds up north, and removed it. It took another couple minutes to have most of the coffee go south, but it eventually stalled. The flavor was overwhelmingly bitter, not smooth. So the next day I tried cupping the same coffee that had been roasted two different ways (poppery & HWG) to see if I could tell any difference. I did each coffee twice, grinding at 5.5 (since that's what Mark recommended) and this came out very bitter after soaking for 3 minutes. I ground at 4.5, and this was less bitter, but still not great.
I dumped the grinds from the cupping mugs into the sink, and they sprayed out over the white pocelain. When looking at it this way, it was easy to see that there was a significant amount of variability in the grind particles, down to very small pieces, much to my dissapointment.
But not talking just about this grinder, overall, it seems to me that getting a very even, consistant grind for a larger particle size is actually more difficult than getting an even espresso grind.
Chris "on the quest for perfect brewed coffee" Staley
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MarkPrince Moderator Joined: 19 Dec 2001 Posts: 5,462 Location: Vancouver, BC Expertise: Professional
Espresso: KvdW Speedster Grinder: Compak K10 WBC Vac Pot: A bit too many Drip: Clive Coffee Drip Stand Roaster: Hario Glass Retro Roaster
Posted Sat Sep 10, 2005, 12:11pm Subject: Re: KitchenAid ProLine Grinder First Look
I don't know how fair it is to compare this grinder to something like a Ditting, which (at least the ones I'm familiar with) cost 3x or more, and were designed to produce the "gold standard" for drip grinds and press and such.
That said, I do want to clarify something - a lot of grinders, including the Solis and others, tend to produce some amount of "fines" while grinding for press or drip. Pretty much all the grinders based on that conical burr stack found in the Maestro Plus, Maestro, Bodum Antigua, Starbucks Barista (made by Solis), almost all super autos, the Capresso grinder and the Capresso grind and brew, all seem to produce some fines that, if you rub the grind in your hand, you'll see them remain between the ridges on your palm.
But the KitchenAid didn't do this, at least the test unit I had. Sure, there were some fines - a very minor amount, but nothing compared to other grinders in the $75-$200 multi-use range (which does not include purpose-built grinders like a Mazzer or Rocky).
This is where I was talking about evenness of grind and how I felt it was more suited to press and drip. Sure, it's not going to beat a Ditting, esp. the R2D2 looking one, but it's still the best in its class, from what I've seen so far.
Posted Sat Sep 10, 2005, 12:41pm Subject: Re: KitchenAid ProLine Grinder First Look
Well, I went to williams sonoma and exchanged my kitchen aid proline grinder for another one, I got home and the same thing happened, no matter what I did it would not grind fine enough for espresso.
I even adjusted the internal white gear to its maximum point with the burrs grating very badly and I still could not grind a fine grind. I thought maybe it was the fluffy grinds that Mark was talking about in his review so I decided to pull a couple of shots and the slowest one I could pull was 11 seconds.
There either must be a large amount of defective units out there which might explain the love hate reviews in the consumer review section or kitchen aid made some improvements and i got one of the old ones.
Either way I gave up and returned it today and decided to cough up another $100 for a Rocky
What a shame I really wanted this grinder to work, it really is a beauty sitting on your counter.
Posted Sat Sep 10, 2005, 12:44pm Subject: Re: KitchenAid ProLine Grinder First Look
I just wanted to add one more thing, I agree with mark that the grinds are very very even with little to no dust this would be an awesome grinder for drip or french press.
I did not realize how much dust my grinder made till I brought home this kitchen aid
MarkPrince Moderator Joined: 19 Dec 2001 Posts: 5,462 Location: Vancouver, BC Expertise: Professional
Espresso: KvdW Speedster Grinder: Compak K10 WBC Vac Pot: A bit too many Drip: Clive Coffee Drip Stand Roaster: Hario Glass Retro Roaster
Posted Sat Sep 10, 2005, 1:24pm Subject: Re: KitchenAid ProLine Grinder First Look
Hi Don.
I can't figure out an explanation for why the grinders you tried couldn't grind fine enough. But Terry Z. gave me the contact info for the engineer who designed this grinder, and if I get in touch with him, I'll bring this subject up - maybe he can shed some light on it.
jamuka Senior Member Joined: 24 Apr 2005 Posts: 67 Location: Orlando FL Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Rancilio Silvia Grinder: Kitchenaid Proline, Retro, &... Vac Pot: In search of... Drip: never again Roaster: 3 Poppery Mark I's
Posted Sat Sep 10, 2005, 8:55pm Subject: Re: KitchenAid ProLine Grinder First Look
I bought this grinder after hearing the podcast. I've gotten it to grind fine enough for espresso, but it doesn't seem to be fine-tunable. I also hear the motor slow considerably when beans are in the grind chamber.
Kitchenaid is sending me a replacement because of the notorious gap between the glass and metal in the hopper. I hope I get one from the batch that Mark's is from.
Mark, I hope you're not going to hold out too long on that detailed review. I'd love to know your hot-rodding tip soon--I am considering sending this back and saving up for Rocky, but I'd prefer to keep this grinder if there's a way that it can be made to meet my needs.
Posted Sun Sep 11, 2005, 3:25am Subject: Re: KitchenAid ProLine Grinder First Look
MarkPrince Said:
I don't know how fair it is to compare this grinder to something like a Ditting, which (at least the ones I'm familiar with) cost 3x or more, and were designed to produce the "gold standard" for drip grinds and press and such.
Oh you are absolutely right, it is completely unfair. And I really wasn't trying to directly compare it (after all I don't have a ditting to compare it with, unfortunately :-D ). I guess I would just like a grinder where I can get an even consistant larger particle size grind. Or figure out what else it could be in why I seem to consistantly fail to make better than "just decent" brewed coffee. I know that others are able to do a great job, so I'm stumped.
Honestly I really do like the looks of this grinder, how quiet it is, the ease of cleaning, etc. One thing I did notice is that after grinding, I took out the glass hopper and with the grinder off, pushed up quickly a couple times to see if there were any grinds I could knock out of the hole. This appeared to have no affect, as I got very little out of it. However, when I turned the grinder on and did the same thing, I got a rather large pile of grounds in my hand. On the order of 3-5 grams at least. Just thought I would note this.
Hey Mark, on a side note, do you happen to remember in Atlanta where most of the consumer cupping/espresso lab stuff went on? Cindy Chang was doing tons of stuff for the cupping lab, and they were using a "small" table top Ditting, that I always thought would have been one of the 804's, until I saw an 804 otherwise, and it was much bigger. Is there some "secret" (in that it isn't on Ditting's website) smaller grinder than the 804? Anway, totally off topic in this thread, I apologize.
Chris
Please remember CoffeeKids throughout the year: www.coffeekids.org
Posted Sun Sep 11, 2005, 4:53am Subject: Re: KitchenAid ProLine Grinder First Look
Sigh.... And just when you think you have things semi-figured out. I get tossed for a loop, and brew a STELLAR thermos of coffee tonight here at work. This is the same stuff (La Esmerelda Panama Cup of Excellence, from 2 years ago) I was cupping yesterday that was bitter, and right now I made a pot in my pourover cone that truly is delicious. I happened to be using my Lux here at work.
As much as I like many of the design aspects of the KA proline, including the incredibly beefy construction, the auger drive into the burrs, the lack of static, and the straight grind drop, I don't think it is a grinder that I actually need right now, and likely it will be going back to WS. If I didn't already have a decent home grinder for drip (same burr set as the lux) I almost certainly would keep it. As it is though, there isn't enough improvement over what I already have to justify keeping it.
However, before I take it back, I'll evaluate grinding for espresso with it too.
Chris
Please remember CoffeeKids throughout the year: www.coffeekids.org
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