Precision, Pace, and Profit: How to Design a Commercial Coffee Grinding Workflow

Ask any coffee professional what the most essential part of a coffee bar is, and their answer may surprise you.

It’s not the espresso machine.

It’s not the batch brewer. 

It’s the coffee grinders.

Coffee grinders dictate everything from the speed at which baristas can prepare drinks to the consistency of coffee quality. And, each grinder plays a distinct role in the overall workflow of a coffee bar.

This is why creating a logical commercial coffee grinder setup is vital to the long-term success of a coffee shop. In today’s guide, we’ll show you:

• The three key types of coffee grinders every café needs to have.

• Why the placement of your coffee grinders directly impacts the efficiency and profitability of your café.

• How to choose coffee grinding tools and features that optimize your coffee bar workflow.

First, let’s examine why a proper coffee grinding workflow is paramount for coffee businesses.

 

How Poor Grinder Workflow Can Negatively Impact a Coffee Bar

New coffee shop owners have numerous decisions to make. Arguably, one of the most important decisions is identifying the commercial coffee equipment you need to invest in. 

During this phase of a café buildout, many coffee shop owners focus a lot of their time and energy on choosing an espresso machine. And while espresso machines are fundamental for a coffee bar, coffee grinders are ultimately the backbone of a successful barflow. 

When careful thought and planning aren’t put into purchasing the right coffee grinders, the following hidden costs can cause serious consequences—both financial and operational—for your coffee bar. 

• Time Loss: The speed at which your grinder grinds the beans has a direct impact on the speed in which your team is able to complete drink orders. When baristas lose seconds per drink due to slow grinding speeds, manual dosing systems, or improper grinder placement on the bar, this leads to extra labor hours and slow service.
  

• Coffee Quality Inconsistency: The principles of coffee extraction are directly influenced by the size of the coffee grounds. When grinder types, features, and burr quality aren’t a consideration when building the coffee bar, coffee quality will ultimately suffer. 

• Staff Frustration: Grinding coffee throughout a shift requires continuous repetitive motions. Awkward or illogical grinder placement can cause frustration and physical fatigue for staff preparing drinks daily. 

When all three of these challenges add up, a coffee shop can suffer from unsatisfied customers, wavering coffee quality, and ultimately, a loss of profit as costs pile up.

But don’t worry! With a bit of careful planning and research, you’ll be able to design a coffee bar workflow that’s logical, efficient, and most importantly, profitable.

 

 

 

3 Essential Types of Coffee Grinders & Their Placement

If you’re new to the coffee industry, you may wonder why you need to invest in different types of coffee grinders. Shouldn’t they all do the same thing: pulverize beans into smaller pieces?

Theoretically, yes! However, each grinder type is designed to accomplish a specific grinding task. For example, espresso grinders are built to grind coffee beans into an ultra-fine grind size, almost like powdered sugar or a white sand beach. This is accomplished through certain burr types, materials, electronics, and programming. 

Every coffee bar needs the following three types of coffee grinders to operate properly:

1) Primary Espresso Grinder

There’s a little joke between coffee shop owners that “vanilla lattes keep the lights on.” And there’s a good reason for that:

A majority of your sales will come from espresso-based beverages.

This means that your espresso grinders need to be the foundation of the entire coffee bar workflow. Espresso grinders are known for their high-speed and grind consistency, enabling baristas to grind shot-after-shot with accuracy. These grinders should be placed directly next to the espresso machine, giving your staff minimal need to reach or pivot around the bar to grind and brew a shot of espresso. 

In this section of your coffee bar, there needs to be a clear and logical flow of the following espresso tasks:

• Dosing coffee

• Grinding coffee

• Espresso puck preparation

• Brewing

Baristas should be able to accomplish all of these tasks using the espresso grinders, puck prep tools, and espresso machine, all within one designated area.

2) Decaf Espresso Grinder

Decaf coffee is a growing market, and offering the option for decaf espresso and drip coffee beverages can steadily increase a coffee shop’s daily revenue. 

In addition to your primary espresso grinder, having one espresso grinder dedicated to decaf beans avoids waste and workflow disruptions. This grinder should be placed next to the primary espresso grinder and labeled accordingly. 

However, since demand for decaffeinated coffee will not supersede caffeinated beverages, you could opt for a smaller or less expensive grinder for decaf beans. For example, you can purchase a Mahlkönig E80W to handle the volume of caffeinated coffee and a Fiorenzato F64 for your decaf espresso. Some coffee bars take this route when dealing with limited bar space or budgets.

3) Batch Brew Grinder

Your coffee shop will also need a grinder that can grind large volumes of coffee beans for batch brew and cold brew, such as the Mahlkönig EK43, Mahlkönig Guatemala 2.0, or Bunn G3.

Similar to the espresso setup, the bulk grinder should be placed as close to your batch brewer as possible. While this placement will make grinding and brewing drip coffee easier and faster for baristas, it’s not the end of the world if it is not possible. After all, baristas aren’t repetitively making drip coffee as they are espresso shots, so it’s perfectly fine if there needs to be some distance between the brewer and the bulk grinder. 

No matter where this grinder is located, be sure that barflow systems allow for a barista to easily measure, grind, and brew the drip coffee with ease.

Bonus Grinder: Single Origin Grinder

If your café plans to offer single origin coffee selections, you may want to consider having a dedicated grinder for these menu items as well. For example, using a single dose grinder like a Heycafé Jack All Purpose Grinder lets baristas measure and grind coffee beans as needed rather than replacing beans in a hopper each time a customer orders a pour over coffee.

 

 

Optimizing the Coffee Grinding Workflow

Once you have an understanding of your coffee bar layout and where each grinder will go, it’s time to choose the grinder with the right features for your business. Today’s coffee grinders offer baristas a multitude of features designed to enhance productivity and promote grinder accuracy. But for some coffee shops, these high-tech features may not be necessary.

For instance, coffee shops can choose from the following espresso grinding workflows:

• Manual Dosing – With this option, baristas manually weigh out beans and feed them into a single dose espresso grinder. This labor intensive process works for small, low-volume café setups. This option isn’t smart for high-volume coffee shops in need of a streamlined and efficient approach.

• Doser Grinders – Espresso grinders such as the Victoria Arduino MyOne Mythos enable baristas to program a specific dose represented in seconds. Once programmed, the grinder dispenses coffee grounds within the predetermined time. This type of grinder requires baristas to confirm the dose is within the café’s espresso recipe using an external scale.

• Grind by Weight – Newer espresso and coffee grinders offer “grind by weight” technology, which uses internal scales to measure and dispense a specific volume of coffee, often measured in grams. This type of grinder ensures that every dose of coffee grounds is the correct weight, providing baristas with an efficient and accurate grinding workflow.

• Grind by Sync – As the latest innovation in coffee grinder technology, grind by sync grinders connect to the espresso machine—either wirelessly or through an external cable—to share data. If the algorithm notices that an espresso shot was brewed outside of the programmed parameters, it automatically signals the grinder to adjust the grind size accordingly. 

When choosing between these options, you’ll want to first consider your budget. Then, design a barflow around that type of grinder. For instance, if you opt for a doser espresso grinder, make sure you have digital scales readily available at that station.

Of course, a key part of a barista’s workflow is tamping and puck preparation. These tools should be right at the espresso grinder station as well. If you’re looking to streamline the coffee grinding and puck preparation station for the ultimate efficiency, consider opting for a PUQpress autotamper that attaches directly to an espresso grinder. 

After you’ve decided which coffee grinders will be purchased for your café, the next step is to plan the complete bar layout. Determining where your grinders are placed on a coffee bar is not only dictated by power sources and equipment dimensions, but also by overall barflow efficiency.

Remember: all elements of the brewing process—including grinders—should be within one to two footsteps of each other. The goal is to minimize the amount of reaching and/or pivoting a barista needs to do to brew a shot of espresso, steam milk, and hand the drink off to a customer, all while avoiding cross-traffic between baristas or stations.

 

 

How Grinder Burr Types and Sizes Can Impact Barflow

Commercial coffee grinders use burrs with adjustable spacing to uniformly pulverize coffee beans into a desired particle size. These burrs are, therefore, among the most important parts in dictating a coffee’s flavor and extraction potential.

Coffee and espresso grinders are available with varying burr types, sizes, and geometries—all of which impact the taste of your coffee and your behind-the-bar workflow.

Burr Types:

There are two main types of burrs: flat and conical.

Flat burr grinders use two discs, one of which is secured to the grinder and the other rotates. This design creates a highly uniform grind size. A conical burr grinder has an interior burr shaped similarly to a cone, and an exterior burr set outside of the cone. Conical burrs result in a “bimodal” grind size, which means that you’ll find both fine and larger particle sizes.

Flat burrs are often found in commercial coffee grinders, for both espresso and filter coffee, due to their uniformity. Conical burrs tend to be used in household coffee applications due to their affordability. 

Burr Size:

When you grind coffee beans, friction and heat are created inside the grinder. Larger burr sizes (64mm+) are able to grind beans faster and more accurately, reducing the heat produced within the machine.

Naturally, larger burr sizes can also handle larger quantities of coffee simply due to surface area. This is a crucial consideration for coffee shops looking to grind and brew hundreds of espresso shots or drip coffees each day.

Burr Geometry: 

While burr type and size are important to consider when purchasing and using a grinder, burr geometry is arguably the most vital part of a coffee shop’s grinding workflow.

Burr geometry refers to both the design of the burr and how it is aligned within the grinder. The sharpness of the burr’s “teeth,” along with the shape of how beans enter and exit the burrs, impacts its ability to uniformly grind coffee. As these begin to dull over time, its ability to do so drastically decreases.

As you use your grinder for daily service, the burrs will become misaligned over time. This results in a grind size that is coarser than desired.

Improper burr geometry creates uneven or inconsistent grind sizes. If the grind size is inconsistent, your espresso and coffee drinks will not taste consistent either! This means your baristas now have to spend more time dialing in recipes, recalibrating grinders, and troubleshooting grinder maintenance throughout the day. 

When selecting grinders for your coffee bar, pay attention to the burr type, size, and geometry as well!

 

 

The Bottom Line

Every coffee shop is unique. That’s what makes the coffee industry such a fascinating place. However, while coffee bar aesthetics and menu differences may make each café original, there are also tried and true standards to follow for an ideal workflow, including where the grinders are placed.

As you plan your coffee bar’s grinder workflow, keep these principles in mind:

• Minimize the distance between grinding and brewing coffee. Everything to dose, grind, and brew coffee should be within one or two steps of each other on the bar.

• Dedicated grinders, such as for decaf or single origin beans, may be an additional investment. But, they can save significant and valuable time on a busy bar!

• While not a requirement, grinders with “grind by weight” and “grind by sync” functionality can ensure dose consistency and streamline the entire brewing process.

Ultimately, the grinders you purchase and their placement on your bar should work to promote efficiency and quality—not hinder it.

 

Written by Anne Mercer

Anne Mercer is the co-owner of Victus Coffee, a specialty coffee shop and roasting company based in West Hartford, Connecticut. A coffee professional, freelance writer, and speaker, she has contributed to industry publications including Roast Magazine and Fresh Cup Magazine and participated in industry events such as Coffee Fest New York and the Northeast Coffee Festival.