The Rocket Fausto is an espresso grinder in the transitional price range, from a home grinder to a professional grinder. With a purchase price of over 1,000 Swiss francs in Switzerland and 800 euros in the Eurozone, the Rocket grinder demonstrates its value. Our video test shows whether the grinder delivers class in every category.
Heavy, fast, powerful - Rocket Fausto
The Rocket Fausto's exterior also resembles many espresso grinders more commonly found in restaurants. Measuring 17.2 cm wide, approximately 44.5 cm high, and 28.2 cm deep, it weighs 11.5 kg. This makes the Rocket Fausto one of the heaviest espresso grinders in our test series . It's all the more surprising that the grinder always makes an evasive movement when starting up. The motor power seems to be more powerful during startup than the grip of the feet.
This power is evident in the speed. The Rocket Fausto grinds 30.5 grams of coffee to espresso grind in 10 seconds. This makes it one of the fastest espresso grinders in our test series. A positive aspect is that the temperature of the grinding discs and the ground coffee doesn't rise significantly. Over six extractions, we observed a rise in the temperature of the ground coffee by 0.8 degrees Celsius, although this remained within an average range of 31.6 degrees Celsius. This low temperature has no effect on the flavor of the espresso.
The grinder's consistency also proved to be good. With a standard deviation and a fluctuation of 0.21 grams over ten extractions, the Rocket Fausto mostly stayed within the target range. This deviation 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 producing consistent amounts of ground coffee.
Large dead space of the Fausto
Unfortunately, the Rocket Fausto 2.1 is a typical example of an old-school grinder with a very high dead space . 10 grams of coffee remain in the Rocket Fausto Nuovo's absolute dead space. That's a lot! When brewing a double espresso, the dead space takes up more than half of the portafilter. In our article on dead space, we offer many tips on how to deal with this kind of dead space. Among other things, the coffee should be ground before each brew. However, this leads to coffee waste.
Single dosing is the solution for many grinders with large dead space. However, the Rocket Fausto performs poorly here, too, with a single dosing dead space of 2 grams of coffee. In concrete terms, this means that the ground coffee retains 2 grams of coffee, even during a long grinding cycle, if, for example, 18 grams of coffee are inserted. Only 16 grams are ejected from the grinder without the brush or other means of assisting. Based on this, the Rocket Fausto cannot be used as a single dosing grinder.
Good espresso!
The Rocket Fausto's espresso, on the other hand, is really good. (Provided the old coffee from the grinder is ground out, or the grinder is used frequently and grounds don't build up in the first place.) The particle distribution also points in this direction. With a main peak of 225, we are narrow and very precise in our desired grind size. Incidentally, this also became apparent when changing the grinder. In terms of adjustability and precision, the Rocket Fausto performs very well. Even if the grind size is adjusted between grinds, a noted grind size can be found relatively easily, and the grind result is exactly the same as the previous one. That's excellent! The fine peak is also relatively low and, as expected, resulted in a low bitterness in the espressos.
Conclusion on the Rocket Fausto
The Rocket Fausto excels in the core areas of power, speed, espresso quality, and performance under load. This makes it ideal for setups like small restaurants or shared apartments with high espresso grinding frequency. In single-person households, the grinder tends to show its weaknesses, including its large dead space and poor single-dosing performance.
As always, it all depends on how you use it. The Rocket Fausto clearly has its strengths and offers a great deal of robustness and good workmanship for a higher entry-level price.
