I haven't weighed in on this thread, but have had some back channel contacts with Jeff about his grinder.
I now own two new Maxs, which were obtained about 10 days ago. I also have two Junior grinders, which have joined their first cousin, a Cimbali Cadet, down in the basement. My experience with the Cadet grinder goes back about 11 or 12 years, to the beginnings of my own personal espresso journey, when I used to use Lavazza Super Crema, in my (at that time) unmodified pourover vibe Junior espresso machine, which in modified form still has an honored place on my kitchen island counter. But I digress . . . .
There is a lot of information previously posted in this thread which is accurate and to which I have little to add. The Max grinder has both a conical burr set, which "never" needs replacing, and a 64mm planar burr set, which is easily replaceable. The planar burrs are not the same as the old 68mm planar burrs found in the old DRM conical-planar set. Given that this grinder has a conical burr set that the beans are exposed to before they even get to the planar burrs, this planar burr set would probably last AT LEAST ten years in home or other low volume settings. My friend Angelo, Michael Teahan's partner in LA, told me that I should plan on replacing the conical burrs in approximately . . . . two hundred years.
Let me address the differences which I perceive in the Max grinder vs. the Cimbali Junior (and Cadet) grinders. The form factors are similar and differ mainly by the height, which is greater in the Max (and not much different than the older Cadet). This is due primarily to a larger hopper, and to a very small extent by the added height needed to accommodate the conical and the planar burrs in the Max as opposed to just the planar burrs in the Junior. The small Junior style hopper can apparently be bought as a special order item and with removal of 3 screws could be swapped for the stock hopper resulting in a grinder not much taller than the Junior. I personally think that most people worry too much about under counter clearances and should just rearrange their entire kitchens, to accommodate their espresso fetishes, as I have done. This may not go over too well with those married individuals among us, however
The doser on the Junior and on the Max is identical, although the doser lever is different, and it all works similarly. My own observation is that the doser of my Max grinders is just as efficient in sweeping out grinds as are the dosers in my Junior grinders. The speed of the Max is about half or a little faster than that, compared to the junior. In home usage this is of no importance. The Max is an autofill grinder, but you can use the power switch as an on-off switch, which is how any reasonable home user, wanting to grind per shot, would use it. It takes a little getting used to but after a week I found that it was no harder to use in grinding per shot, than were the Juniors, and I am not wasting any more coffee than I was with the Juniors (at first, the wastage was about 20% more, but after the learning curve this has disappeared and in fact with the slower grind speed I might start wasting even less coffee than before).
Adjustments are basically the same as with the Junior although the adjustment knob is on the right side as you face the grinder rather than on the front; no biggie, again, it is just something else to get used to.
OK, now that I've used the two new grinders for a week and a half, what do I think of them? The simple answer is that I like them a lot. First, the build quality is 100% classic Cimbali, which is to say they are built like tanks; few commercially made products are still made to this standard and fortunately, Cimbali has not lowered their standards to cut costs. As to grind quality and the shots that result, I have to be more subjective. I have not done any side by side comparisons nor done any other sort of critical testing. With these caveats I have to say that the overall "quality" of my shots seems to have improved. It is like I had a range before, which I'll arbitrarily call from 85-94 on my own 100 point scale. For reference, I have used these grinders for 3 different single origins, to date, for Brazil Yellow Bourbon, Costa Rica Santa Sofia, and Yirgacheffe Adado, all three bought in green from Paradise Roasters and home roasted on my modified sample roaster. I have not yet tried these grinders with any blends or other SOs.
Now, the range (with the Max grinders) appears to be moved upwards and is foreshortened, say to 89-96. I haven't had a lot of sink shots (percentage-wise) in the last year or two, but I seem to have even less than before. And, there seems to be a little bit more "flexibility" when it comes to the grind, that I can miss the grind due to such things as changes in humidity and in the beans themselves, but it matters less, nailing the grind spot on seems to be less important and whatever the volume (within reason) that the shot has, it is good.
Others have reported that their conical grinder produced shots are "brighter" than their former planar grinder made shots. I have not had this observation, but I would say that the shots are "rounder," that they have less sharp edges to them. I wish I could explain what I meant by that but it completely escapes me.
How do you compare this Max grinder to the straight conicals out there? I have no experience with straight conicals but people I respect who do, tell me that most of the bigger ones are made for cafe volume reasons rather than perceived grind quality reasons. I personally doubt that in a head to head blind tasting that the Max would produce grinds deemed less desireable than those from a straight conical.
As is, this is a great grinder. If Cimbali made this in a slightly smaller version with the smaller hopper and eliminated the autogrind function, this would absolutely blow the conical competition out of the water at anything like the price it would sell for.
ken
EDIT: I have removed former references to 68mm planar burrs which were in this post originally and proved to be innacurate.
Great reply. Thanks for taking the time to contribute to this thread.
. Slow down the thwacking and save your ears and wrist.
