HG-1 83mm Burr Set

Inevitably you heard the same advice from anyone who’s been bitten by the coffee bug. Don’t buy a grinder with blades, buy one with burrs. Whirlybird style grinders haphazardly chop coffee beans. The resulting grounds vary wildly in terms of size. Some granules are big, some small, and some in-between. When brewing this hodge-podge of coffee mayhem, some coffee becomes over extracted, some under, and some in-between. This isn’t something you look for in a cup of coffee.

Conical burrs evenly break and then crush beans into a balanced blend of coarse and fine sized granules ideal for espresso. A consistent bi-modal grind is what we look for and conical burrs are very good at producing this specific grind characteristic.

Pint Sized Professional

At the heart of any grinder are the burrs and we’ve chosen one of the best sets in the world to use in the HG-1. We’ve built our grinder around Mazzer’s conical burr set which can be found in their acclaimed Robur series of grinders. The burrs come in two sizes, a 71mm version more commonly found in the United States, and an 83mm 3 phase version found in Europe or countries which use 240 volts mains electric power as standard. The 83mm burrs are the largest commercially available conical burr set on the market today, but you won’t find a grinder smaller than the HG-1 that uses a burr set larger than ours. The 83mm set has the reputation of producing a grind unparalleled for espresso. Normally found in top tier commercial machines twice the size of ours, we’ve squeezed these burrs into an elegantly compact hand grinder that doesn’t take over your countertop.

Slower Is Better

The majority of flat or conical burr sets have been designed to spin at upwards of 1,000 to 1,300 rpm. While coffee gets ground faster at those speeds, the downside to high rpm is the heat generated during the grinding process can adversely affect the flavor of the finished product. Mazzer’s 83mm burr set has been designed to operate at much lower speeds, in the range of 400 to 500 rpm, while still maintaining a respectable grind time because of the large outside diameter and increased surface area of the set.

We designed the HG-1 to further take advantage of the lower speed specification. When turning the flywheel, the top grinding speed of the HG-1 for an average user is approximately 100 to 120 rpm, resulting in a grind time of around 28 seconds for a 18g shot. In combination with the large surface area of the burr set, the even lower grind speed, as well as the direct grind path, the thermal stability of the HG-1 is excellent.

Direct Path

Another distinct advantage of the HG-1 grinder is the path of the coffee takes after being ground. The majority of grinder designs today rely on centrifugal force and mechanical means to propel grounds out the machine after grinding. After the leaving the burrs, coffee falls into a grind chamber and then into a chute. As a result of this process, the grounds become compacted and rub at high speeds against various parts of the grinder introducing friction and heat. With our design, coffee grounds exit straight downward from the burr set and gravity does the rest. This results in less clumping and a resulting ground which could best be described as fluffy.