ETZ Max Grinder (medium) Review

Dear Reader,

What Christian Etzinger has accomplished with his grinder designs is to transport the powder out of the machine into the porta-filter with perfect particle-distribution integrity. In other words, no micro-particle drift and no clumping. In addition there is no ground coffee trapped in the body of the grinder. (Only the unavoidable gram or two in the burr-set itself).

His unique dosing system impacts the grounds as they exit the burr set with rotating ramps. It makes a jet into the porta-filter below. The impact of the ramps consolidates the powder just enough to hold the fines. And the ground coffee is accelerated downward, through a short metal collar too fast to be affected by static fields if they existed in the metal. It is a perfect system for dosing.

In addition the grinder has a load-cell to grind by weight. When you reach the desired dosage (for us about 20g) the grinder shuts off automatically. This is a huge help to the pro-barista trying to control the flow-rate of the espresso into the cup because the flow rate is heavily affected by the dosage of coffee. (As I have mentioned many times the flow-rate is the holy grail: when it’s perfect caramelized sugars and distinct origin flavors are present in the crema. The barista is seducing the flavors into the cup with the perfect flow…) Any trapped grounds in the machine, or micro-particle drift during dosing, make it almost impossible to brew espresso at it’s fragrant peak.

So with the ETZ Max series the most troubling aspect of all on-demand grinders available today has been solved.

His second major innovation is to drive the “female” burr with the motor. All other grinders power the “male burr” (the cone) with the motor.

He is turning a small conical burr (32mm) fast enough to grind about 4g/second. All my experience with conical grinders would predict a very thin, watery extraction. (Maybe 40% of the efficiency of our DRM’s) However, because he applied the motor to the female burr the flavor intensity and crema viscosity are much better than they should be. (Maybe up to 80% of our espresso from the DRM’s) I find this quite remarkable.

Grind adjust is stepless with a coarse ring above a ring for finer grind adjustments.

So Dear Reader we are getting closer to having a true on-demand grinder that delivers full flavor from the coffee. I’m eagerly anticipating the Etzinger Super Heavy, featuring a 42mm conical burr set. And, I’m pleading with Christian to slow down the grind. With his innovation I think 3g/second grinding speed will be very efficient.

Staff Review

We put this little grinder on the bar at VIvace’s big locations…staff loved it. We train and train to
try to control the flow rate of the espresso and Etzinger’s Jet Dosing system allows perfect flow-rate control.

With any grinder retaining ground coffee in the machine you cannot control the flow rate, here’s why:

Coffee beans contain a natural moisture content even after roasting. Coffees with higher moisture content, such as Guatemalan Oriente, offer more resistance to the water flow and therefore require a coarser grind than an Indian Malabar to maintain perfect flow of the espresso into the cup. When ground coffee is in the grinding head it begins to lose moisture immediately due to ambient heat in the machine. So the longer the residence time of the powder the faster the water will flow through it. (Flow rate changes well before the coffee oxidizes). It is a nightmare for my baristi, trying to calculate how much the powder has changed between customers and purging powder that has sat too long. It is frustrating in the extreme and wasteful as well. (And don’t even get me started on clumping and particle drift due to static, both eliminated by Etzinger).

The grinder also vastly assists us by weighing the dosage accurately. Any change in the dosage also affects flow rate dramatically.

Staff loves that it is quiet.

And it handled our volume without shutting off due to overheating.

I’m beginning to get really pissed off that we struggle so hard to overcome problems with the grinders that are available. I am reminded of the dance we used to do to try to stabilize brewing water temperature before the PID revolution…