Alignment, retention & cleaning
The maintenance that tastes like an upgrade — 4 min
Alignment is whether your burrs are truly parallel as they spin. A tilted or wobbling burr grinds fine on one side of the rotation and coarse on the other — the distribution widens, the sweet spot narrows, and the same setting stops producing the same cup. The symptom is maddening inconsistency: yesterday's perfect recipe, today's sour one, nothing else changed.
Most decent grinders arrive aligned well enough; internet debate outruns the reality. But bolts loosen and threads wear. If your results drift, check the simple things first — a burr seated on a stray coffee particle is far more common than a factory defect.
In the app
The rest of this lesson is in the Blend app — with the interactive widget and the practical brew.
Finish this lesson in the app.
The interactive widget, the footnotes, and the practical brew you can taste. Free on iOS and Android.