Improving Your Grind

I have been thinking about upgrading coffee grinders lately. I currently have the Baratza Virtuoso, but I feel that the particle size distribution is just not cutting it. It generally does a decent job, but as soon as I coarsen up a bit past twenty, which I often do for pourover, I can see significant differences of particle size throughout the grind, which unsettles me to brew with. 

Anyway, this post was not exactly about my debate in upgrading grinders, but instead a way to get the most out of your grinder. It is essentially inevitable to have fines in your grind despite how flawless your grinder may be. With that said, fines are often a common culprit that make up a decent portion of bitterness in coffee. Since they over extract so quickly, it can be difficult to compensate for. 

So my main thought was, by grinding coarser for what ever brew method that you seek, you are essentially creating a larger gap between particle sizes. You would further over extract the fines in order to amend the coarser particles (when grinding coarser). If you were to instead tighten the grind up a bit, you could shrink your considered confidence interval between sizes, and hence extract less from the fines, while extracting the desired amount from the rest. Well, hopefully the desired amount anyway. 

I don't have any physical data on the amount of fines produced from a grinder during different settings, but was more of just a thought than anything. Generally speaking, I feel that many people (and frequently in the industry setting) tend to grind finer, over dose, and under-extract. This way you get the perception of a correct extraction, but is quite wasteful, and commonly may produce subtle undesirable flavors. Again though, this could be a working get-around method to compensate for the lack of a quality grinder. Or for all that matters, just another way to improve your morning cup.