Most of the cafes here use the EK43 specifically for pour over coffee and use other grinders for espresso based drinks. Batch brew isn't a thing where I live (save for one or two cafes). I guess it also depends on what you like out of your pour over. Super tea like? A little more body and mouth feel, etc. Perhaps the EK43 isn't going to give you that super high clarity kind of coffee that many are chasing here on reddit.
Unfortunately, I do not know the different types of burrs that are being used at most cafes here. I would assume it's the standard burr set.
Imo, if you have a well dialed in and aligned EK43, there is no such thing as "better" just maybe better for your taste or better overall experience. But my local shop also uses one with the brew burrs and that thing is insane. I certainly like it a bit better than what even my A4Z can deliver and that baby is also insane.
I’m really happy with mine. Had for 2 years now with heavy use. I don’t have the comps to Femdom whatever or even 078 but hard pressed at the moment to think I’d get massively better cups. Maybe different.
My rationalization is that my local coffee roaster SK coffee makes a very good pour over in house and it’s not an after thought offering. I can buy their beans and make a very compatible cup in clarity and profile and they use an EK43. Now maybe high end home use grinders are better than an EK43 but I’m not really chomping at the bit.
I find my Ode grinds really consistently and fines are never a problem. Workflow is nice, it’s common so if I’m dialing in a cup many roasters or reddit has good recs on grind size, Drops and their profiles for coffees has been fun to use, their ecosystem is pretty nice for me.
it is the particle size distribution. i would have to give you a wall of text to explain all of this.
summary is following. each burr has different geometry, also feed speed and feed design to the burrs matter. also other things matter.
once you throw a bean inside it get ground to particles of various shapes and sizes. some particles will become total dust (fines). some will look like hotdogs and be big (boulders).
something like niche has bimodal particle size distribution, where you have lot of fines.
something like mahlkonig ek43 with ssp high uniformity burrs (that I have as well for light roasts) grinds coffee as uniformly as it probably gets with very littlee super fine particles and very little boulders and the particle size distribution is unimodal. with just one big peak. look up further videos from lance hedrick and james hoffman on this topic.
dark roasts extract pretty well no matter the particle size distribution. light roasts tend to be harder to extract.
I have EK43 with SSP HU burrs. The light roasts are so good that i do not know why I would change the grinder. but 98mm burrs are kinda expensive.
It was a huge pain in the ass to align and it took me about 10 tries and over 2 hours. But everything is super tasty. So well worth it. Good thing is that EKs pop up on used market periodically where i live for around €1600. So if mine breaks I would get a used one again probably.
of course the coolness factor and experience of eg-1 is superior. depends what you want from the grinder.
Option O P100, Weber EG-1, monolith grinders, ek43. All are amazing choices you wont regret.
fiorenzato is about the same level to be honest.
i only have preference towards mahlkonig, because I am happy with my EK43. i just like the user interface better of the mahlkonig grinder. i suggest to watch the kaffeemacher review.
i do not speak german but you can use translation tools:
https://kaffeemacher.de/blogs/kaffeewissen/mahlkoenig-e64-ws?srsltid=AfmBOoqip1DkzIy898Dckwnb9hg5XImj87Hf1TKKJdx3keN-1YbkCjTN
DATKingCole
