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Interested in how this experience was for you. My basic knowledge of coffee science seems to suggest that oxidation is the thing that kills flavour in coffee beans so increasing surface area by 1000x should do precisely that regardless of how good the initial grind was, and conversely a bad grind will still have some flavour (all of course assuming that beans are reasonably fresh)..
youClown-
I have no intention of trying to sway people's opinion on the subject, especially when it's something that's trivial to test with your own personal setup, which may yield differing results to mine.
I ground around 150g or so, popped it in a bag with a one-way valve and used it for 2-3 days. Didn't notice any significant difference in taste over those days. Conversely, the time before that I took some whole beans with a Porlex and it felt like there was a noticeable difference relative to my main grinder at home (a Baratza Sette at the time). Still perfectly drinkable, and better than any other available option at the time.
Like I said, I have no intention of trying to sway people's opinions on it, and there are better hand grinders out there than my Porlex, so I encourage people to give these things a go themselves. I'm merely putting my experience out there. But I think boiling it down to oxidation > bad grind and calling it a day is oversimplifying things massively.
mmccarthy
For what it's worth, I've found that pre-ground from a decent motorised grinder (Niche in my case) is better than fresh-ground from a basic hand-grinder (Porlex) for a good few days (not been away long enough to notice a cross-over at least). Not sure how the newer, more capable hand grinders stack up though.