Flat burr grinder blades. Conical grinder blades. What's the difference? In this video Luke explains the differences between them and the type of coffee each kind of blade is best suited for. It can be somewhat confusing when you're looking at buying a new coffee grinder and you're trying to decide which one is right for you. Whether that's choosing a grinder for domestic use or a grinder for a busy cafe. Hopefully after watching this explanation you'll have a much better idea and can make the right choice for yourself.
Video Transcript (unedited)
domestic grinder with a 56mm flapper
blade
commercial grinder with a 63mm conical
blade specialty commercial
grinder with a 75 mil flat bur blade
deli grinder with a 98 mil
flat bur blade what does that all mean
hang about and i'll tell you all you
need to know about grinder blades
[Music]
welcome back guys to the Artisti
YouTube channel today we're talking
about grinder blades
so we have a whole range of different
blades in front of me here
from domestic to commercial flat burr
and conical so hopefully by the end of
the video you'll have a better
understanding of what's going to suit
your needs
either at home or commercially and is it
going to be the right grinder
blade type for your taste profile
because there are some really
significant differences
to get down to the basics i'm just going
to show you what a flat
grinder is so flat bur basically have
two donut style discs essentially
and they sit on top of each other and
they are adjusted by a collar
and so as this one comes down from the
top the beans are going to fall through
the hole in the middle
and it's going to be like your old
gravitron ride where the beans will
actually go
in through the main hole and exit out
the side
so the further these are apart the
bigger the grind is going to be and the
closer
the finer it's going to be and you can
see here
they are actually shaped on a nice angle
and some pretty
sharp teeth there to grind the blade so
that's your typical flat burr grinder
when we talk conical this isn't a new
product it's been around for a while
many old timber box old hand grinders
would have them
a lot of spice grinders or salt and
pepper grinders have conical blades
they're a little bit different so
essentially you've got an outer ring
which is raised and lowered on top of a
cone so you can see that the blade shape
is a little bit different
and the reverse is on the outside of
this
donut if we call it that and as they go
closer together essentially they're
going to
grind from a coarse grind at the top and
obviously shoot out fine
down the bottom so they're the two
technology differences
and what have we had over time and why
have we
changed and i think it's really come a
bit full circle
um from the demand of the cafes
so when we look at quality versus speed
we really made a big shift and then we
went back to quality again so we're
actually coming back to
the original and
that's been forced from flavour so
what does a flat bur give us my summary
is it's going to give us
a cleaner crisper bring out a little bit
more acidity
into your coffee the issues with a flat
bur
are that there's more contact time as
this blade spins
typically they're actually faster the
revolutions
the rpms of the motors are a lot faster
to run a flatburg
grinder blade but essentially you've got
more contact time which actually creates
more friction
which can actually also give more heat
to a beam
before you even go and add hot water to
it so
we started out with this concept and the
flat burs have been around for a long
time and your small
domestic grinders we're using something
like a 50 or a 54 mil
tiny little blade so you can imagine
that when you go to make your one cup of
coffee it might actually take you
15 or more seconds to grind off your 20
grams of coffee
so that was okay at home but when we
went into the cafes
and you know 15 years ago the volumes of
coffee was just going up
and up to 10 or even 15 kilos a day in a
cafe
where it used to be two or three we
needed to be able to
handle that heat so in time we've gone
up to different sizes
up to something like a 64 mil we've got
up to 74
and even 84 mil and you can't even get
much larger ones like
in the deli grinder as we mentioned
earlier with a 98 mil
so they've got a much bigger surface
area allowing us to grind
more coffee a bit quicker
the industry really shifted when we went
from manual dosing style grinders to
an electric dose button grinder and
you'll see that on a lot of our videos
where you basically push a button
and it grinds for a certain amount of
time giving us the exact dose that we're
after of ground coffee
so we started to push some really long
times with these flat burs
so a 64 mil flat bur grinder was quite
common for a while
and that would give you 20 grams
probably in about 10 to 12 seconds
i haven't used one for a while but don't
quote me on it but they're definitely up
there in time
we then shifted with um i guess a brand
that's quite commonly known
mazza they had a rover coney and
um sorry a robot and a koni
essentially they had two different size
conical burrs in them
so they've got their 63 mil which is
this one and they've got a 68 as well
the amazing thing about these grinders
is that
with a 63 mil blade you could get 20
grams in about
seven seconds and with a 68 mil
you could get below four seconds so
we've gone to like half or twenty
percent even
um of the time you're getting out of
flat burs
so cafes could just pump out more and
more coffee so much quicker
and that was a real advantage you know
if you've got two cafes side by side and
one's getting their coffees out quicker
they're going to make more money per
hour so this was definitely a flavor
that
even us in our business we've
recommended this this shift
but what happened was is the motors in
these
grinders are a bit slower which is fine
so they were lessening the heat
but the quality of the grind coming
through the conical just wasn't
as consistent as we would like there's
multiple grades of
grind size when you actually put it
under a microscope
from what we might call boulders and
rocks down to fines and then down to
superfines
so there is a quite a big scale that you
can look at
check it out you can get some sieves and
even sieve them through this whole
process if you so wish
so with the speed came a different
flavor
profile to the beam it was giving us a
bit more body and a bit more
depth and not as much acidity in a
conical blade
as specialty coffee came to rise and
everyone was looking for single origins
and these lighter roasts
and really trying to get these really
unique flavors out of coffee
the tendency went back towards flatburr
grinders
to give us that cleaner cup the
beautiful acidity that we're looking for
and just overall christmas and
cleanliness in a cup when we're spending
a huge amount on a quality bean we
really want to taste what's happening
so we're now in that stage where we are
looking at using
um like anthem sp2 grinders which this
is the blades here
a 74 mil titanium coated
blade so essentially they'll keep their
edge really well they're going to
disperse the heat really well
and that's what we're using now for our
main blends
in our single origins we're utilizing
the ek grinder which is the 98 mil
blade so it's a very large blade we can
grind a kilo of coffee through that for
a retail customer
or we can pop multiple single origins or
a decaf in
with a pre-weighed amount and it's not
going to hold any grind retention
so that's a really cool
grinder but it's not going to work at
home it does a very specific job
for a cafe environment so we don't be
going and buying this massive blade set
um and spending a lot of money up to
four or five thousand dollars for
one of these grinders so some technology
in this field has really changed and
getting a smaller
set of blades say 64 mil with a ceramic
coating on them has helped us with the
heat
that we had issues with in the past and
if we're happy with the time it takes to
grind off that 20 grams we're gonna get
the best of both worlds by having
that cleaner crisper taste a longer time
but not the heat that essentially was
being applied to that bean when we
ground it
so some pretty cool technology better go
all the way across to a totally
different product and sort of come back
to some amazing
you know different coatings on beans
sorry
amazing different coatings on blades
to help us with heat issues
this was a set of blades which are an 84
mil
blade from a maser
major and as much as this was a grinder
that
kind of fell in the gaps a little bit
because of the movement to
the maser koni grinders for time
this is actually still an amazing
grinder you've got a big set of flat
burrs
you've got obviously that cleanness the
crispness that's going to come through
you've got
some decent speed because they are such
a big blade
i think it's a very good grinder to be
honest for the value that you pay
you know around that two two thousand
dollar mark for an electronic dose
grinder
that's a cracker for a cafe so if you
don't wanna go crazy and spend four
grand on amazing blades in big grinders
or five grand
or if you're not wanting that more body
style coffee than a conical
um grind is going to give you
you know there's one that sits right in
the middle there quite nicely
if you're looking in the home market you
know you can still stick with your 54
mil
style blade but maybe look at buying an
aftermarket set of blades that will have
some sort of coating on them to help
with the heat
or if you like a body style coffee
definitely get yourself
a conical it's going to grind it quickly
it's going to give you some really nice
body
and just give you that morning cup of
coffee that you're probably searching
for
bold and and tastes like you've had that
big smack in the face ready to start the
day
so i hope that's given you a bit of
information on different blades and how
they suit different environments
if you're not prepared to go out and
spend maybe four hundred dollars on a
home grinder that's going to be this
kind of blade up to
you know four or five thousand dollars
in your cafe
you're gonna have to make an investment
of some sort i just want you to get away
from buying
pre-ground beans that come from the
supermarket
or your local roaster because they're
not going to be grinding it to the
specific
need or the fineness that you need for
your particular device
whether that's pour over or an espresso
machine they're taking a guess
so ideally get out there and just buy
yourself
a little hand grinder they're from 50
bucks get them anywhere online or your
local
coffee roaster and nowadays they've
actually got some ceramic
conical burrs in them really easy to
adjust and that's going to get you
tasting fresh ground coffee wherever
you're enjoying it
once you've sort of dialed in your
machines and you've had that for a while
you'll appreciate the taste and then
you'll understand why someone would go
and spend
a thousand dollars maybe 1500
on a really good home machine or why you
see those cafes down the street
that have an amazing grinder that's
worth four or five grand
and when you buy that cup you really
appreciate the taste
that you've just paid for so thanks very
much for watching guys have an awesome
day
catch you again soon
