HOME GRINDER REVIEW-The Monolith

Hello Readers,

Although I am struggling to find a commercial grinder that doses well, and makes great coffee, I am very happy to report that at home I do not have that problem. The Monolith by Kafatek is a perfect home grinder.

Denis Basaric is the engineer that has designed and built this machine. Although dimunitive in size the grinder is heavy, and exudes quality every step of the way. It feels like I will be passing this on to my kids when it’s finally time to pack-up and leave this planet…

The Cut: The grinder turns a 71mm conical burr at 120rpm. The shots are very thick with full flavor, no compromise at all. Grinding time for 20 g is about 10 seconds.

Dosing: He has a little detacahable chute magnetically attached to the grinder. Total chambered ground coffee is about 4g but this does not present a problem at home, just purge it out by running the motor a few seconds in the morning. There is no clumping or particle drift.

Denis has designed it to load one dose of beans at a time. This is to eliminate any waste with beans left in the machine over night. All my experience with the DRM machines showed that if your bean column got too low the beans pop-corned around and the pour was not controllable. It made the espresso flow rate speed up. The DRM head turns at about 450 rpm. His grinder turns at 120 rpm, and there is no problem controlling flow-rate of the shot when all beans are ground thru. (However, I immediately made a paper hopper to hold 80g on mine, coffee for me and Chiaki every morning).

Grind Adjust: Easy and intuitive with infinite gradations of grind available. And the adjusting ring stays in place. Btw Denis commented that for the integrity of the grind the machining on the grinding head must be very precise and durable. He has followed thru with very high quality threads on the mechanism.

Overall this grinder is the essence of rugged simplicity, something I really appreciate when I am not yet awake in the morning. The grinder is whisper quiet.