how do i feel about this grinder having had it at the London festival of coffee as our sole grinder?
a few things i guess;
1. the approx 270 degree range of movement on the adjustment knob from most coarse to most fine is a wonderful thing – you have to experience it to understand how significant the implications are. it means an existing coffee is very easy to make minor adjustments to and the same if you switch to a different roast. the cost saving implications of this are significant over time, relative to a conical burr grinder such as a Compak K10 fresh where any change to the grind setting means dumping at least 2 double shots worth of coffee, and in my experience i would actually say it is more than that before the new grind size completely flushes through – over the course of a year this saving will add up to be something of interest
2. secondly the taste of the espresso is very different. i expect this will be devisive. if you like your espresso to have that, and i am grasping to find the correct adjective here, but that sort of almost licorice backbone taste that the fines from a conical burr grinder give then you may not like the EK43. i have already meantioned the impact that the reduction of fines has on the flow rate throughout the extraction. the EK43 gives a much cleaner, sweeter espresso. the taste is very clean, and removes all the murkiness that a conical burr grinder has in comparison. i find the impact of the EK43 on single origin espresso is exactly what i have been looking for – i couldnt praise it highly enough.
3. our EK43 had the coffee burr set. i also intend to try the turkish burr set when the opportunity presents itself, as i think it would be an interesting comparison
4. yes it is stupidly over-size for home use, but the benefits it brings greatly outweigh this in my opinion. you can also expect to spray a bit more coffee around than you do on the fairly neat & tidy Compak K10 fresh
5. not sure if i would have the EK43 in a busy cafe to be honest – this is where the Compak K10 fresh comes into its own for me – you are running a single roast, day in day out so the overhead that comes with making adjustments is irrelevant and if you are busy the grind retention in the body of the K10 fresh is also irrelevant as you have a stream of customers in front of you to ensure this ground coffee in the body of the grinder is consumed before it has time to stall. the K10 fresh also delivers a pretty consistent dose, i would say within +/-0.5g, which is something i can live with
all in all i love the EK43 and will definitely be getting one when the waiting list subsides a bit