FusedLine Single Dose Hopper with Silicone Bellows and Anti-Popcorning Weight | Compatible with Breville Smart Grinder Pro | Black

My wife and I don’t drink enough coffee to keep a hopper full of beans from going stale. I was also having difficulty with large and variable quantities of grounds staying in this new grinder.

This is a slightly overpriced solution to both problems. It works, the 3d printed parts are cool, and so far, not collecting much grime.

In order to eliminate retention, I run the grinder a few seconds longer than strictly needed for 18g. Then, I start pressing the bellows in the last moments of actual grinding, continuing as it goes dry, and at least once more after all has stopped.

You want this if you are after single dosing, i.e. putting exactly the right amount of beans for a single espresso brew.

Compared with just using a normally empty hopper:
* Pressing the bellows causes air to push more of the grinds out of the grinder
* Weight prevents beans from jumping around
* Takes less vertical space
* Opening is narrow, requires more careful pouring of beans, so they don’t scatter outside the grinder

A bit more messing around with the device: remove bellows, put beans, put weight on beans, grind, remove weight, wipe bottom of weight, put bellows, press it a few times, a little more grinding, press the bellows some more.
Compare with hopper (single dose): remove hopper cap, pour beans inside, put cap back, grind, bump the grinder, grind a little more, bump it a second time. This process has less steps.

Fit: fits very nicely to the top of the grinder. Closes tight when locked.
It also reduces the spots where beans might accumulate.

Price: expensive for being mostly of plastic/rubber parts (weight mass could be metal).

I installed the single shot hopper and belllows today, it was super easy to install, and it is also relatively easy to uninstall. I asked about removing the single dose hopper prior to my purchase, thinking I would swap back and forth between this and my large hopper when grinding beans for moms drip coffee, which I usually do in one session for her big ground coffee can.

Needless to say I am very happy with this single dose hopper it works nearly perfectly, I have ordered a gasket to set beneath the hopper that should make it truly 0 retention.

My espresso bar has been updated, I have added a single dose hopper with bellows to the grinder. This setup has zero retention of ground beans, which allows for consistent dosing of the shot. I’ve added a tamping station to house my bottomless portafilter, puck screens WDT tool, distributor and tamp. This morning i pulled the best shot ever, using the bottomless portafilter. The BP unit has really made a difference allowing me to analyze my shot pulling skills. Behind the knock box is a holder for measured shots, which I prepare 10 doses at a time.

In the last photo you can see the pucks after pulling shots. The portafilter and screen come out absolutely clean.

I may have to go back into the espresso business.

In the grand scheme of burr grinders, the Smart Grinder Pro is a good (not great grinder) with a sweet spot for drip coffee, that can also do “ok” espresso grinding on the fine end (some clumping), but not so good on the coarse end (French Press). To be fair, not many grinders are consistently good across the gamut of grind sizes.
The single dose hopper elevates the grinder by making it easier for apply a single does workflow to your manual brewing process, and by enabling it to be almost a zero retention grinder. My grinder retained a over 1g of grinds. I was able to almost all the coffee out with the bellows. My scale difference before/after would be either exact or off by 0.1g. Pretty good. I no longer need to waste coffee to purge the retained grinds each morning, which saves on coffee waste. The grind consistency still is what it is, but in the end I have a better cup of coffee.

Firstly, if you are buying this product it is very likely that you are not a coffee newbie, you will have mastered the basics, and are now nudging into coffee nerdland, so I’ll assume those reading this know how to load a portafilter correctly.

The kit looks to be mainly 3D printed, except for the silicone bellows, but the finish is good apart from a little roughness on the stopper weight.

Although plastic, the parts are pretty robust, and they fitted well in my Smart Grinder Pro. I was fitting mine to brand new grinder, so if you are modding a used grinder, I suspect a thorough clean and vac out would be a good idea before fitting.

The parts generally locate easily, but there are no instructions included. The orange insert has two protruding “pins” and one of these must align with the small pit in the grinder body that contains the safety cut off switch.

When you insert the black upper collar and rotate it, you have to feel carefully for the moment when the lug engages the pin on the orange insert and pushes it in to activate the safety switch. When you feel a slight “click” as the insert pin carrier locates in the groove on the collar, stop rotating immediately.

If your grinder does not function after fitting, it will be because the pin is not depressing the safety switch, remove the black collar, check the pin alignment on the orange insert, and try again.

Now, what you really want to know is… does the kit do what it says on the tin?

I did a weighing test, and with the kit fitted, an 18g bean load (dark roast, setting 6), produced 15.12g of powder, this is probably more than the stock machine, as the insert fills and closes off some voids in the grinder. The real magic comes when you pump the bellows at the end of the grind, that 18g load produced 17.89g of powder. So, I would say that that is defintely not too shabby, and that the kit does what it is intended to.

Note that I pumped the bellows with the weight in place, this has grooves in its sides which focus the air during pumping. I have not tried pumping without the weight in place, but I suspect the air flow would not be as strong, and probably not as effective at dislodging trapped powder.

The kit is expensive for what are essentially a few bits of 3D printed plastic, but it will transform your existing Smart Grinder Pro into an effective single dose grinder.

Even buying with a new grinder as I did, the numbers add up, the combined price is much less than half that of a Niche Zero.

Now, I’m not saying that this combo is as good as something like a Zero, especially where light roasts are concerned, but it is certainly an economical way to see if the faff-on of single dosing works for you before laying out the big bucks.

Happy camper here.

Perfect fit, good quality and looks great. The amount of retention that came out when I first put it on was unbelievable. The photo I provided was only half of what came out. This is an absolute must for the Breville smart grinder.