Interesting! I agree that rtd is bandaid. Crazy that this $4k Weber grinder makes so much static while my little $650 rancilio stile grinder makes absolutely zero static. We should demand better performance from grinders, especially at that price!
Totally agree as there are way too many training wheel approaches with espresso. The WDT, RDT, puck screens, bean counters, auto tamps, etc. The more people rely on that garbage the less involved they are with the process overall and can't seem to live without the 'latest/greatest' invention Billy Bob on YT highly endorses! There's a sucker born every minute and some clearly have more $ than common/practical sense.
The Weber EG-1 already creates comparably few static. I highly doubt that your sub 1k grinder produces less, you probably just don’t see it, as the coffee sticks on the inside. The only grinders that don’t produce that much static are the ones with built-in plasma gun/antistatic guns.
@@gro967 watch any video with the stile. It looks nothing like this. The stile has it's own flaws but static is not one of them. It's clearly possible to fix without expensive fancy parts
I created the name RDT on Home-Barista back during the HG-One hand grinder review. It is a simple, quick and effective technique that solves all these problems without gimmicky tools. I credited Andy Schecter who reached out to me to describe a long forgotten tip from the Alt-Coffee days where David Ross shared what he'd discovered by using a simple spoon that he'd run the handle under water then stir his beans with the damp handle and eliminate static. But this whole concept isn't even new to coffee. It's been used in beer production on large scale, for many decades, I can specifically cite Sierra Nevada Brewery because I've seen it first hand. They use fine misters to lightly moisten the outside of the grain (barley) before it passes thru the grist mill, in order to increase extraction efficiency and reduce the risk of a fire/explosion from a spark igniting a dust laden air pocket near the grinder. Anyway, after using RDT longer than anyone else in the coffee world, I still have not found any corrosion on even my simple tool steel burrs. Once broken in, and slightly coated with coffee oils, they do not rust. The rest of my grinders in my collection are all coated and wont rust either.
Hard to say. The deionizer feels like additional complexity or another gadget to think about and maintain. Really would be interesting to understand the degree to which a spray of water really affects the burr life over a multi year time frame. Whereas a nice pair of Ti-coated burrs will cost ~$300, won't have rust concerns, and would also provide a whole new flavour profile to explore.
Personally, I don’t see rdt as a band-aid. Yes, it’s an additional step in the workflow. But as a home barista I only pull two coffees in the morning and then maybe some later in the day if I work from home. So this extra time demand really isn’t a big issue. Also I believe that because we always introduce the water together with coffee grounds and never alone it is either largely absorbed by ground coffee or evaporates in the grinding process. The only effect I can tell rdt has on my grinder is that due to the moisture parts other than the burrs gunk up a little bit more. So for me this is a really low cost (both time and money) solution that yields exceptional results. Not sure if a deioniser is actually needed if a grinder is well designed.
As an electronics engineer I'm reaaally skeptical about "anti-static" guns and positive and negative ions flowing through this thing. I have heard of static guns sure, but not "anti-static" guns. First of all if it indeed shoots out ions then it's shooting out some metal ions which I'm not even sure I want in my coffee in the first place (also that would be essentially ablative and the sacrificial anode or cathode that provides the ions would get eaten away over time). Second, that ion beam would produce some air current that would affect the flow of grinds shooting out of the grinder. I reaally doubt that this thing works with ions. With dust it can work by generating a big electric field that opposes the static field of the dust and repels the dust. With static in the particle flow coming out of a grinder though, seems kind of a stretch. As a coffee enthusiast though, I agree that the static of a 4K grinder shouldn't be a thing but the Weber is kinda old I think, and anti-static grinders have only started to be a thing in the past couple of years.
you must have skipped the lecture on ion generators. the ions aren't metal, they're charged air molecules, losing or acquiring electrons before they're repelled from the charged needle. anti-static guns, fwiw, became a thing in the eighties, the theory being that your stream of ions is preferentially attracted to pockets of the opposite charge sitting on an (vinyl LP) insulator. you have a vague intuition that electrostatic dust extractors work differently, but your grasp of how they work is ... gibberish. they don't rely on dust having a static charge, but beyond that i can't even. long story short though, fiddling with one of these guns is going to be a massive PITA compared to adding a few drops of water
When I RDT, I shoot a very fine mist with a barber shop type sprayer. Only one spritz and wave the beans under the cloud. Quantum style. I then shake the beans between my palm and the bean dish, rigorously, taking care that the palm is dry. I find that this way I get no grounds to grinder adhesion nor significant retention (which could be quite high with excess humidity). Cheers😊
RDT also helps prevents internal exchange which benefits some titans like the Bentwood where that anti static tech isn't going to get where the problem is.
Hey! Just discovered your channel! Great stuff. My question is, I have a kinu hand grinder and with the importance of rdt I’ve begun to spray my beans but worry that I’m ruining my burrs! But keep doing it t thinking that if it ruined burrs others wouldn’t do it.. but maybe that’s bad reasoning-- do you do it? Are you Concerned about out that or do you do it also?
@@Coffeehausthanks but lastly then- how would I make sure they’re dry? Like there’s nothing I can do really to “dry” them other than leave the catch cup off for more ventilation… ? (Just wondering if you have some hack or tip) Thanks for your time and that’s all for now!
I just hate rdt so much, i preweight my beans into tubes for single dosing. had to dump the beans in another cup just for rdt, extremely awkward workthrough.
id rather have the fines and chaf taken out of the coffee than put water in it and then guarantee them negatively contributing to the coffee. used to be able to easily remove the fines and chaf from my niche cup but since the ode gen 2 handles static so well, there is nothing i can do to minimise fines and chaf...
I agree, my K-Max traps a lot of fines because of static, which I can then choose not to put in the brewer. I find that they contribute quite negatively to the cup if I do put them in. But it does feel wasteful
What about whats still retained in the body? Since you are pointing this gun at the exit, doesnt it leave out machine retention? RDT helps with retention all through the machine doesnt it?
Definitely a point worth considering. Understandably, it won’t work on retention as well I’d venture to guess - but retention also has to do with the configuration of the burrset. An internal deionizer should help more. This external DI isn’t so much the end all - just a similar band aid fix like RDT.
