After putting about 2.5kg of old coffee through the J-Ultra to season it, (thank God it is drill compatible!), I started actually using the grinder for its primary use: espresso output. Using 1Zpresso’s guide, which says espresso starts at 100 clicks (one full rotation of the dial off zero), I set it to 110 clicks 1+1) and loaded up 18.5g to pull in our lab machine, a Breville Dual Boiler.
The first shots ran very tight, so an adjustment 10 clicks (keeping in mind that’s 80 microns of vertical burr travel, but only about 40-50um actual grind size difference), tried again. This time too fast. I took off 4 clicks (32 microns vertical, about 18um particle size), and as they say in Australia, bob’s your uncle: I had a nearly perfect (visually, and time based) shot of espresso, delivering out 45g of liquor in 35 seconds (including the 10 second preinfusion). This is based on our long standing espresso testing regimen.
Taste? It was a postcard perfect representation of what Social Coffee’s People’s Daily blend can deliver. This was looking very promising.
I happen to be a closet Turkish Coffee fan, and havean automatic Turkish coffee maker. I noted that 1Zpresso gleefully claim their grinder can do the powder grind needed for Turkish, so I set that up next. 7.1 on the dial, or 71 clicks off zero.
It took some time, and the grinder was pretty hard to crank at times but we got there, and I got powder. Almost talcum powder levels of coffee grounds. And it brewed a lovely, foamy cup of turkish coffee. This is significant, because even though it was a difficult and long grind session, a) it was easier than other turkish-capable grinders I have, and b) I felt I could go even finer.
Third, pour over testing. Comparing to other products’ output would come later on, I just wanted to see how the cup tasted using the J-Ultra and brewing in a Hario Mugen / Switch hack device. To get there, 1Zpresso recommends 2.7 on the click dial – that is, 2 full rotations, then go to 7. 270 clicks off zero! But because the selection dial and markings are so well made, rotating it and getting there was easy. The little pyramid indicator (more on that below) also helps keep track of how many full rotations you’ve done on the grinder.
Absolutely no complaints about the pour over quality from this grinder. In fact, it was one of the better cups I’d had in a few weeks. And fast… this grinder is very fast for a manual grinder. Visually, I didn’t see a lot of excessive fines either, either in my hand, on a white table, or in the filter.
The J-Ultra delivers. Especially for espresso.
The Killer Feature
For many, the killer feature of the 1Zpresso J-Ultra is the grind selection dial and the micron adjustment size: just 8 microns in vertical movement in the burr set (which translates to about 5 microns or smaller in actual grind change) per click. And each click feels very precise.
That’s not my fave killer feature though, no matter how amazing it is. No, mine is the innovative way 1Zpresso shows how many rotations you’ve made on the grind selection dial! Because the dial moves up and down on the body as you adjust the grind, for each full 360 rotation of the dial, a set of dots is displayed at the adjustment marker. When the grinder is “zeroed” out, meaning the burrs are fully locked, the dial reads “zero” at the marker point, and the marker is a pyramid of five rows of dots: 5 dots at the bottom, 4, then 3, then 2, then finally 1 dot at the top. When you do a full rotation coarser, the first single dot row is hidden by the grind dial, showing 2 dots, indicating the grinder is on its second 360 rotation. Keep going coarser, and then the 3 dot line is the first visible one. And so on.
It’s brilliant, because this grinder has so many clicks to get from an espresso grind to pour over grind (about 140 total clicks between those two!), this little indicator really helps you know exactly where the grinder is in its range of 500 (!!!!!) total clicks.
Speaking of clicks: the dial has embossed numbers from 0 to 9 on it, with a mid dot between each number. Going one full number on the dial is 10 clicks in the grind setting. This means one full 360 degree rotation on the dial is 100 clicks. The dial can be rotated 5 total times (it has a lock out at the coarse end). Given that each click is 8 microns of burr movement vertically, this grinder has an effective range of 0 microns to 4,000 microns, in 500 steps.
Keep in mind, this is vertical movement. The actual grind particle size varies across this range because of the overall shape and curve of the burrs: in the turkish to espresso range, it could be 3 microns change in particle size per click, expanding to around 6 microns by the time you get to press pot. Based on some initial evaluation, the effective grinding particle size of this grinder is 150 microns to about 1800 microns.
1Zpresso recommends starting at 7.5 (or about 75 clicks off zero) for turkish style powder (I did this at 7.1). Espresso range starts at 1 full rotation (0, or 100 clicks) through 140 (1rotation+4). Aeropress starts at 2 full rotations (200 clicks), pour over at 2rotations+5, (250 clicks), Chemex / no-bypass brewers at 3rotations+5 (350 clicks), and press pot at 4 full rotations.
That may seem like a lot of clicks – 400 to get to press pot? – but in reality, it’s very easy to do, and the pyramid dot indicators help you know how many rotations you’ve done.