Video Overview | Comandante MK4

The Comandante remains one of the most beloved coffee grinders in our catalogue and for good reason. The materials are premium; the design is modern; and the grind is consistent. This iteration, the Mark 4, has a redesigned engine frame (i.e., interior supports) so coffee beans won't get stuck in the hopper and an additional polymer grinds catch, which is especially useful for travel. In this video, Steve briefly covers the features of and demos the newest Comandante.

Transcript

Steve here with Prima Coffee, and today we're going to take a look at the new Comandante MK4. The MK4 is a minor update to the MKIII. As you can see, though, from the body here, not much has changed. The two big differences are going to be in the engine frame, which is sort of that interior support, and in the grinds catch. So, for the engine frame, on the MKIII, there was a little recess about right here where beans were getting stuck. They've done away with that here. This is all completely filled in. The Comandante now comes with one glass bean jar or grinds catch, however you want to call it, and one polymer BPA-free grinds catch as well, probably great for travel so that you know you're not going to break that. And you can use that secondary bean jar to fill up with coffee that you might use on your travels. We are offering the MK4 in these four colors. So, this one here is American Cherry, which is a veneer of cherry wood on the stainless steel body here. All of these are powder-coated stainless steel. So, we have the Black, the Burgundy, and the Cobalt blue. As far as the grinder goes, everything is going to perform the same. So, you can still do everything from espresso here, all the way up through all of the pour-over options that you want, and French press as well, and even cold brew. You have 40 options here on those grind settings. Comandante is known for the audible clicks here when you're changing the grind setting. When you go to the left, counterclockwise, that's courser. When you go to the right, that is finer. And because of those steps, it might not be suitable for you for espresso because you can't dial in exactly. Another thing about this is it does have an optional second axle called the Red Clix. So, if you do want to use this for espresso and you're finding that you're not getting enough options down in the fine range, you can get those Red Clix, and it basically doubles your options. As far as grind settings go, Comandante has included a nice guide inside of the manual here. And you'll see everything from the ibrik, which is Turkish coffee, all the way up through your cold brew, and it's giving you a starting place for each of those. And you can see them here, this is really fine. So, this about seven. This is 24, and this is 33, something that you'd use here on the end for cold brew, filter in the middle, and espresso at its finest. Now, the grind settings are always going to be different depending on the coffee that you're using. So, those are just starting places for you. As far as the materials here, we have this polymer lid, same as before. You have the American Cherry pommel, so the pommel that matches the body here. We have, again, these grinds catchers. One is polymer. One here is glass. And you can see what's on the bottom there as well. This MK4 comes with this little silicone sleeve here, which will help you with grip. If you have smaller hands and you've had trouble actually holding the wide body here of the Comandante, which has been noted, we have found that this actually is great for those users. It feels very comfortable when you're holding it with that silicone band on there. If that's not a problem, I wouldn't use that. It's not needed. As far as speed is concerned, not much has changed here as well. It'll take you about 45 seconds to grind 20 grams at that pour over. It's going to depend on the coffee and how light-roasted that coffee is, the origin of that coffee and how dense it is. But this right here is set at 24, which is something that you might use for a Kalita Wave. So, we can kind of show you here [inaudible] and it should take around 45 seconds. There we go. And you can kind of see what this would look like here. So, I don't know if you can see that. Something that you'd use for, yeah, a Kalita Wave, maybe even a small Chemex.