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
Generally speaking, more expensive grinders are going to be better aligned, offer more grind size options, and have burr geometries that are suited to particular types of brew methods. In the case of hand grinders, they’ll also probably be significantly easier to crank than something like a Hario Mini Slim. I personally found that when I switched from the Hario to a more expensive hand grinder about 7 years ago, I was getting cups that were tastier and more consistent. I’m not going to pretend that it’s worth the additional cost for everyone, but for me personally it was about getting more of what I want from coffee rather than what I need.
I mean I am very concerned about the taste of my coffee, it taking 10 minutes to make a single cup of coffee by hand grinding beans and using an aero press is way outside the realm of need lol
I have a number of friends with various other grinders manual and not. I looked heavily into the space for a while but I have never been able to tell that it makes much difference sans the speed, ease of cranking and general build quality. I’d love an automatic one but those all seem to be trash or crazy expensive.
I can’t say I notice any consistency differences from cup to cup with using an aero press and paper filters at least. The grind is pretty consistent, maybe because I use a coarse grind and the drill though idk. Have pretty much used the aero press forever so idk as much about other grind/brew variations either.