DIY conical & Flat burrs in your home

[gundam]

DIY conical & Flat burrs in your home

We all know Versalab M3 is a good grinder for home that combinated conical & Flat burrs in one machine.
I want to upgrade me rocky to this grinder,too.
But I think about why not I buy a low end conical burr to cut coffee bean first then send to my rocky to pulverize later?
This way I don't sell my rocky and pay less money to got conical & Flat burrs at same time?
But do this combination work?
To check this idea current or not.
Plan is like followings:
I borrow my previous Tiamo grinder that be lower cost conical burr to test.
I place beans into Taimo cut into asperity first.
Then send grounds into rocky to fine burr with flat burr.


This time I use Britte coffee beans to do 2 cup latte to compare.
First cup use rocky only.
Second like above mention using Taimo first then send to rocky do fine burr.
Then second coffee become more smooth taste and all bad sourness is gone.
I can test more coffee gradation)
Conclusion is that if you want upgrade your grinder without less pay.
You already had a good flat burr grinder, only buy a conical burr to match your flat burr.
For example: Baratza Virtuoso that have bigger burr than Tiamo one.
Or you have less mony, you can buy Tiamo burr that same OEM Model like Breville BCG450XL at last.
If you have above lower end conical burr and you keep you grinder to buy a mid ranger flat burr to match you original burr to make better coffee.
Hope you can pay less to upgrade your grinder,too

From a newbie who be very poor English language

[tcampbells]

Doesn't it state right in the rocky manual - do not use preground (ground) coffee in the grinder?

The possibility of clogging is very high when using the Rocky to "regrind" the already ground beans.

[gundam]

So I cut very granulous in conical side first.
I don't read ENG um,I only read local language um from distributor.
If UM mention about don't use "ground coffee to grind, it should mention don't grind "FINE" burr bean to avoid high speed motor burr and blade attrition.
Use very granulous should be ok.
If you feel very granulous bean called "ground coffee then M3 must have special design to be able grinding granulous coffee bean after conical burr.

[HB]

It's true that the Versalab M3 and Cimbali Max Hybrid have two sets of burrs (conical and flat), but they don't have the cutting design as one would expect on either a conical grinder or a flat burr grinder alone. The conical/flat burr combination grinds coarser in the conical burr portion of the chamber and the flat burr portion omits the bean breaking surfaces in favor of longer fine grinding surfaces. Jim covers this in detail in Grinder burr types explained.

In other words, a hybrid conical/flat burr design isn't simply the concatenation of two grind chambers from a dedicated conical burr grinder and a dedicated flat burr grinder. The cutting knives themselves are different. Your Rocky's burrs still has its original three-tier cutting surfaces (bean breaking, coarse grind, fine grind). Finally, I agree with the owner manual recommendations and would not dump preground coffee into my grinder (even if it's coarsely ground coffee).

[gundam]

Look like everyone don't venture on and try to do this one shot in you home ?
Anyway,I will reply you one year later,do my rocky work well still.
BR
Tom

[CafSuperCharged]

hybrid conical/flat burr design isn't simply the concatenation of two grind chambers from a dedicated conical burr grinder and a dedicated flat burr grinder. The cutting knives themselves are different.

Totally clear - understood, appreciated.

I agree with the owner manual recommendations and would not dump preground coffee into my grinder (even if it's coarsely ground coffee).

When I buy fresh coffee, I put the beans into small glass jars that hold 100g each (~3 ounce I guess) and put 20 of these jars in the freezer. One jar is not much and sometimes I "consume" the coffee contents in one day. And then it sometimes happens I forget to take one out in time. What now?
The office machine is a simple machine that only will do ESE pods and I happen to have these pods. Unfortunately my favorite brand in my country only imports the "fast" (=lungo) version of my favorite coffee, in pods.
Need I confess more?

gundam, I would be interested to learn about your experiences with this experiment.

Regards
Peter

[maximatica]

It's true that the Versalab M3 and Cimbali Max Hybrid have two sets of burrs (conical and flat), but they don't have the cutting design as one would expect on either a conical grinder or a flat burr grinder alone. The conical/flat burr combination grinds coarser in the conical burr portion of the chamber and the flat burr portion omits the bean breaking surfaces in favor of longer fine grinding surfaces. Jim covers this in detail in Grinder burr types explained.

In other words, a hybrid conical/flat burr design isn't simply the concatenation of two grind chambers from a dedicated conical burr grinder and a dedicated flat burr grinder. The cutting knives themselves are different. Your Rocky's burrs still has its original three-tier cutting surfaces (bean breaking, coarse grind, fine grind). Finally, I agree with the owner manual recommendations and would not dump preground coffee into my grinder (even if it's coarsely ground coffee).

I did the 2 grinder thing for a while. When I went from a cheap Isomac conical (their best unit actually) to a Mazzer mini-E and found the quality of the coffee went downhill. I had been contemplating the Max grinder which is a hybrid and so I started grinding coarsely using the Isomac and then dumping it right into the Mazzer. Worked fine and I did it for a few months but the PITA aspect of the workflow caused me to just go and buy a Macap conical.

I had realized that it was the longer grind path that was the secret and the reason that the 2 steps worked (and the thinking behind the Max). By using a conical and then the flat that they had created a very long very gentle grind path in a very compact space. If it had been all conical it would have been way too tall for use and a similarly long flat burr design would have been as big as a barrel.

So based on my experience I would say it works fine. Never jammed up and if the flat burrs can handle breaking the bean in the first place I don't see how they could be damaged by the process.

Although the grind surfaces may be different in a dedicated hybrid whose to say that isn't due to the fact that they don't need to grind some particular surface into the burrs since the other set will do that work. In other words they might be different because the maker saves some money in the process.

Makes for a lovely cup of coffee.

Have at it.

M./

[another_jim]

As Dan says, the conical in the hybrids is more like an augur than a grinder.

However, people who grind their own grain (what, you thought coffee was the oddest net culture? Turns out we've all been using stale flour since the late neolithic) claim that doing multiple passes on smaller grinders makes the bread and grits taste better. The really really big graon grinders advertise their prowess at single pass operation. Also, the Maxwell House et all roller grinders use multiple rollers at closer and closer spacing, in Sivetz they show two for perk, three for drip.

So it could be that doing a coarse grind first, then a fine grind, might improve the performance of a small burr grinder.

[maximatica]

As Dan says, the conical in the hybrids is more like an augur than a grinder.

So it could be that doing a coarse grind first, then a fine grind, might improve the performance of a small burr grinder.

Yeah,

Sorry I wasn't clear about it in the first post but I had it set so the Isomac merely broke the beans into a fine gravel much, much coarser than any percolator grind. Then into the Mazzer. It was pretty noticeable that the grinds were much more uniform from the 2 passes. The same exact volume of coffee tamped differently between the 3 options; conical only, flat only and 2 passes. That's how I knew that there was a trade-off between the 2 burr styles since the coffee got better as I went from flat only to conical only to both.

It was about a year ago that I bought the Macap so my details are not as clear as they were. I should have posted about it then. But the PITA of the 2 passes negates the benefit for me. The Macap conical gets me close enough to not care that a hybrid might be a bit better. Whereas I wasn't willing to put up with the Mazzer flat burr unit. Especially since I bought it thinking I was scoring grinder Nirvanna only to find that a (quite noisy and coarse adjustment detent cheapie) grinder made better coffee.

And as for anyone who would set their grinder to grind coarsely and then reset it to grind finer, well, stop before you start and let me sell you a bridge instead . 2 passes using 2 grinders is hassle enough.

Final note: worm drive is where it's at.

M./

[gundam]

Hi CafSuperCharged and others
Thanks for you reply.
My friend lived in local who had Super Jolly for espresso and another grinder Baratza Virtuoso for his french coffee only.


After I tell him this compare .
He also try to do this,he burrs the bean in Baratza Virtuoso first in very coarse.
Then send the rough grains into his super Jolly(But supper jolly size's setting should be rudder little after using this way).
He say the taste of coffee become more stable taste and become more smooth.
Share his experience for you reference,

BR
Tom