Video Overview | Acaia Orbit Coffee Grinder
Transcript
I'm Ryan from Prima and this is the Acaia orbit coffee grinder, developed in collaboration with the Weber Workshop's team Acaia’s Orbit Coffee Grinder is a single dose platform designed for espresso and filter coffee applications at home. The orbit offers lower retention, a full range of grind sizes for various brew methods, and a plethora of interesting digital features for limitless experimentation and workflow optimization.
Some of these features include auto stop functionality, customizable button actions, adjustable purge duration and speed, a versatile RPM range of 600 to 1500, and the capacity to craft RPM profiles featuring two speeds when connected via Bluetooth to an Acaia Lunar scale. It even offers programmable grind by weight options, which isn't fully optimized because of the short hopper, but will be in the future. The Orbit app consolidates control over numerous settings, thoughtfully designed to enhance functionality and streamline workflow for a personalized grinding experience. And if that weren't impressive enough, the orbit boasts precision tolerances of ten microns for burr flatness and 20 microns for concentricity in the motor and drive shafts. This ensures that impeccable burr alignment is present and consistent grind uniformity as well. It is a challenge to imagine really how they could have fit more value into a grinder under 1500 dollars. The orbit arrives equipped with a choice between two commercial grade 64 millimeter flat burr sets. Mazzer’s 33 M, ideal for those seeking a more traditional espresso and high body brew experience or the SSP multipurpose burr set tailored to the contemporary preference for high clarity, espresso and filter coffee. 64 millimeter burr platforms are becoming extremely popular because aftermarket 64 sets are abundant and continually evolving, enabling users to effortlessly adjust the grinders flavor profile by simply swapping out the hardware, opting for a widely used burr like the 64, ensures that you can stay current with brewing trends without the need to invest in entirely new grinders.
So let's take a closer look at the orbit and its hardware. We'll also take a look at the Orbit app and we'll grind a little bit of coffee to give you an idea of how it grinds the sounds it makes and what features are available. First thing you're going to notice about the orbit is its all metal construction. It looks great, feels great, adds a level of durability to it as well. On top we have a plastic single dose hopper. Like I didn't integrate much plastic in the grinder really just where there needed to be. This hopper holds about 25, you know, probably 30 grams in there if you really want to below that, here is a movable reference for the zero point. As I move this reference, I can change the zero point to accommodate maybe different burrs that I'm trying or one burr set as it ages right below that is a step less grind adjustment. Of course, everything from espresso to the coarsest you really need for pour over brewing is here and that can change as well with the burrs. There are lots of 64 millimeter burst sets out there to accommodate different grinding styles and applications. So really that just adds a huge amount of versatility to this platform. Below that, we have Acaia’s 58 millimeter dosing cup that comes with this grinder. This top is designed to fit directly into a portafilter basket, so you can use this to dose your espresso grounds, works great for pour over as well. They put a sort of magnetic piece on the bottom here so it can easily align with that spout. There is a knocker on the back. It's a little bit tricky to reach. It's not upfront. Like some other grinders. You kind of have to reach behind the spout to grab it. No big deal. And then the last thing here is just this button, and this button toggles through the three preset modes and also the manual grinding mode, which I'm about to show you in the Acaia app.
Okay, let's take a look at the Orbit app. So I'm going to hit connect and we're connected. Okay, From the home screen here, we have a few buttons, one for starting the grind, one for a pulse. And then we also have an auto purge here on the right, which cycles twice to clear the bar chamber. Below that we have our RPM profiles. We have A, B, C, as well as a manual mode. And to program these, we come over here to settings and we can program the initial RPM phase in RPM speed and then the duration in seconds and then an ending phase. So for example, if I were running 600 R.P.M. for 5 seconds and then 1500 R.P.M. for another 5.1 seconds we’ll hit save, and this is what happens. You can kind of hear the grinder modulating that power to hit those programmed RPMs. What does RPM change do? Really? There's more research needed on this topic. I have been told by some professionals in the grinding industry that RPM mainly changes grind size, not necessarily the particle distribution, but mainly the grind size. So what you get with a profile like this one I've set up here is probably a mixture of coarser and finer particles, a greater imbalance of those two than you would get with a flat line or straight RPM like I would hear in manual. Okay, so there's another level of experimentation here if you want to get into that. I haven't spent much time doing that myself, but it is there if you want to explore. All right. So outside of this screen, we can go to settings. We can actually track the total motor running time, the power for the last grind session, which is interesting. We also have an auto stop feature, which is kind of like the fellow Ode. It detects when the grinder is finished grinding and will shut itself off after a delay time. So you also have an auto purge that we heard just a minute ago that will engage following a cycle if you want. And then there's a standby and then there's some advanced settings for pairing with an Acaia scale. As I mentioned earlier, you can pair the orbit with an Acaia Lunar for grind by weight technology. They don't have a tall hopper for it currently, so this feature will not be very useful to anyone right now because you pretty much have to weigh single doses anyways to begin with. So later in the future, when there's a bigger hopper, it'll be really interesting to see how grind by weight works with this machine.
Okay, so that is the Acaia Orbit. We're really excited about this grinder. It fits into a great price point in the single dose market, and 64 millimeter burrs are something we get excited about because of their versatility, applications and flavor. So check it out at primacoffee.com. Thanks for watching.
