Christian Klatt — Heating (in) grinders

All Barista Camp 'coffeetalks' - by speakers such as Scott Rao, Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood and Rina Paguaga - were recorded by our media partner European Coffee Trip. We'll be releasing the videos of these talks over the next months so we keep fuelling discussion and building an inventory of knowledge. Don't hesitate to add your comments here, or on our Youtube channel.

We're down to our penultimate talk of Barista Camp 2015, by Christian Klatt of Hemro Group. My first encounter with Christian must be from the backstage area at WBC; the guy always carrying a grinder around, the friendly and helpful person 'to-go-to' with any grinder issue —and I'm sure I'm not the only one with this first memory. Combine his friendly demeanour -always happy to help out and answer questions- and his engagement with competition and the barista community with his strong roots in science, research and product development, and you begin to understand why he's won over so many people in our industry.

As Senior Product Manager at the Hemro Group, Christian is in charge of all grinders of Ditting, Mahlkönig and Anfim. He oversees all technical documentation and communication as well as technical training and project management in R&D. Being an economic engineer and barista, judge and SCAE trainer as well, he combines his knowledge in grinding technology with as much science as possible and with coffee itself from the tree to the cup.

In his talk, Christian focuses on heat in grinders: where it comes from, what it does in the grinder and how it influences the resulting cup. Besides dose and particle size, there is the 'invisible' parameter 'heat' that influences the shot/brew and is widely misinterpreted. Through an overview of some tests done —humble to acknowledge that more research is needed— Christian shows us in a clear and concise way how grinders build up heat and what manufacturers can do to prevent it, as well as how we can (and should) work together as an industry to create a better result, both in flavour and in consistency. And he busts some myths in the process.

As always, make sure to scroll down to the links below, for further reading and watching, and don't hesitate to share more!

Christian Klatt — Heating (in) grinders

Further reading and watching