Ascaso i-Mini
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Attention: This grinder can be easily broken if misused. |
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| Please read this page carefully before using the grinder, including adjusting or cleaning it in any way. |
| Ascaso i-Mini Status: beta [box doku] | |
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| Description | A conical burr coffee grinder |
| Owner | q3k |
Note: the grinder isn't at the space yet. This page is a work in progress.
Ascaso i-Mini Coffee Grinder
We have a conical burr coffee grinder in the kitchen. It can be used to grind coffee beans into anything from super-fine-espresso to super-coarse-french-press. When used properly it can make delicious coffee.
Please read the following page carefully before turning on the grinder or touching any adjustment. When in doubt, ask on #coffee on Slack or q3k directly. If you've never used this kind of coffee grinder before, it's totally fine to just ask someone to show you how to use it.
TODO(q3k): Photo with diagram.
Not breaking it
This grinder belongs to q3k, but can be used by anyone, provided some important instructions are followed:
- Only grind roasted coffee. No, seriously, never grind anything else. No spices, no cocoa, no green coffee, no rice, no coffee substitutes. Cleaning out the grinder after non-coffee takes hours of work, it will be faster and cheaper to buy a spice grinder at a Saturn than to use this grinder for experiments.
- The grinder can eat your fingers if you touch the burrs while they are spinning. Don't insert anything which you don't want to pulverize (including your fingers) into the hopper when the grinder is running!
- When adjusting the grind setting from coarse to fine, do it while the machine is running. Otherwise coffee fragments stuck between burrs might chip them.
- Clean the grinder after use. The kitchen counter must be spotless: no grounds anywhere nearby. Use the attached brush to wipe away any coffee grounds from the grinder, then use a paper towel to wipe the countertop clean.
- Do not Yolo Fix the grinder. No serviceable parts inside, unless you've serviced coffee grinders before.
- Do not take out the hopper unless necessary. It has a ring on it that helps you figure out the absolute grind setting, not replacing it carefully might lead to the indicator being off.
Using it
After you've read the warnings sections above, you can be pretty sure you won't break the grinder. Now, here is a guide on how to use it to make delicious coffee:
- Adjust the grinder to your desired ground size. There is a multi turn microadjustment knob on the right, which you can turn to make the grinds coarser or finer. The platic hopper will spin around as you do so, and an indicator attached to it lets you figure out where you are more or less in absolute terms. When adjusting grind size towards fine, only do so while the grinder is running.
- To run the grinder, the switch on the bottom right must be in the 'on' position, and the silver button underneath the grounds chute must be pressed in.
- We recommend you “Single Dose” the grinder. That is, measure out an exact amount of beans, put them in the hopper, and grind them all through. Regardless, **do not leave coffee beans in the hopper**, as the person using the grinder after you might want to Single Dose their own beans..
- After you're done, clean the grinder and the countertop around it, and turn off the switch on the bottom right.
Cleaning it
Day to day cleaning generally means getting rid of coffee grounds on the surface of the grinder and around it. Do that after every use.
Every quarter (see #coffee on Slack for when the grinder was last cleaned), use coffee grinder cleaning pellets (eg. Urnex Grindz) to clean out the burrs. Follow instructions in the packaging. Afterwards, run some normal coffee beans through the grinder to clean out any pellet dust.
TODO(q3k): bring some Grindz to the space.
If the grounds hopper becomes yellow/brown from coffee bean residue, take it out (noting the orientation of the indicator ring!), take off the indicator ring and wash it in the dishwasher.
Servicing it
For servicing or deeper cleaning of the grinder (ie. taking the burrs out, regreasing the gearbox, etc), please talk to q3k first.
