The Rocket Fausto is an espresso grinder in the transitional price range between home grinders and commercial grinders. With an acquisition price of over 1000 francs in Switzerland and 800 euros in the euro area, the Rocket grinder marks its value. Our video test shows whether the grinder delivers quality in all categories, right into the cup.
Heavy, fast, powerful - Rocket Fausto
The Rocket Fausto also resembles many espresso grinders that are more commonly found in commercial settings. At 17.2 cm in width, approximately 44.5 cm in height, and 28.2 cm in depth, it weighs 11.5 kg. This makes the Rocket Fausto one of the heaviest espresso grinders in our test series. All the more surprising that the grinder makes an evasive movement when starting up. The motor power seems to be stronger during startup than the grip of the rubber feet.
This power becomes apparent in the grinding speed. In 10 seconds, the Rocket Fausto grinds 30.5 grams of coffee to espresso grind size. This makes the grinder one of the fastest espresso grinders in our test series. On the positive side, the temperature of the burrs and ground coffee does not increase significantly during this process. Over six extractions, we detected a temperature increase of the ground coffee of 0.8 degrees Celsius, though in the range of an average of 31.6 degrees Celsius. This low temperature has no effect on the taste of the espresso.
The grinder's consistency also proved to be good. With a standard deviation and fluctuation of 0.21 grams over ten extractions, the Rocket Fausto mostly remained within the target range. The variation from extraction to extraction should also be seen in the context of the high grinding speed. We found that faster grinders consistently had greater difficulty delivering consistent amounts of ground coffee.
Large Retention of the Fausto
Unfortunately, the Rocket Fausto 2.1 is representative of one of the old-school grinders that has a very high retention. 10 grams of coffee remain in the absolute retention of the Rocket Fausto Nuovo. That is a lot! When pulling a double espresso, the retention fills more than half of the portafilter. In our article about retention, we provided many tips on how to deal with such retention. Among other things, the coffee should be ground out before each extraction. However, this leads to coffee waste.
Single dosing is a solution for many grinders with large retention. However, the Rocket Fausto also performs poorly here with a single dosing retention of 2 grams of coffee. Specifically, this means: the ground-out grinder retains 2 grams of coffee even during long grinding, if for example 18 grams of coffee are thrown in. Only 16 grams are dispensed from the grinder without using a brush or other assistance. On this basis, the Rocket Fausto cannot be used as a single dosing grinder.
Good Espresso!
The espresso from the Rocket Fausto, on the other hand, is really good. (Provided the old coffee in the grinder is ground out or the grinder is used frequently and ground coffee does not accumulate.) The particle distribution also points in this direction. With a main peak of 225, we are narrow and very precise at the desired grind size. By the way, this was also evident when adjusting the grinder. In terms of adjustability and precision, the Rocket Fausto does excellent work. Even if the grind setting is changed between grindings, a noted grind size can be found relatively easily again and the grinding result is exactly the same as the previous one. That is excellent! The fine peak is also relatively low and, as expected, resulted in low bitterness in the espressos.
Conclusion on the Rocket Fausto
The Rocket Fausto is strong in the core areas of performance, speed, espresso quality, and operation under load. It is therefore suitable for setups such as small commercial establishments or shared apartments with high espresso grinder usage frequency. In single households, the grinder tends to show its weaknesses, which include the large retention and poor single dosing performance.
As always, however: it depends on how it is used. The Rocket Fausto clearly has its strengths and offers a lot of robustness and good build quality for a higher entry price.
