What is your expeience with the Porlex Mini II manual grinder?
What is your expeience with the Porlex Mini II manual grinder?
What is your expeience with the Porlex Mini II manual grinder?
It's the only grinder I've ever used, I find it quite handy and consistent in the grinding but I have actually no benchmark to judge it objectively. Is it actually good?
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Never buy a ceramic burr grinder these days. I've not used this specific one but for the money it is a terrible choice. These days there are fantastic high quality steel burr grinders available at a similar price from Timemore and Kingrind or other lesser known companies. Well made stainless steel burr grinders are faster and provide a much more consistent grind size/grind variability than ceramic grinders.
If someone is buying a new grinder they should stay away from Porlex ceramic and Hario ceramic burr grinders. 20 years there were no other choices at those prices now there are tons of far better grinders with stainless steel burrs. Porlex is overpriced garbage.
Steel conducts heat. If you grind coffee with steel, there's risk of slightly cooking the beans - changing the flavor profile.
Ceramic, in contrast, is an insulator. Therefore, it's safer to use ceramic grinders for coffee.
If you handle a ceramic burr grinder properly, you can get consistent enough grinds quickly enough to make consistent, high quality coffee. Those of us who grind by hand don't care as much about speed - we are grinding by hand, after all.
It's not worth the risk to add heat to the grind process.
I'll add that I don't judge if people use steel grinders for their coffee. It's your coffee, make it the way you like it! But ceramic grinders are hardly garbage, and Porlex does make some of the best hand mills.
Haven't used this, but I would think most would agree there it's not a bad grinder at its price point, but for not much more you could likely do better. Whether that matters is probably more important. If you like it and have it dialed in for your brews then you might not gain all that much by upgrading. I would recommend considering the following: Go to a reputable local roaster and order a pour over there. Assuming you like it, note if they used a flat bottom or conical brewer, ask them the brew ratio. Buy a decent size bag of the same beans and use a similar style brewer and same ratio and play with trying to get a Similar or better cup with your grinder. Once you've reached apex, go back and order the same cup to put things back into perspective. If you feel like you just aren't matching it, a better grinder is the next best step to getting closer.
@[email protected] Actually I literally just did it after tasting a V60 coffee in a local cafe. I got a 150g bag of the same coffee (a really good Colombian) and I managed to obtain a cup almost as good as the one they served me, even if I'm using a stovetop kettle without termometer.
However my main doubt is about the setting of the grinder, mainly because I can calculate how many steps it needs to obtain a theorically correct size of the ground, however I mostly end up looking for instructions online and finding the right setting by tryingThat process sounds akin to what I would do with any grinder. Many popular grinders have lookup tables available and the calibrations are better on some than others. You can also get sifters and grind size guides to check all of this, but ultimately I've always just relied on dial-in trials as it sounds like you are doing.
I haven't used the mini, but I own both the Porlex Tall and the Tall II.
I've also used a variety of other hand mills.
There is Porlex, and there is everything else.
My Hario Mini Mill was my daily driver until I got the original Tall. When I got the Tall II, I stopped using the Hario entirely.
@[email protected] If I stick to the Porlex the tall could be my next step. The Mini is handy until you need to brew two cups or a liter of cold brew 🙃
Yeah, I typically brew a 1L French press. My usual routine is to fill up the Tall's hopper, grind it all, then add/grind just a little more. I do a coarse grind, of course.
I got the Tall II right after it came out. I was looking for a new travel mill, and I almost got the Mini II, but I realized I wanted something bigger than that.
So now the Tall II is my primary one, and my original Tall is my travel mill. 😁 And I'm very happy with that.