drill motor powered ceramic coffee grinder

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maki2

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Dropped in at the thrift store today an found another appliance for my nomad kitchen. I have off an on looked on the internet at discussions on the different brands of hand powered coffee grinders. There is of course a wide price range from hundreds of dollars down to $20.00. One of the affordable brands of that people seem to like is Hario. That brand uses ceramic grinding stones, it does come in several sizes. I saw one of those for sale, for $3.00 (senior discount for me made $2.30!)  Amazon price $30.00.  There was no jar that screws onto the grinder, it must have broken which was why it ended up being donated.   I walked to another shelf of donations to check and sure enough it screwed right onto a mason jar. No problem as I already have one.

Quite a while back when watching some things on youtube about the coffee grinders I did note that it is very easy to convert the Hario brand so it can be powered with a drill motor. Which is one reason I was so happy to find one at the thrift store. To convert it for use with a drill motor t you loosen the nut that hold the crank arm and leave those two pieces off. Go to a hardware store and purchase a 6mm hex nut and if you don't already have one a 10mm socket with a 1/4 drive adapter. Turn the nut onto the shaft and you are ready to start grinding coffee beans.
youtube video showing how to covert the Hario Grinder for drill powering. Note what the person says about starting on slow speed to keep the ceramic burrs in good condition.  

Now I can buy  whole beans by the pound at the stores and grind what I need when I need it without making my hands and arms hurt trying to turn the crank. Because I use an Aero Press I like to use a grind that is halfway between espresso and the grind used for cone drip filters. I will have to do some fine tuning of my new Hario to get it set just right. 

My 18v Makita drill motor now powers 3 kitchen appliances, a blender/chopper, a mixer blade, and now my coffee grinder. I do know I could use it to power my pasta roller too if I really wanted to travel with one of those.

I have some other customized drill powered tools I am setting up but they are not for the kitchen. I have a very small travel trailer and a 4 cylinder car so having the drill motor do multiple task really helps keep the weight down while giving me some conveniences I might otherwise be doing without. The drill motor turns a bit slow for blending...but I am traveling with a small router and a variable speed control for it, I guess I will be getting into some more McGyver time one of these days.
 
Maki, I don’t drink coffee anymore it upsets my stomach but I like the idea of a hand grinder, the whole ritual of preparing coffee in the morning, hand grinding with just be another layer, to the drama. I used to watch my grandfather shave, as a child it fascinated me, he used those double edged straight blades, he had a glass that was all scuffed up, he would put his blade in it then with his fingers, move it back and forth to sharpen it I presumed, then have a bar of soap in another and lather up a brush, then suds his face and slowly wipe it off with his razor always at the same sink always at the same time, always with the same equipment.
 
Seattle is a city full of coffee ritualist. I have some friends who even roast the beans fresh everyday. I was reading up about that, you can do it in a skillet or in one of the stove top popcorn poppers, the kind with a crank on them which works for keeping the beans turning for an even roast. I have seen a couple of those type of poppers in the thrift store this last month. I am getting kind of picky about coffee though. We had such an excellent coffee/ice cream shop we went to often because it was quite likely the best cup of espresso I have ever had in this city. But the new landlord raised the rent so high it drove him out. Happy ending though, that owner has purchased a diesel schoolie and is now converting it to live and travel in. I see it parked in the neighborhood, easy to spot, a mix of blue bird blue and traditional school bus yellow on the paint job, one of a kind, a short bus. Weather is warning up to 60 this week, I will stop and get a tour if I see him working on it.
 
I got a Seattle coffee story, many years ago a friend I knew who grew up in Seattle ( I am trying to remember the hill it was a neighbourhood called something hill it will come to me but not today, anyways she is visiting her dad and I drop in on them as I was traveling through. The place is a bit of a mess, so when I get up in the morning I walk over to the shops and get a coffee at the local, it was a small shop with a hand painted sign with the Starbucks logo on it in rainbow colours, I had to teach them how to make me a long black. I reckon they got successful on account of me, a bit like Forest Gump and how he accidentally was in all the right places at the right time and changed the course of history.
 
If it had a rainbow motif on the sign then it most likely was located on Capitol Hill.
 
Heat is what releases the acids from the beans.

Cold brew coffee methods release about 1/3 rd of the acid versus hot brewing methods.

There are coffee roasting companies that use a very slow roasting method to significantly reduce the acid, as much as 70%. One of them is not too far away from where I am doing my build. There coffee is pretty good tasting I stop off there once in a while when I am in that immediate neighborhood. Here is the information link to them https://www.caffeappassionato.com/roasting.html

So if you purchased slow roasted beans and you made cold brew coffee then you will have very little acid in your cup of joe
 
I was back in the thrift store today, it was within a block of an errand I had to do. I was just browsing through the kitchen are and there on a shelf it sat, the jar with a storage lid that belongs to my Hario hand crank coffee grinder. I guess the clerks did not realize they belonged together so marked them separately and put them on different aisles. So now I have the complete set. I should have it set up for power grinding coffee by Sunday morning.
 
I have been experimenting with the Oster blender base in a mason jar with my drill. It seems to wobble quite a bit. Maki, did you find it wobbles? I am thinking of making a little wooden box for the jar and attach it to the ceiling and that may keep it stable!
 
Babz said:
I have been experimenting with the Oster blender base in a mason jar with my drill.  It seems to wobble quite a bit.  Maki, did you find it wobbles?  I am thinking of making a little wooden box for the jar and attach it to the ceiling and that may keep it stable!

you need to hold onto the jar with one hand and run the drill motor with the other
 
Babz said:
I have been experimenting with the Oster blender base in a mason jar with my drill.  It seems to wobble quite a bit.  Maki, did you find it wobbles?  I am thinking of making a little wooden box for the jar and attach it to the ceiling and that may keep it stable!

you need to hold onto the jar with one hand and run the drill motor with the other. Unless you have the drill motor in some type of a clamp. Which eventually I will be doing for my workshop needs. But I do have a portable drill guide, I could clamp that to the side edge of table with the chuck facing upwards. That would do it :)
 
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