The Pinecone GH-B grinder at the recent SCA Expo in Houston. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.
Swiss coffee grinder company Pinecone recently opened a new entry point for United States customers with the launch of the GH-B grinder, designed for bulk grinding in settings such as cafes, small roastery packing lines or grocery stores.
Pinecone Founder Ilan Maimon showed off the GH-B for the first time in the U.S. at the SCA Expo in Houston last month in partnership with Pinecone’s exclusive U.S. distributor, GH Grinding and Brewing Solutions (GHGBS), for whom the GH-B model is named. The machine is known as the Torrey grinder on overseas markets, where it was initially introduced in January.
The GH-B’s dedicated on/off buttons and wide side-mounted adjustment knob offer simplicity and grind flexibility that accommodates self-service use among untrained operators.
The GH-B also aims for simplicity in maintenance, with a front panel that opens to expose the grinding module. Inside, factory-calibrated 84-millimeter flat steel burrs can turn out more than a pound per minute.
Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.
Two screws secure a hinged service door that opens to allow users to inspect, maintain or replace the entire grind chamber without changing the grind setting or having to move the entire machine in the event of a blockage or other major disruption.
“There are endless reasons why a grinder can be blocked, and it’s not always because of the grinder,” Maimon told Daily Coffee News. “Sometimes it’s what you’ve put in, sometimes it’s because of how you set it. Then you start a whole scenario to try to open this blockage… Grinders are not so light to carry and move. I wanted to solve all this hassle.”
Similar to Pinecone’s higher-end Foxtail and Siberian commercial grinders, the GH-B’s grinding module is installed independently of the motor, which is connected via a coupling and central shaft.
“It’s a small grinding unit. You can clean it, open it, adjust it or send it to your distributor to do that for you, simple as that,” said Maimon. “It won’t affect alignment at all, because all the alignment is within this unit.”
The displacement of the motor also prevents heat from transferring through the shaft and burrs into the beans, according to the company.
“The biggest mass of heat is generated by the motor, and once they are not connected steel-to-steel to each other, you reduce the rate at which the grinding house gets hotter,” said Maimon. “You run it eight hours continuously, the motor gets to 70, 75 degrees as the highest temperature, which means everything in here is cooler. It was designed for long runs.”
Beneath the GH-B’s chute is an adjustable-height receptacle stand, as well as arms that hold batch brew baskets for grinding directly into filters. A clip for holding bags and a knocker to loosen retained grounds are also included.
A GH-B between a Pinecone Siberian and Pinion. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.
“We manufacture it in our plant in China, because we wish the customer to get the lowest price possible,” said Maimon. “But now with the tariffs, we are considering moving the manufacturing of this grinder to our Switzerland plant. [Our other grinders] are manufactured in Switzerland, so in that respect we are flexible.”
Pinecone has set the Torrey grinder price at 990 Swiss francs (US$1,183 as of this writing). While pricing on the GH-B grinder via GHGBS may fluctuate due to tariff-related market conditions, it is currently priced at $1,245.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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