USPS updated my tracking information... it's out for delivery and I will have the LIDO in my hands within the hour. The anticipation is killing me.

Wooo!! I don't even know why I am excited too by that! Excellent job Doug and Barb as usual!

Here. Cool Bag. #034 matches my #034 Pharos.

Eagerly awaiting reviews. Would love if someone would also put the LIDO through its paces in the espresso range.

Here. #25. Great packaging. The bag will come in handy for packing the grinder in a suitcase, or backpack.

Here are my first impressions:

The build quality is outstanding. As expected, the grinder is heavy, and feels substantial when grinding. This is in comparison to my OE PFP and Hario Mini Mill. I had 4-5oz of throw-away beans to do a few test grinds and check out the adjustability. I attached the handle using the furthest threaded hole, set the grinder to 1.5 rotations, and ground out ~10g. I started by pushing the jar into my stomach with my left hand and rotating the handle with my right. Smooooth.

After I finished, I noticed a bit of static around the pointer cap on the adjustment bolt. Upon closer inspection, the grounds attached to it looked like powder. I gave the grinder one tap with my palm on the bottom of the jar and dumped the grinds out to have a look. At 1.5, the grind looked like a coarse drip, although upon looking back at the grounds container I noticed some static on the glass. The grounds that were clinging looked to be a fine powder. Maybe the burrs needed some warm up time?

The second round at 1.5 seemed to have much less dust and in general looked nice. I should say that I am comparing this to what I get out of my Preciso. I did notice a touch more dust, but it's really difficult for my to say that, as I am just grinding 10g samples. For the second test, I adjusted the grinder to two full rotations from zero, added 10g of beans, and set off grinding. I kept it nice, slow, and even with a slight downward pressure with my grip on the handle. I'm very new to hand grinders and the appropriate way to hold/grind with them, so I just assumed that the grinder need some downwards pressure on the handle to keep the central shaft/burr full down in its setting. The coarse grinds at two looked nice. Again, I saw what seemed to be some more dust in comparison to my Preciso, but it absolutely blew away anything my OE PFP/Skerton/Mini Mill could pull off. I'm really not taking anything away from this little test run for a few reasons. #1. It's what's in the cup that counts. #2. I was using stale 30 day old beans. #3. I was doing everything by eye on paper plates ... not very scientific!

The one thing that I did notice was at times it seemed that there was a decent amount of dust building up on the wall of the catch jar/t-cap the was on the slight lean of the unit as I was grinding. I don't know if this dust is inevitable, or if it is the result of how I am grinding, but it was there. This was most prevalent in the coarse grinds/coarser drip grinds. Similar to Doug in his video, I just gave a solid tap or two and everything settled into the catcher jar. Obviously this is just a first impression with stale beans and by eye only, so I am very excited to see how it performs when I actually use it for a press, aeropress, or V60.

As I said, the build quality and stabilization of the burr is just as good as it looks! I only spent 15 minutes grinding up little samples, so take everything I wrote for what it is! I should also note that I have never seen beans ground to specified microns in a grinder like a Ditting for comparison, so my idea of what a grind should look like, or how many fines is acceptable is completely biased. I'm simply describing what I see.

Final first impression thoughts: Great build quality, great packaging/mobility for travel, promising initial grinds with a lot of quality time to be had!

*EDIT* I decided that I needed to try running a scoop of fresh beans through the LIDO while set at two full rotations from the zero point. Again, a bit of dust, but nothing that makes me worry about overall grind quality. I'm really antsy to try it out!

I do have one question for other LIDO owners (as the information begins coming to the surface)... to find the zero point of the burrs (in case I were to lose track of rotations in a morning daze), I just rotate the t-cap/adjustment bolt clockwise until it tightens up. At this point, the t-cap is pointing NOT at the brass washer that signals the zero point, so I then adjust the t-cap/adjustment bolt counterclockwise until I am back at the brass washer. Essentially, I tighten the adjustment bolt until it stops mid-rotation and then back it off to the brass washer/zero point. Does this sound like the right way to re-find my factory zero point? Overall, the adjustment system is a piece of cake and very easy to gauge, as the bolts act like the face of a clock. Really nice!

#009 has landed

YAY! I'm so glad to see them arriving safe & sound! Especially with the glass jar intact!

Sam21 wrote:... to find the zero point of the burrs (in case I were to lose track of rotations in a morning daze), I just rotate the t-cap/adjustment bolt clockwise until it tightens up. At this point, the t-cap is pointing NOT at the brass washer that signals the zero point, so I then adjust the t-cap/adjustment bolt counterclockwise until I am back at the brass washer. Essentially, I tighten the adjustment bolt until it stops mid-rotation and then back it off to the brass washer/zero point.

That is correct!

Also, really not a lot of need to push down on the handle - just turning will do the job. Once you change the setting you can push on the axle to make sure the burr is open, but once your grinding just turn 'round & 'round & 'round. By pushing you're just adding a bit of work to the turning since once there are beans in there it's impossible for the space between to get smaller!

We tried to cover the dust issue in our grind distribution study - it is going to happen, no matter what you do, in any grinder, but you just don't usually see it. With the glass jar, and the bottom of the burr visible, it is so much easier to see.

The interesting thing, on a coarse grind, as far as the static goes, is that the plastic parts seem to attract chaff & dust (which isn't a bad thing when you're going for a coarse grind - just don't tap it into the jar, but rather discard it in the sink or trash!). It accounts for a tiny portion by weight...

What we didn't say in the manual is that the burr is brand new, the bearings and axle are brand new, so there is going to be a bit of wear-in experience, but couldn't say how many pounds, or turns...we can only assume from observations with the Pharos that it will improve with age & use.

Barb

orphanespresso wrote:YAY! I'm so glad to see them arriving safe & sound! Especially with the glass jar intact!
That is correct!

Also, really not a lot of need to push down on the handle - just turning will do the job. Once you change the setting you can push on the axle to make sure the burr is open, but once your grinding just turn 'round & 'round & 'round. By pushing you're just adding a bit of work to the turning since once there are beans in there it's impossible for the space between to get smaller!

We tried to cover the dust issue in our grind distribution study - it is going to happen, no matter what you do, in any grinder, but you just don't usually see it. With the glass jar, and the bottom of the burr visible, it is so much easier to see.

The interesting thing, on a coarse grind, as far as the static goes, is that the plastic parts seem to attract chaff & dust (which isn't a bad thing when you're going for a coarse grind - just don't tap it into the jar, but rather discard it in the sink or trash!). It accounts for a tiny portion by weight...

What we didn't say in the manual is that the burr is brand new, the bearings and axle are brand new, so there is going to be a bit of wear-in experience, but couldn't say how many pounds, or turns...we can only assume from observations with the Pharos that it will improve with age & use.

Barb

Hi Barb,

Great information! I am glad to hear that I was finding the factory zero setting correctly. This grinder is very easy to approach as a brand new user.

Regarding the dust, I did the same exact thing as you! I noticed all the dust clinging to the t-cap and to the side of the glass jar. I carefully removed the jar, carefully dumped the grounds out the opposite side of the jar, being careful to leave the dust clinging, and discarded the dust. The result was less than a gram and the grounds looked superb. I have seen the same thing with my Preciso. The container is very static resistant, but what does cling is dust, so I am careful to not disturb the corners of the container when I dump the grounds. Overall, I found the static to be a non-issue, as it is as simple as a solid tap to dislodge everything into the trash.

I wasn't putting any great deal of pressure down on the handle, but I will keep your tips in mind when I grind for the real thing

Just to reiterate - fantastic first impression and solid visual grinding test. The packaging is superb. I would have been VERY surprised to find a broken glass jar. Between the tissue paper, carrying bag, buffer brown paper bag, and THEN the actual box... It was wrapped with care! I can't wait to play around with it using my V60 and press pot. Ideally, I will be using this grinder for aeropress, V60, and press when I travel. I actually purchased a CCD the minute the LIDO arrived, as it seems like another great travel companion.

Thanks, Doug and Barb! I look forward to following this thread.

Sam....we are glad that you seem to have gotten the first grind on this one! Obviously you are going to be giving the LIDO a really hard test, and we look forward to some extraction reports .

If you wand to see some amazingly static you should try it with a plastic jar...the adjuster pointer turns into a big snowball of chaff and dust. For a while we ran with the plastic and used the Stat-O-Matic chaff separation technique but found that this idea was a little too off the wall, even for OE. But now that I think of it......

A little bit past 3/4 of a turn from zero produced a pretty fine drip grind, finer than I intended but it was already ground up so I used it.

The coffee was pure Sumatra. I ground about 6 and 1/2 fluid ozs (a little less than the full 8 oz cup) it took about 300 turns and 3 minutes to do, not as fast as the raw power speed of the Pharos but much faster than any of my other hand grinders including the Sozen. It is not slow or fast I would describe it's grinding speed as moderate.

I could actually see the progress of the grinding through the plexiglass and it was very very noticable the beans were steadily vacating (down down down) the almost full grind chamber into the glass jar. Speed is decent on this grinder but it still is not as fast as the Pharos. It is an unfair comparison though since the Pharos is in a whole different class.

I took a thick white chemex filter and cut it to the size of my Technivorm basket and ran an 8 cup drip.

I noticed some sludge but I am comparing it to the grind of the Versalab which may not be fair. The drip ran without overflowing even though a thick chemex filter was used with 6 fluid ozs of finely ground coffee. That tells me the fines are not excessive.

The color of the brew looked a little dark and was not as red as I would like bitterness was there but not overwhelming. I would describe the brew as very strong rather than bitter which was probably due to the fine grind I used. The flavor of the coffee came through regardless and it was good with sugar and milk I really tasted the flavors of the coffee in a connical way if that means anything.

It was NOT kludgy, nasty black dishwater that bad grinding burrs are known to produce but a very decent tasting grind. I am going to loosen up the grind even more which will probably improve things.

I once used an Innova Connical as my espresso grinder for a time (it did produce good sweet tasting espresso) which uses the same burr set (trespade) as the Lido. I recognize the flavors.


Round 2 same as above but loosened it up to a little more than 1 1/4 turns. Grind speed seemed a little quicker but not much almost no noticable sludge in the wet coffee grounds which was cosiderably coarser (moderate on the coarse side.) Water flow through the grounds was faster for sure, but not too fast, in fact I thought it was just about right.

I did have to give the grinder a few shakes on about 4 or 5 occaisions. I changed the handle position to middle hole which gave me less shake n bake during grinding so I had to provide some improvised shake n bake at some intervals when the beans stopped feeding.

Ok Ok now to the point coffee was nice and red and tasted great as in wow this is really good. It was much better with the coarser grind. Bitterness was low. I have no doubt after this round of the cupping capabilities of the Lido grinder.

This is the second highly potent hand grinder I have in my grinder arsenal and they are both from OE.