La Cimbali Max Grinder - a first look - Page 3

[Ken Fox]

I was at a trade show in Italy doing some research for parts, and asked about the DRM sets, and Cimbali said it doesn't exist anymore, just the planars. Anyways, my theory was that the Max is a direct drive grinder, and since the DRM was 1/2 the speed and belt driven with more torque, the burrs probably had to be slightly different. I coud be wrong, since I haven't measured a Max myself before, but even in Jeff's pics the conical looks a little different. Time to get the caliper out

I remember discussing Cimbali equipment with the Cimbali trade show reps at the Seattle SCAA show. I am sorry to say that I knew more about the line than did their representatives.

ken

p.s. here on one page is Jeff's frontal view of his Max grinder's planar burrs:



and:



And, below, here is my frontal view of a 64mm burr (top and bottom burrs in at least the 64mm set are identical):

[jesawdy]

I removed the top planar burr from the Cimbali Max this evening and took some measurements.

I measured the o.d. at 63.55mm , the i.d. at 38.33mm, the thickness at 9.06mm. The back of the burr is not flat and looks like back of the Junior burr set Ken Fox posted a picture of prior. The depth of that recess is about 1.8 mm.

[zix]

If memory serves, another forum member tried to buy the Max from that website and never did get a grinder, and only got his money back after threatening to do a chargeback with his credit card company

That would be me. The "threat" was rather politely delivered, and the answer from their payment handling partner also very polite, even compassionate. But at the end of it all, yes, this is what happened. Very frustrating period, still not over since I really haven't found what I was after. I am now hobbling along with an Anfim KS Self (same as the Pasquini K2 in the US), and wildly bouncing between the options available to me:
* get a used or new Casadio Istantaneo
* make my own DIY grinder with a good non-functional grinder or a zass hand crank as base
* find a used Max somewhere

P.S. The Anfim really isn't a bad grinder. It has merely come to play the very undeserved second fiddle - to an unexisting grinder, at that. Me reading this thread doesn't help it a lot However, I am glad to hear that the Max seems to be a good one, and slightly better taste-wise, compared to the Junior... that would be quite a trick for any grinder to pull.

[Ken Fox]

I removed the top planar burr from the Cimbali Max this evening and took some measurements.

I measured the o.d. at 63.55mm , the i.d. at 38.33mm, the thickness at 9.06mm. The back of the burr is not flat and looks like back of the Junior burr set Ken Fox posted a picture of prior. The depth of that recess is about 1.8 mm.

Thank you very much for your efforts, Jeff. Since we know that the burr pattern is like the 68mm burrs that were a part of the old DRM set, we know that the original, normal, Junior type 64mm burrs are probably not right, even though likely they would fit.

I will return the 68mm spare burrs I obtained, and will await finding some 64s, even though I should not need them until maybe 2015

ken
p.s. one other thing we can derive from this discussion is that the Max DOES NOT share even the burr set with the M3 Versalab, and given the other aspects of its design, we should be comparing the Max to straight conicals, with which there are going to be more similarities (such as having a doser, the grind path, etc.) than to the Versalab.

[T.J.]

We are pleased to announce that after several requests and comments urging us to find a way to combine the luxury and quality of the Conical burrs found in our MAX grinder with the user friendliness and chassis of the JUNIOR grinder, we will shortly release the Cimbali MAX/JUNIOR Hybrid grinder.

This grinder will take the best features of the MAX and place them in the chassis of the JUNIOR.

We will keep you posted as to how to source these grinders when they arrive in this market.

Regards,

T.J. Tarateta

[Beezer]

Cool! Great to hear that the manufacturers/retailers are paying attention to this thread and actually making new products to meet demand. Of course now I have to fight the temptation to upgrade...

[zix]

Thank you for posting and telling us Cimbali are working on it, Mr Tarateta. I was recently pondering the absence of such a grinder, perhaps in a slightly dispirited way, over in the macap/mazzer conical grinder thread (here it is). Junior cabinet size is perfect, but a man can dream, and I am a man... so I dream about that Junior chassis with a design of the grind path and outlet that permits close to zero grind detention, and also good dispersion in the portafilter, even without a doser. There are those who have proven both are possible, but not in the price and performance region of the Junior.

[RAS]

Hearing that there will soon be a hybrid Max/Junior grinder certainly interests me! My Junior has become a good "friend" in my pursuit of good coffee. It is, by no means, perfect, but I've grown accustomed to its idiosyncrasies.

If there is any way to have some input as to which features from each grinder to include, I would think that the only feature from the Max is the combination burr set. I've never used a Max, so I can't speak for its other features, but it certainly seems the Junior is preferred in many ways, including the lack of an auto-fill and the dual power switches. I'm just hoping the dollar rallies a bit against the Euro to make this grinder within reach.

Please keep us posted T.J.!

[petterf]

This grinder will take the best features of the MAX and place them in the chassis of the JUNIOR.
We will keep you posted as to how to source these grinders when they arrive in this market.

Wow this is indeed very nice to read.
For us living in Europe and Sweden, is this something to look forward to or will these be built for the NA market only?
I was just about to buy me the Junior but if theres a Hybrid in the pipeline I'm really interested in getting one.

[T.J.]

Right now Cimbali is planning this only for the American market since I requested it after noticing that so many readers of Home Barista would be into something like this.

Hopefully, the enthusiasm and informed discussions that take place on this site will drive ourselves and others to keep pursuing better standards and more interesting models for our customers.

[petterf]

Thanks for the information TJ!
Lets hope we will see it in more markets as time passes.

Until then I'll go for the Junior

[ricci71]

That was a pic I took in Italy, I think I have other burrs on that page as well. By the way, you guys with the Max grinders should look close before ordering 68mm replacement planar burrs. The 68s were from the DRM-Alinox belt driven grinder, and AFAIK the Max uses 64mm

I'm confused, the San Marco burr set for the SM MK are combination flat/conical?
What size?


Vajra,

[xpresso]

We are pleased to announce that after several requests and comments urging us to find a way to combine the luxury and quality of the Conical burrs found in our MAX grinder with the user friendliness and chassis of the JUNIOR grinder, we will shortly release the Cimbali MAX/JUNIOR Hybrid grinder.

This grinder will take the best features of the MAX and place them in the chassis of the JUNIOR.

We will keep you posted as to how to source these grinders when they arrive in this market.

Regards,

T.J. Tarateta

I really appreciate that you guys care about the customers. I don't have much knowledge about grinders. I only know about the JUNIOR. How big of a difference is it between the JUNIOR and this new MAX/JUNIOR Hybrid?

Also, I'd like to know if this new model come with a removable metal finger guard or a one piece plastic piece (like the JUNIOR) that cannot be removed?

Thanks for the information!

[jesawdy]

How big of a difference is it between the JUNIOR and this new MAX/JUNIOR Hybrid?

I am of course only speculating, but my impression is that they hope to fit the MAX burr set to the Junior grinder, so I would expect that the hybrid will be nearly identical to the junior in all other aspects.

On the Junior, I have found the above finger guard to be a non issue and actually a benefit to reduce grind spray all over the doser chamber (but I know plenty of people do remove it).

[cannonfodder]

I left my guard on. I just use a long bristled pencil sized brush to brush out the grind chute, or I give it a two second pulse to blow out the old grinds.

[stjones]

I had wanted to purchase a Max, but cut short my efforts because of all the confusion I ran into earlier this year about the Max. For example, I had someone who claimed to be an old established Cimbali importer tell me categorically that the Max did not have conical burrs; I had a very popular seller of espresso equipment also tell me the Max was not conical and moreover it was nonsensical for a consumer to even think of using an expensive conical grinder (I was also considering the Macap conicals); I became chary of the people who said they imported the Max.

This portion of my espresso story came to a close when I purchased a used Faema MC99 grinder, which is a 220v, conical grinder, as a make an offer item on ebay. I paid about what the Max was going to cost had I been able to buy one. You can look at it on the faema site. I am _very_ fond of it and think I get much better shots with it than I did with the Mazzer Major I had before. It's fast - about 8 seconds to grind a triple. It's not stepless, which so far doesn't cause me problems. The major's micrometrical adjustment was hard for me to use, and I never thought it was very accurate when I tried to return to a previous setting. I like the ease of being able to go back and forth accurately and easily between espresso grind and drip, which this machine offers. As other people have said about the Max, I also think the grinder somehow makes it less necessary to tweak grind settings than has been the case with any of my previous grinders. As far as I'm concerned it's only drawback is its huge size, which my wife hates.

If any of you who have been working with the Max would like to come try the Faema I would be happy to have you stop by. I live in Maryland about a 30 minute drive north of DC.

Regards,

Stephen

stjones at umbc dot edu

[Ken Fox]

One of the less desirable features of the Max grinder, compared to the Junior grinder, is the front rocker switch which operates in conjunction with the Max's autogrind function. The green rocker switch is covered with a thin translucent soft rubber or plastic membrane, and this membrane makes it hard to see and feel what you are doing with the rocker switch, and hence harder to turn the grinder on and off. The result, at least in my experience, is that I end up grinding more coffee than I want to, grinding per shot, while I fumble to find the switch's position, and end up wasting coffee unnecessarily.

It turns out that the membrane is held in place by a snap on rectangular piece of hard plastic which sits just in front of and to the sides of the rocker switch. I pried the membrane holders off and removed the membrane, then replaced the plastic piece, which now gives a clear view of the switches, and more or less eliminates the fumbling I used to have when trying to operate the switch since the tactile control is much better.

I doubt that this membrane provides any real protection, and in any event, generic rocker switches such as used in this grinder cost only a few bucks and are easily replaced in five minutes with a blade screwdriver, so there isn't much risk. I would probably try to avoid operating the grinder with wet fingers, but then this would just be basic common sense advice in any event, when working with electrical appliances.

ken

[jesawdy]

As pointed out in another recent thread, Large Grinders in the home, apparently the new Cimbali MAX Hybrid is now available at Chris' Coffee.

Link

Here are the specs:

When I read a few threads and some personal reviews about the Cimbali Max grinder, I decided to take a closer look at it. The threads and reviews were quite positive, especially about the grind quality. There was however a few negatives pointed out about the Max as well. It was a little too tall and only came equipped with an auto fill doser. The power switch was not as nice as the one on the Junior either. I contact the people from Cimbali and asked if it was possible to simply install the lower RPM motor and most wanted combination conical and flat burr assemble into the body of the Junior. They told me it was possible and told me if I ordered a significant enough quality they would build them for me. We came to an agreement and Walla the NEW MAX HYBRID was born.

# Stepless micrometrical grind adjustment
# Extremely low blade speed (800 rpm)
# Motor output 300 watt
# Grinding burrs combination conical and flat 64 mm
# Weight 34 lbs.
# Dosing hopper 200 g
# Bean hopper 1.65 lbs.
# Dosing levels can be adjusted from 5.5g - 9g
# 110 volt

It's basically the Cimbali MAX conical/flat burrs and a slower motor in the Cimbali Junior grinder housing. This addresses the height concern and power switch quibble I have with the MAX. I'd be curious to know the performance changes with this new slower RPM motor.

[Ken Fox]

As pointed out in another recent thread, Large Grinders in the home, apparently the new Cimbali MAX Hybrid is now available at Chris' Coffee.

Link

It's basically the Cimbali MAX conical/flat burrs and a slower motor in the Cimbali Junior grinder housing. This addresses the height concern and power switch quibble I have with the MAX. I'd be curious to know the performance changes with this new slower RPM motor.

Chris sent me an email about this a couple of days ago. I believe that what he is referring to in that text is that the motor in the Max has a slower RPM than the one in the Junior, and that the new revised Max he is selling has the combined burr set AND the motor of the Max, but in a Junior's body. So, there would be no difference in the motor of the new Max vs. what you have, Jeff.

I'm seriously considering getting one of these, as I like to have 3 coffees available at any given time and don't like changing beans in grinders any more often than needed. From a grind standpoint quality, I'm convinced it is as good as the Compak conical (the only big conical I have experience with), although with the disadvantage of needing more frequent grind adjustments due to changing conditions, than does a big conical. On the flip side, the Max is an attractive thing to have in your kitchen, and the Compak is NOT. The worm gear adjustment on the Max is much more pleasant to use (in my opinion) than the adjustment mechanism on the Compak, that I believe resembles a lot what you find on Mazzer grinders. The Compak may be better for those who prefer to weigh out beans for each shot, weigh them before grinding, and switch coffees constantly using only one grinder.

I have to add the caveats that I THINK the Compak wastes more coffee than the Max does, due to its grind path and long discharge chute vs. the smaller one on the Max. What I'm getting at is that I think there are more retained grinds in the system of the Compak than in the Max, even though this may not be obvious by weighing what goes in vs. what comes out, since one may be weighing grinds from the last shot pushed through later for the next. This could of course be true of either grinder. Maybe one of our University scientists can find a way to radiologically tag some beans and we could determine "waste" that way; I think it would require less sophisticated equipment than what has occurred already in the TGP threads, electron microscopy and all!

ken

[CGP4]

It's here: Cimbali Max Hybrid Espresso Grinder