The pursuit of coffee perfection is all about controlling variables like temperature, time, bean quality and freshness, and water quality. The most critical of those variables is arguably grind quality and consistency, and Kruve provides a way to improve that result beyond just buying more and more expensive grinders.
Kruve serves two purposes: helping to calibrate your grinder, and removing outliers from your daily grind (ha). Kruve is a three-tier modular sieve system that works by trapping too-large grinds in the upper chamber, while allowing too-small particles to fall to the bottom. The coffee isolated in the middle chamber will all be within the micron range you’ve chosen, correct and consistent.
At first blush, even I rolled my eyes at Kruve, but the delta in cup quality is huge. We’re talking the difference between not drinkable black and very drinkable black, all other things being equal, but these improvements don’t come without time and effort costs.
Kruve recommends shaking ground for 30-60 seconds, along with some knocking, to allow for complete sifting, but if you’re making a full pot in our coffeemaker of choice for example, you’re not going to get all the grinds in the Kruve on round one without clogging things up. It’s a multi-stage, multi-minute, physical process.
And time and effort aren’t the only costs. Kruve’s “Sifter Two” package, which comes in at $50, will cover your drip machine, but if you want all the filter options, you’re talking a whopping 170 bucks. You can just buy individual sieves for $15/piece to cover your precise needs, but damn. Also, it has to be said: Kruve’s 15-sieve display rack is one of the ugliest products we’ve ever covered:
So what happens to the rejected grounds? The too-large pieces or “boulders” can just be reground, while the particles...
...[can be used] in baking, cooking, cleaning, or even gardening. The grinds are also biodegradable, so if need be, can go in the compost bin.
The ultimate endorsement of a product is wanting to blow it off and having its results demand inclusion in our daily routine, and we can’t deny the quality bump you can get with Kruve. That being said, someone needs to kickstart a grinder with this functionality built in, we can only shake for so long.