PIETRO Manual Coffee Grinder

The day i got my Pietro I ran 2kg of coffee through it, most of it medium-light roast, and boy oh boy let me tell you was my stabilizing hand sore. It's the first vertically mounted flat burr manual grinder available on the market. It's not as smooth to grind as a conical grinder with a long crank handle circling atop the grinder; also, the brew burrs only have four pre-breakers, so it makes grinding lighter roasted coffee more of a challenge. I find the grinder catches probably when the beans hit the pre-breakers. When it catches just reverse the handle and keep grinding. It's fine once you get used to it.

Lance recommends holding the grinder against your abdomen to help absorb agitation caused by grinding. This method works and i would recommend it.

Cleaning is just as easy as reviews show it to be. Push the pin turn the handle and pull the rotating burr out. From here you can pull out the stable but for easy cleaning. It's just as easy to reassemble - just make sure the stable burr is turned to the right direction.

I saw a review on this grinder saying that this is a burr first grinder, and I would have to say i agree. I would that the method for grinding is not optimal, however the burrs make super coffee. The burrs designed by Lance Hedrick are amazing and in comparison to my Comandante C40 really extended my brew time by 45sec up to a full minute just because of how uniform the grinds are. As a side note, i brew with the April Plastic brewer and was averaging 2 min brews with my C40 and now get between 245 and 330min brews with my Pietro.

The magnet on the catch cup feels good. When you're grinding, if you hold it against your abdomen you'll hear a click as the catch cup pulls and away from the grinder, specifically when the grinder catches. The catch cup isn't gonna fall off. Also the lid. It's advertised as an air tight seal, but i find that you have to kind of twist the lid slightly so that it catches on the rubber ring. If you don't it'll come off pretty easy.

Overall, the Pietro comes out as a net positive. It's super expensive for a manual grinder and it feels a bit bad that nothing comes with the grinder out of the box. The grinder is heavy at 1.5kg in comparison to my C40 at over 1lb. The grinding is the real hang up here and mostly i would say because of the high price tag. This really is unlike any other manual grinder on the market with burrs that haven't really been applied to manual methods, at least within this price range. With this in mind, i don't think it's all that helpful to detract from the Pietro because the grinding isn't as smooth as a conical hand grinder because, well, it just isn't.

The Pietro is changing what a manual grinder can be, but with that said there are gonna be some hiccups. With any grinder there are some compromises. Does the Pietro grind as smoothly as a C40? No. But the Pietro produces more consistent grinds and I'm happy to trade simplicity of grinding for uniformity of grind.

Bottom line: with all is quirks love my Pietro, thanks Eight Ounce !!

I have used this grinder with the Hendrik-designed ProBrew/M-modal burrs daily for approximately 2 weeks. I only use it for pour over and immersion brewing (no espresso). This is the only flat burr hand grinder I have ever used.

The grind quality is second to none: highly uniform grind particles within a narrow band and few fines. The result is flavour clarity and separation as good as any flat burr grinder I have ever used. The only hand grinder I am aware of that comes close is the ZP6; subjectively they seem similar in grind, but I have not compared carefully side by side (yet). I like also the low rpm grinding that is possible here (subject to my upcoming criticism).

I do find using the Pietro grinder to be more awkward to use than other hand grinders. It is clearly meant to be used held against a table or surface, but it is a but tippy and unstable. It’s only a minor annoyance to me, but I think the entire grinder would benefit from a wider base. There is good clearance between the handle and the table, at least for my medium sized hands.

Grinding it held completely in the hands is also awkward, moreso than other hand grinders, but not undoable. It doesn’t seem designed for this type of grinding.

On finer grind settings, the flat burrs sometimes stick or seize momentarily, which gets annoying (although it is perhaps something to be expected of a manual flat burr grinder).

Easy to clean and maintain. The ability to swap out burrs with the bimodal set is also intriguing.

Overall I really like it and the resulting ground coffee is superb. I just wish it was slightly more stable on a table. I would recommend the grinder to someone who wants the best grind quality possible, doesn’t require portability, and who doesn’t mind spending a bit more than a conical burr grinder (at least one of which is very close in grind quality to the Pietro).