Coffee Talk (and Tea)

[Lawnmower_Man]

Ok I squared this thing up at the top. Six (!) layers of foil in 2/3 locations to get a clean wipe on the outermost ~0.5 mm all the way around. That means it’s getting contact everywhere, but going inward from the edge there’s some variance. I’ll try to draw it:

The edge was clean but the “teeth” held more ink in some spots (this should be expected to some degree), notably in a 180-degree pattern. I’m saying that a clean wipe of the outer edge and the teeth at 12 o’clock was matched by that pattern at 6 o’clock, whereas 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock retained more ink. The coffee I made afterward was bitter and sour which I associate with poor grind. My working theory at this point is that the lower burr / carrier has shifted, so I’ll need to perform the wipe test on it next. If it’s not spinning true, then it has deformed in some way, most likely a bent shaft.

I should point out that the rest of you (@pvn, @blackize, @d10) are unlikely to have that problem since you have the metal grind chamber and burr carrier of the Forte. I didn’t replace mine yet because I had good results shimming the upper burr at first, but if the lower burr is out then I’ll be swapping.

[pvn]

yeah my problem was just the beans I think. By the last couple of cups of that bag I started swirling a little more, not aggressively but just every 10 seconds or so after the last pour while it was draining, and that seemed to keep it from clogging, and the last couple of cups were great. I just opened a bag of Kenyan SL-28/SL-34 field blend yesterday and it seems to be grinding just fine.

I was thinking about doing an alignment check but I’m not going to bother now.

[Lawnmower_Man]

Yeah no point in checking if your coffee is good. I completely vacuumed this thing out and checked the bottom burr. Noticed the screws were in rather tight, so I backed them out and only torqued touching the metal while trying to even up the spacing to the edge. Visually there doesn’t appear to be much wobble, and when I ran a marker test I got this:

That’s probably the cleanest marker test I’ve ever seen, so it’s not a coplanar alignment issue on the bottom. Went back to the top and it always wipes high in the same spot–the top left third in that photo around the retaining tab. So I tried both the upper burr and burr carrier in different configurations, and like the first time, it always wipes in the same spot regardless. That means the culprit is the plastic mounting surface pictured in the photo.

I had some aluminum tape, so I shimmed the metal wing of the upper burr carrier in that upper left spot. Problem is that this tape is relatively thick (> 100 um), so one layer wasn’t enough but two layers was too much. Then I countered that with shims under the burr before finally giving up. However, I know that it’s off by less than one layer of aluminum foil (20 to 25 microns) which isn’t much, so I’d expect the coffee to be pretty good. The coffee is dreadful. So now I’m wondering if maybe these burrs are end of life.

[Lawnmower_Man]

Although I wasn’t able to make good coffee, I’m still gonna talk about this newer one I have on hand. It’s this:

https://www.blackwhiteroasters.com/collections/frontpage/products/carlos-palzas-cinnamon-anaerobic

The fragrance of this coffee blew me away, and I’m frustrated that I can’t extract it properly right now. Tasting notes are apple, brown sugar, and cinnamon toast, and let me tell you that it smells exactly like those things, especially the cinnamon toast. I’d recommend this one just for that experience, and I’m sure the coffee is great too if your setup isn’t completely borked.

[pvn]

wait wait, you use the marker on the bottom burr? Shouldn’t you always get a pretty clean wipe there since it’s the one spinning? Seems like even if you have fairly bad alignment, once you hear the chirp, the entire bottom burr should touch the top burr. and, if you do get some other result, what sort of information are you looking to get here and what action could you take? Shimming the bottom burr doesn’t seem to make any sense in my understanding of how this works.

how old (in, I guess, kilograms?) are your burrs?

[pvn]

that carlos plazas sounds incredible btw

[Lawnmower_Man]

@pvn

wait wait, you use the marker on the bottom burr?

I’m only checking the bottom now because I got a suspect “clean” wipe on the top burr and the coffee was still bad. Ideally you’d check both, but I’m relying mostly on the assumption that the tolerances for the burrs and carriers are generally great on this grinder.

Whether the bottom burr wipes clean depends on the source of misalignment though:

Type 1 is due to axis tilt. If that happens, then the bottom should wipe clean everywhere, but the top shouldn’t. Type 2 is due to skew relative to the axis. So you can see how this one would wipe the top clean but at only one point on the lower burr. (In practice, there’s also gonna be non-zero runout, radial misalignment, and the fact that neither (1) nor (2) will be zero, so tough to say how close to perfect you can actually get it before it’s impossible to determine the source.)

If you start with the top burr and it only wipes one spot, obviously you have a (1) problem somewhere (coplanar misalignment due to axis angles being different). One way to address this is to force the faces together onto the same axis and then clamp them down (alicorn method). The other would be to shim the top burr onto the correct axis. So you do this until you get a clean wipe on the top (stationary) burr.

Now you might ask whether the wipe is only clean due to type 2 misalignment, aka a high spot on the lower burr. By all means you can check it, but from what I’ve seen reading threads and doing it myself, it’s almost always (1) unless the burrs are warped, mounted poorly, or something like that. For example, I tried my upper burr carrier and burr in every possible orientation (3x3), yet the high wipe spot did not travel at all. It wipes exactly the same way every time and by the same amount, which means the defect is in the burr chamber mounting surface. And then there’s also the fact that the alicorn alignment does not involve shims and is simply an axis angle alignment method, so it’s assuming that (2) isn’t happening.

I’m not copying this from anywhere. Haven’t seen anyone really expand on it this much so I’m confirming it by independently thinking about it. By all means point out if there’s a flaw in the logic somewhere.

@pvn

how old (in, I guess, kilograms?) are your burrs?

Yeah, great question and I don’t know since I bought it used. Grinder is from 2013 I think, so the burrs can’t be older than that. Would have to guess about many kilos could have gone through. However, I could have picked up a rock or something that chipped a burr.

[Lawnmower_Man]

I’m using the Encore while I solve this thing. Noticed the grind size looked smaller and more uniform on my default V60 setting, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything because eye test is deceiving for grind size. Need to get both Vario burrs to wipe perfect and test again before I pony up for a new set. I can tell this coffee would be amazing with a truly unimodal grind. Really tempted to just drive over to Prima with a bag of cash and bring an EK43S home.

[pvn]

[Lawnmower_Man]

I’m currently exploring options. It’s rough that $3,150 isn’t a turnkey solution. They want $300 for their tech to shim it or $400 for chamber sanding with a two-week turnaround. I also don’t think they’d give me the single dose hopper ($142) as a swap on whatever it comes with. So I’d be in for about $3,500 with tax.

I can definitely build a Bunnzilla for less than $1,000, probably less than $650 if I shop hard enough. With the Ditting 804s, I’m not sure the EK would even be considered much of an upgrade to that. I’ve already gone through the service manual for the Bunns and priced out replacement parts. The prices are insane though, so it’s not exactly a Baratza situation where you can cheaply keep the grinder living forever with transplants. For example, a brand new G1 is under $900, but individually, the motor will set you back $500 and the grind chamber $200 from Bunn. They’re also huge and ugly, whereas the EK is just huge.

[Lawnmower_Man]

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bb3tEWfBBsr/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

[freddbird]

[pvn]

@Lawnmower_Man

They want $300 for their tech to shim it or $400 for chamber sanding with a two-week turnaround.

[pvn]

@Lawnmower_Man

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bb3tEWfBBsr/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

yeah I’ve been TARGETED with SSP ads on facebook and instagram lately. super niche targeting.

[Lawnmower_Man]

That’s the rainbow Daytona of burr sets right there, so looks like I’m micro-micro-targeting you. Or micro trolling I guess you could say.

[Lawnmower_Man]

PURE

[Lawnmower_Man]

@pvn

how old (in, I guess, kilograms?) are your burrs?

So I got in touch with the seller. He said those burrs had maybe 10 pounds of coffee through them. I estimated that I’ve probably put about 15 pounds through, but that’s at filter size, not the espresso range you’re supposed to use for seasoning. Seems like there’s a decent chance they’re just starting to fully season. Interesting factoid: the seller has moved onto a $5,000 espresso setup.

[Lawnmower_Man]

After looking at this a bit more closely, I have some reason to believe that none of us are anywhere close to being optimally seasoned on these 54mm Dittings. I’d say start by reading this and I’ll post more later:

Seasoning Grinder Burrs and Grind Quality

Of note is that the grind quality seems to be pretty good out of the box, but then at some point it drops off the face of the earth before starting to improve. Those are different burrs of course, but I wonder if I’m experiencing the same phenomenon in that dead zone he’s showing. My grinds seem way too fine, even at the coarsest setting. I’m guessing my burrs aren’t even close to being seasoned. Here is what Ditting officially says about their larger burrs:

I’m not sure if the “couple hundred pounds” is referring specifically to their hardened steel burrs or not. Either way, I’d expect the machined 54mm tool steel burrs to likely require more than a few pounds.

[Lawnmower_Man]

If the 54mm set scales to the figures they provide for the 80mm 804 discs, it could take about 44 pounds to achieve full break-in. Of course there are plenty of reasons to think it doesn’t work that way. Just saying it’s plausible based on the limited information we have.

[pvn]

@Lawnmower_Man

couple hundred pounds