pioneer478 Senior Member Joined: 6 Aug 2007 Posts: 78 Location: MD Expertise: I love coffee
Grinder: Baratza Vario Drip: Technivorm KBT741, Chemex Roaster: Behmor
Posted Sun Dec 12, 2010, 2:08pm Subject: Hario Mini Mill Slim
For those who own a Hario Mini Mill Slim grinder - what is your preferred grind setting (ex- number of counter-clockwise "clicks" from the fully closed position) for drip, moka pot, and Aeropress?
rwj Senior Member Joined: 10 Feb 2011 Posts: 13 Location: Erie, PA Expertise: Just starting
Posted Sun Mar 20, 2011, 6:02pm Subject: Re: Hario Mini Mill Slim
I'm eager to know this too. There's only one setting on the mini mill that is friendly with my espresso machine and every time I change the burr diameter to make coarse grinds for french press, it takes me THREE attempts to get the burr setting back to where it originally was. The number of "clicks" has proven unreliable to me because the residual grounds between the burrs prevent you from getting an accurate sense of what "the end" or "the beginning" of the clicks are.
This wouldn't be a problem with an electric grinder, but the hand-crank time investment + effort + coffee wasted makes me just want to give up and use the mini mill as an espresso-only grinder.
BUT, to answer your question, I use six clicks from what I consider the "fully closed" position for espresso. Five clicks from the end makes a hefty ristretto.
I recently purchased a Hario Ceramic Slim, not sure it's the same thing.
I've only just entered the world of espresso so I haven't used this guy for espresso yet; I leave this gadget at work to make French pressed coffee only, and I'm right now at 10 clicks.
I'm curious as to how others are using it as well.
I just ordered one of these also but I haven't found much info about them on here. Tom from sweet maria's stated in his description that it is basically the same as the skerton only smaller. He also goes on to say this grinder is stepless unlike the skerton I plan on using it for espresso so thats a plus for me. Can anyone comment on how many grams of ground coffee it will hold.
To me, it’s close but not exactly the same. The spring on the minimall gives it a bit of more consistent grind size than the skerton. The ergonomic issue makes the smaller minimill OK for people with small build though and the opposite is on the skerton.
For longer term usage, my experience with minimall was very good by the first two months as the grind size was quite consistent I had much less sludge in my cup of French press .
Nevertheless, it started spinning off center in a gyrating manner lately so more sludge in the cup. The reason may be that I pushed down the spin handle too hard during the spinning, making that handle crooked/slanted a bit. If I don’t do that, the spin handle will came off quite often while grinding. Maybe I have a lemon but the resulting cup remained acceptable, not as great as before. While this is a weak point, the price point makes it easier to replace one every now and then, ie this is not a built to last kind of thing.
One good thing is I can wash it with soap and water due to its ceramic burr. So, it’s quite handy to try all those dark roasted coffee with lots of oil, saving your electric grinder for those with drier surface as it’s more difficult/expensive to clean.
1:00 contact time, six clicks from tight. Some times this is still a bit too long. 1:30 contact time, about 8 or 9 clicks from tight. This is getting somewhere around drip or thereabouts. 2:00 contact time, 12 clicks. This is approximately where the grind size of about 80% of the coffee is about where a Ditting will put French Press. The Ditting is much more consistent. I've gone to 4:00 contact time, 200 deg F starting, with still decent results, maybe pushing about 22% extraction (grinds drying now for measurement).
There is some eccentricity of the mini mill on the larger settings, which creates a bit of dust but infinitely better than a whirly blade and better than my cuisinart (and a BUNCH less noisier). I grind about 15g of coffee in 1 minute on large grind, to no more than 1:35 on finer setting.
I've been wondering if a stiffer spring would help, or another way to more "evenly" turn the crank without sideloading it - or even have a compensation bearing to keep the crank from sideloading the main burr shaft. For now, it works well for me.
I tried the single bean test - on 12 clicks, it breaks a single bean into about 200 pieces (I sound like a geek, but grind a single bean, dump the contents, divide the pile into 4 equal parts, and count the grind particles in one of the samples, multiply by 4). It is about 4X as fine on 7-8 clicks.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
I have a skerton that I love using. I'm considering getting a second or the mini because changing settings is a pain, as already mentioned. Having the one for press and the other for pourover makes more sense to me.
i have both the mini mill and skerton. the mini mill produces less fines at a coarse grind than the skerton. my pour overs taste a lot better from the mini mill at comparable grind sizes. i didn't expect a major difference in the two but mini mill is way better in my opinion design wise.
ultimately, both kind of suck though at anything coarse.
Posted Mon May 9, 2011, 6:05am Subject: Re: Hario Mini Mill Slim
Did some more sampling this weekend, because I've now got several dozen cups under my belt with my new mini-mill.
12 clicks is between 250-350 particles per bean, but the grind size is very inconsistent. Large chunks with pieces that are easily 1/4 the size next to it, and a bit of finer particles.
8 clicks gets me to a more consistent but smaller grind. Particles are very regular, but sample counts are in the 1200 particles per bean range. This is a bit fine, and using this on an inverted Aeropress with a 2:00 contact time gets me about 22.5% extraction and borderline overextracted very strong coffee.
I have found that 10 clicks on my particular Hario Mini Mill Slim seems to be a decent balance - beans are broken/ground into approximately 700-900 particles of fairly consistent size. This does well with an inverted Aeropress contact time of :45 to 1:00 and a 30 second or less press time (extraction measured on remaining grounds is spot on at 19.3% - 20.6% (12g dried grounds from 15g brewed, +/- 0.1g).
YMMV.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
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