Moving from Porlex II to Kingrinder K6
So, I was perfectly happy with my Porlex mini II, as a I love specialty coffee but I definitely don’t understand yet the small nuances in coffee brewing.
But a couple of days ago my sister accidentally broke the ceramic burr. I was going to just buy the burr but I instead made a little research, suspecting I could get a better grinder. Eventually I landed on the Kingrinder K6 and I was able to receive it the very following day.
So, I’m using for just a couple of days, but the difference is immense.
The object itself is much bigger and HEAVIER, I couldn’t believe how much more robust it felt. Also is far more complex and sophisticated in its assembly, and the structure is more stable.
It’s very handy, firstly because it can easily grind much more coffee, much more quickly and easily. It also features the external grinding size adjustment with precise clicks easy to check thanks to the marks on the outside.
But the main difference is the resulting ground. At a first look it does look more evenly sized but you can’t really be sure. By just brewing it with a V60 the difference couldn’t be clearer.
With the Porlex, the coffee ground after brewing featured a mud-like smooth layer covering both the paper and the coarser particles. It almost disappeared with the K6, only the coarser ground is visible now. Also the brewing time got shorter, especially when brewing two cups of coffee at a time (500ml of water for 30g of coffee).
The only downside is the maintenance. The Porlex burr is made of ceramics, you can easily wash them with a toothbrush and water and make it completely white and clean again.
The K6 burr is made of metal, the manual strongly recommends to avoid water and just brush it, however due to the complexity of the mechanisms it takes a bit longer to disassemble it and definitely more hustle to reassemble it. In particular it requires a very tiny piece to be put back in place in the end which is particularly annoying. I think it may be a huge problem for people with lower hand mobility and strength, so I would appreciate if this process were a bit more accessible.
In a nutshell, it costs like 20€ more than Porlex but looks like a completely different category. I couldn’t recommend it more
I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t concerned about the taste of your coffee at all, sorry if that’s how it came across! I tried to stay away from the elitist tendencies that creep in when talking about coffee gear because I find it counterproductive and off-putting, and what’s more important than anything is that we all enjoy the cups that we brew.
If you’re brewing with an Aeropress, I can see why the value proposition of more expensive grinders seems a bit suspect. It’s a very forgiving brewer (and the perfect size for travel), which is one of its greatest strengths. Immersion brewers are tolerant of a significantly wider range of grind sizes and tend towards producing rounder flavors and more even extractions. This is an obvious oversimplification of the Aeropress, since there’s some absolutely wild World Aeropress Championship recipes (especially from a couple years ago), but I think there isn’t a need to dial in much on the Aeropress because it’s so forgiving. I feel like I’d have to actively try to get a bad result out of an Aeropress, which is a huge testament to how great it is.
My personal preference when it comes to filter coffee at home is either a V60 or an Orea V4. Generalizing again, but the grinder becomes a lot more important in pour overs because it reduces variables when it comes to your extraction. A more uniform grind allows water to trickle through the bed at similar rates. Too many boulders and fines in the bed can lead to a cup tasting simultaneously bitter and acidic, which doesn’t really happen in my experience with the Aeropress. However, the cups that I get when I have the beans dialed in offer more clarity and flavor separation than I get from an Aeropress, which isn’t necessarily better, just different.
I’d tend to agree with you on electric grinders, by and large. It feels like you’re either better suited buying a hand grinder for the same price as your budget, or you’d need to spend substantially more for an electric grinder that can match a $200 hand grinder. If you’re interested in an electric grinder, a little bit handy, and have the counter space, you might want to keep an eye out for used commercial grinders. I’ve seen quite a few Mazzer Super Jollys and their rebranded cousins in my area, so you might be able to eventually pick up one in yours for a steal.
No offense taken! Thanks for your thoughts. I did quite a bit of experimenting back in the day and never really understood the high prices that coffee grinders demanded since I couldn’t tell much difference with the aero press as long as it had a burr (blade grinders probably should not even be called coffee grinders). Certainly no improvement as noticeable as using pre-ground vs freshly ground at least.
My Slim is rather beat up these days - I’m surprised it works as well as it does with all my abuse. Maybe I’ll grab a pricier grinder and crack open a new set of experiments with pour overs this time around. There are wayyy more options available now than I recall.