There seems to be a lot of debate and a lot of confusion about Niche Zero and filter or pour over brews. I think there are a lot of factors involved such as the type of coffee beans, roast level, etc that make this a heated topic.
One of the complaints is that the coffee grinds are not consistent on coarse settings. Some argue that conical burr grinders have a higher ratio of fines which results in loss of clarity and just not a good cup of drip coffee.
From personal experience, I dialed in coarser and achieved good cups of filter coffee. There was not an issue, and even if the coffee grinds were not too evenly distributed the resulting coffee was satisfying.
For me, the issue is not whether the Niche Zero can grind coffee beans good enough for quality drip coffee. The issue is dialing between the coarser grinder settings and espresso setting on the dial.
Alternating between espresso and filter coffee complicated my workflow. When I dial in within the espresso range, there is no issue. The Niche Zero is very good as this. So, you won’t end up with a bad espresso if you are a little bit off.
However, grinding for filter coffee and then afterwards dialing in for espresso. It’s gets kind of messy. One issue is channeling. I think this is due to retention from coarser coffee grounds mixing with finer espresso grounds.
There are some solutions, but the best option is tedious. It’s cleaning the conical burr after grinding on coarse setting. The issue is not just tedious, but you’ll also have to re-dial again to find your correct dial number for your espresso.
This is in three words – waste of coffee, and that annoys me. I despise wasting coffee. Another solution is to use a bellow, and I haven’t experienced this but I foresee a few complications here too.
Being a Niche Zero owner, I love it. It is my favorite part of the workflow. It looks beautiful, sounds lovely and grinds excellent shots of espresso. And for me, that’s what it is, and that is how I use it. It’s for espresso. Again, changing the setting within the espresso dial setting is not a problem at all, speaking from personal experience, even with minimal retention.
So the ultimate and most logical solution for filter coffee is another grinder to complement the Niche Zero. Hello Fellow Gen 2 Ode Brew Grinder!