HiBREW G5 Coffee Grinder Test

The full review is available on Rendeljkinait

 

There is already a HiBREW grinder in the editorial office - well, in my kitchen -, the HiBREW G3, which has been doing its job perfectly since last year. Its smaller brother is the HiBREW G5, which was invented for precise grinding of small quantities. The quality is amazing, and if you have the upper segment of grinder design, then this product is for you. What is the first rule of making coffee? Get a good grinder.

This content is originally written in Hungarian and has been automatically translated, so please note that it may contain translation errors and inaccuracies. The prices, import costs, shipping information, coupon codes, etc. in the article. are valid for orders to a Hungarian address. If you would like to order from another country, first find out about the local legislation, logistics options and prices.

HiBREW G5 Coffee Grinder Test - I didn't know this was also designed by industrial artists

A lot of people want to understand coffee making by buying an über coffee machine, it will make good coffee and that's it. Which may be true if you bought an automatic machine that does everything for you, the water I pour in is correct, the coffee beans are fresh, so you have done 70-80% of the mandatory minimum. Please be patient at the cash register, it starts from 100 rags, for example, in the case of Philips and lasts up to 300. Nein danke, let's see how from the price of a not fully automatic coffee machine – which generally have a longer lifespan, due to their lower complexity, than their automatic counterparts – what can be bought, this is how we get the traditional espresso for coffee maker, and to the grinder. The former has already been discussed many times, so let's talk about the latter.

What do we not do with coffee? We don't cook, we prepare, and we don't grind the beans, we grind them. Apart from cutting the coffee beans to random sizes and even burning them, the propeller knife grinders do not do much, and the grain size cannot be adjusted either.

Put an arrow here in your imagination that points to the neon-lit sign of "sz@r kávé". You have two options: a capsule coffee maker, which, in terms of price per serving, is the price of the world, or a lever coffee maker with a conical grinder.

To end the fairytale afternoon, I will tell you that the HiBREW G5 is a conical, i.e. cone-knife, grinder made of specially quality materials,

where the grinding stone rotating inside presses the coffee beans against the knives placed on the wall and grinds them. But before I get too far ahead, let's open the box and let's admire the product turned from milled aluminum, which is especially nice to touch. The cool, grooved metal does not slip, the product is small, 105x190x310 mm, so it is the size of a larger thermos, so highly recommended for small kitchens, next to a filigree coffee maker.

The HiBREW G5 comes with a cleaning brush, a metal grinding holder, a dosing spoon, a bellows and, of course, a description, although I don't think you could get by with a one-button system. From top to bottom, the tiny bean container is the first element, the powder blower must be placed in place of the plastic top. That's what they couldn't do with the HiBREW H14 Duo Barista, but they did it here. The coffee bean container is very small, according to the manufacturer You receive 50 grams - we measured only 44 - this amount is enough to make 9 grams of espresso with a normal filling, or roughly 5 portions. This can be both good and bad, is beneficial because the raw material will almost always be fresh - but you can also put a little in a larger container - but in return you have to open the cap a lot and fiddle with the grinder.

By rotating the HiBREW G5 bean hopper the fineness of the grind can be set in 36 levels, so almost stepless, while grinding can be started with a single button. It has two positions, it grinds more slowly for longer pressure – 400 revolutions per second and blue LED -, and faster for a short press – with 500 revolutions per minute and a white LED – and this is a rather rare feature. It means a slight warming, which can affect the subsequent dissolution, and in extreme cases can even burn the coffee beans. There is no need to be afraid, it will not, in contrast to the thousands of revolutions of poppy grinders with propeller blades. It has a safety switch that stops the rotation if you remove the bean container, so it's also safe. Does anyone care about your performance? 165 W, we can go further.

In the middle part, the HiBREW G5 can be tilted forward, which I think is a big farmer's blindness, but it's true, if the body leans 15 degrees forward, the coffee grounds fall more easily into the metal container. Let's say it also falls out perpendicularly, if it doesn't, everyone will raise the antistatic holder to the end of the pipe anyway. And if it's long-lasting, unfortunately the design won here in addition to the functionality.

The grinding holder must be placed on a silicone surface, it will never slip, that's for sure, and the bottom fixed with a magnet for the metal surface of the HiBREW G5. There is finesse here, please, I always appreciate such things. As well as that the conical grinder is very halk. I mean, really, so much so that it's almost unrecognizable. There is no factory coffee grinder feeling, the operation is cultured.

One of the biggest concerns regarding grindstone solutions designed for direct coffee grinding is "retention", i.e. how much is the grinding loss. Based on my experience, it's so small that no one can tell by eye, but it's good to know how much it is. Here the loss is 99,8%, i.e. 0,2%, but a significant part of it can be blown out with the pump, so in practice it is zero. In a barista workshop or a busier coffee shop, where 10 kilos of beans are used up a day, I even understand its importance, but they don't use such grinders there.

And that's about all you need to know about the HiBREW G5, but before the test ends, I would like to note one thing, and that is the lack of adjustability.

In the HiBREW G3 test, I wrote that there are useful parameters that make life easier and I have used them many times in real life. For example:

• setting portafilter size
• setting and display of grinding time
• pre-programmed grinding times
• grinding quantity setting

These help a lot in daily use, because, well the eye eats first, but the functionality comes second, and in all other cases as well. Of course, there will always be the prepared excuse, "- But how beautiful!", only after the 100th dose of coffee, this may no longer provide comfort.

Summary