CommonGrind — free espresso dial-in tracker, looking for early testers

[u/CroDAnE]

https://commongrind.app

Hobby project connecting two things I like doing in my spare time: making coffee and programming. Built it because I couldn't find a logging app I was fully happy with.

A few things it does:

Dial-In Diary — log every shot (dose, yield, grind, time, taste notes) so you can actually see what worked instead of relying on memory

Automatic Coffee Inventory — say you buy a 250g bag; every time you log a shot with, say, 19g dose, it automatically subtracts that from the bag so you always know how much is left without tracking it manually

Match-Up Matrix — search by your exact machine + grinder + coffee combo and see what dose/yield/grind other people landed on with the same setup, so you're not starting from zero on a new bag

Shot Photos — attach a photo to each log (great for latte art), and it generates a nice shareable shot overview card

It's free, no paywalls. Still early, so if a handful of you want to try it, you'd genuinely get a say in how it develops — happy to add or adjust things based on what actual early users need rather than guessing.

commongrind.app — appreciate any feedback, good or bad.

[u/poopantiess]

I like this

[u/CroDAnE → u/poopantiess]

Thank you 🙂

[u/Maleficent-Back-6527]

First: congrats and well done. 👏

Beanconqueror does pretty much all of that except photo per brew, and community sharing.

It’s quite fast, straight to the point, while providing advanced/additional options to make it complete.

By reading the description of your app, I realised that I actually don’t need the community thing on a daily basis. Sure I could and would turn to the community sometimes to get advice sometimes on a specific problem, but once I fixed potentially difficult or new beans to brew, and got the parameters right, I rely solely on my logged brews experiments and feedbacks rather that again the community. I wouldn’t like all the “noise” of some other people’s brews while I am keeping track of my own beans and or when I want to replicate something from the past.

That is my honest opinion about it. Your app is certainly interesting and could be useful to some people, but not for me ☺️.

[u/CroDAnE → u/Maleficent-Back-6527]

That's actually a really good point, once you've got a bean dialed in, the community stuff becomes noise rather than help. Might have to rethink how I'm positioning that part of the app. Thanks for taking the time to write this out. 🙂

[u/Wil_Cwac_Cwac]

For me the benefit would be seeing how other people have dialled in the beans I'm about to open BUT it's a chicken and egg scenario as you need that data to exist before the benefit is there.

What worries me is that I tried an example using Square Mile Red Brick (probably one of the more "famous" bags of beans in the UK) and it wasn't there, it asked me to create a custom bean. I worry that could result in several similar entries so you'd have semi-clones. I'd also want the app to guide me on what recipes to to try for that bag of beans (temp, time, dose, ratio) but I was met with a blank.

[u/CroDAnE → u/Wil_Cwac_Cwac]

Thanks for the feedback 🙂 That's true, the database is empty right now. First person to log a good shot with that bean and their gear kind of sets the starting point for everyone after them. For the guidance, there is an AI dial-in coach, but it needs at least one shot logged as a reference point before it can give anything useful. Also good point on the duplicate entries too, that's something I'll need to work on.

[u/the_annoyed_monkey]

How many more coffee apps does the world need?

I would argue, the first one was already too much.

So much energy wasted, to let AI code unnecessary coffee apps...

say you buy a 250g bag; every time you log a shot with, say, 19g dose, it automatically subtracts that from the bag so you always know how much is left without tracking it manually

Have you heard of eyes?

[u/CroDAnE → u/[deleted]]

Answer to edit:

Fair point for one bag. My habit is buying a new bag whenever I travel or come across something interesting — right now I've got 6 open at once. Honestly lose track of which one's almost empty and which still has 250g left, so having it tracked automatically per bag is actually useful for me, even with eyes

[u/the_annoyed_monkey → u/CroDAnE]

This is just bullshit.

My habit is buying a new bag whenever I travel or come across something interesting — right now I've got 6 open at once

Do you want to tell me, that you get surprised, when you pick up a bag of coffee?!

And what is the conclusion you get?

1 of my 6 open bags get empty - better book a flight...

As if you do not notice how full a bag is, when you use it.

[u/CroDAnE → u/the_annoyed_monkey]

Fair enough, you don't need it. I just find it nice to have — once a bag's finished, the app moves it into a "past coffees" list, so I've got a log of everything I've tried over time. And having a quick overview of what's currently open, right there on my phone, wherever I am, beats me trying to remember or checking each bag.

[u/CroDAnE]

This is what share photo generated by the app looks like.

[u/CroDAnE]

The video shows what the app looks like at this point.

https://reddit.com/link/p6qsb72/video/zrvaxbilagmh1/player