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enkerli | May 16, 2009 08:44 PM | in From Twitter | via Twitter

If my burr grinder (Bodum Antigua) starts taking much longer to grind, does it mean that I should change the burrs?

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BEST ANSWER decided by votes | ewpldf | September 15, 2009 06:30 AM | view on twitter

Possibly, but I would try giving it a thorough cleaning before spending significant money on it. There is a product made by Urnex called Grindz that you can run through it to help remove the caked on coffee grounds and oils. If there is a lot of gunk stuck on the cutting/grinding surfaces, it could be reducing the efficiency and slowing things down.

The Antigua is a fairly inexpensive low-end bur grinder (especially if you use it for espresso), and it currently retails for around $90-$100 new. If cleaning it doesn't help, I'd be very reluctant to spend money on new burrs when I could put the money towards a better grinder. The only way I would consider spending much to keep this alive is if you are really fond of it and use it and use it mostly for drip coffee, press-pots and other things that don't require a very fine grind. (I'm not trying to put it down, but I'm coming from a perspective of a high-end espresso enthusiast and when I upgraded my grinder it made an incredible difference in the quality of my shots.)

source(s):
http://www.amazon.com/GRINDZ-COFFEE-GRINDER-CLEANER-48/dp/B000ES1PNE/ref=sr...
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords...
http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/first-real-espresso-machine-q...

tags: coffee

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Voted as best: enkerli, psionandy

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enkerli | September 15, 2009 02:43 PM

Thanks for the the helpful answer! I think something else did it, but it's still good to receive this.

Some precisions.
Though I'm also an avid espresso enthusiast (and barista judge), I don't make espresso at home. I mostly use moka pots (including a Brikka), the AeroPress, a cezve/ibrik, and a press pot.
For espresso, I go to a café. Especially since espresso is something I drink during the day, not as part of a home routine.

I've looked at the grinding surfaces and they look fairly clean. But maybe I can try the Umex.
I agree that the Antigua is a low-end grinder, no qualms about that. Though it was bought for about 85CAD (78USD), it tends to retail for closer to 200CAD (184USD). I wouldn't invest in a 200CAD grinder and I'm not quite ready to buy a much better grinder than this (say, a Vario). So, the thing about changing the burrs is that, if it's not too expensive, it could be a stopgap solution, for me.

What's funny is that, after posting that question, my Antigua seemed to start working properly, again. It's really about perception, here. Though I've measured all sorts of things in the past, this is not only a qualitative evaluation but it's one based on personal perception. It seemed to take way too much time to grind a reasonable amount of beans and the burrs were getting hot. Now, it seems to take a lot less time and the burrs don't get hot. Yet, I didn't experiment too carefully with all of this, so the difference may be minimal.

One reason might be that, for a while, I was using harder beans. Since I homeroast and I tend to aim at the lighter range to get subtle aromas and flavours from the varietals, my beans are typically not very friable. The point at which I started getting really concerned was with homeroasted beans, grinded rather fine (my Antigua was tweaked to grind finer than factory settings). I had had some issues previously so it seemed to be a pattern.

Through Vark.com, someone answered this same question saying that it may have to do with bean hardness. At the time, I thought that it was unlikely because I had also been using the Antigua with some French roasts from commercial roasters and I was getting similar results. At least, that was my impression.

At that point, I switched to a blade grinder for a little while. It wasn't ideal but I could still get coffee, somehow.

Then, I went back to the Antigua, with commercial dark roasted beans in lower amounts. Though it's still slower than I seem to remember, the grounds aren't warm so it seems that the burrs aren't hot, and the resulting coffee (Moka Pot or AeroPress) is as good as I can expect from these beans.

Another possibility, here, is that the time I got my problem, the motor had overheated, somehow. Don't know if that makes a lot of sense but I did notice that the plastic encasing was quite warm, at the time. I thought it was just an effect of running for too long but maybe it was also the cause of my problem.

At any rate, it seems like the situation is under control, at this point.

Now, I just wish I could get a Vario! ;-)

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