Industrial Grinder $$$$$$$$$$$ :(

[nevadanew]

Can anyone recommend an industrial grinder that isn't super expensive. There a few brands on ebay, that I'm assuming are made in China, that aren't terribly expensive. Primo is one and Canyon grinders. Any suggestions most appreciated,

PS

 

[expat]

You'll have to tell us what you mean by 'terribly expensive'? Please provide your price range. That will give us a lot more context.

Consider this purchase carefully -- if you're a commercial coffee roaster. Personally I think the type and quality of the grinder is just as, if not more, important that the roaster you buy. Don't just go for the temporary joy of a cheap price.

I've got three 1hp grinders that could no longer keep up with our workload. A year-and-a-half ago we purchased a big 10hp grinder. The price difference between the small and large is staggering if you just look at $, but the productivity has paid us back many times over. My 'terribly expensive' grinder does what it took 3 grinders working all day to do in about 30 - 40 minutes. No exaggeration! And it not only does it faster, it does it better. That's a huge, massive time savings and a better product. So maybe my beastly grinder wasn't so expensive after all.

If you're considering just a small home grinder I've really got no opinion because we went from 2 cup-a-day coffee drinkers to a 10kg roaster and three 1hp grinders overnight (although the Orphan Espresso hand grinder to grind the coffee for my morning cup would be my choice).

Beyond price though here are some things to think about:

Repalcement grinding discs: Does the manufacturer sell them (usually) and how long do they last and how much do they cost? The manufacturer can usually provide an expected throughput chart and you can figure things out from there based on your volume and type of grind you'd usually use. My 1hp grinders have been discontinued by the Italian manufacturer -- they were probably too bullet proof for the world of planned obsolescence -- and I had to hunt all over for, finally finding a place in the UK, for a company to sharpen my discs and then when they were worn out to make me new discs (£272 for one set of discs that were probably about £35 back in the day). In the U.S. it would probably be much easier to find someone to handle the sharpening or manufacturing.

Electricity: My 10hp beast requires 3-phase electricity. My roastery and home are on the same property so I have house current only. To bring in 3-phase was going to be about $25k. So after a lot of research I purchased a 'phase converter'. That set us back over £1,000 but was way more economical than having the electric company run a 3-phase line out to us. That would have also meant we had to pull permits and then the tax man would want to know what we were doing and then he'd have wanted us to pay 'rates' -- a business tax -- so that made the phase converter even more economical. And then we had to ship that and the grinder to an electric motor specialist to make everything hand shake. Also I had to change out a couple of breakers from standard to 'motor start' breakers. Get an electrician, don't do this yourself. But I literally interviewed about 5 electricians before I got the guy who had experience doing a home electrical conversion to run big machinery. (By the way, I'm just telling you all this stuff, even though you probably don't need to know it, because someone else reading this post might).

Cleaning: My 1hp grinders clean-up in less than a minute but the big guy takes about 20 minutes for a deep clean (and required me purchasing an air compressor -- if you have to buy an a/c capacity is the key, you want an a/c with at least a 40 litre tank, I bought a cheap 20 litre and while it has worked great it runs a lot to refill the tank and the noise is a bear). That's no big deal because of the time savings. To minimize this we start off grinding, say, single origin Ethiopian. Then we grind a blend with Ethiopian in it, so no big deal to do a thorough clean, just the quick 1 minute clean. But if we switch to another single origin, then there is the deep cleaning so the residual coffee stuck in the grinder doesn't blend with the new single origin. This is common sense stuff but sadly these days that seems to be a trait in short supply.

Heat: If you're doing just a bit of grinding there is no worry here. But if you're grinding a lot, all day, every day, then you need to consider heat. We learned this with our small grinders. It go to a point where we'd have to stop and rest the grinders, even buying small fans to force air through them between grinds to more quickly cool the grinding discs. Then with more output we started having to set our alarm and get up in the middle of the night to grind for a couple of hours just so they wouldn't overheat and burn the coffee. And if you do a lot of espresso or Turkish coffee you've got more heat because of the close tolerances between the grinding discs. You don't want the grinder heating up and burning your coffee. MPE in Chicago makes a water-cooled grinder (in fact they are probably the premiere coffee grinder company, certainly they are in the U.S.) and that is a helluva machine. A guy I spoke to in Oregon has one -- he grinds A LOT of coffee -- and it has been a godsend for him. But being in Ireland and considering all the added expense of shipping and import duties and 23% value added tax we went with an air cooled grinder made here in Europe. It was an overdue decision and we love it and love being able to sleep through the night.

In my grinder experience that's about it. Good luck on your grinder buying.

 

[wmark]

On recommendation from Topher, I bit the bullet and bought an MPE.

 

[Mr.Peaberry]

On recommendation from Topher, I bit the bullet and bought an MPE.

They have some very sophisticated equipment...but still address the needs of a small business operation. Nice recommendation!

 

[expat]

In my experience ALL of Topher's recommendations are good recommendations!

 

[topher]

HA! Expat...pleas relay that to my wife!

 

[nevadanew]

Thanks for the reply's. I'll keep saving then.

 

[topher]

Thanks for the reply's. I'll keep saving then.

I always keep my eye on www.coffeetec.com for used equipment. Great people and a boat load of used equipment.

 

[Trinitario]

What a thorough well thought out post. Thank you.