My time with the Mazzer twins (Kony and Super Jolly) is coming to an end and they will soon move onto the next lucky tester. My life has been hectic to say the least over the past couple of weeks, so I have not had an opportunity to post my thoughts and observations, something I will remedy with this conclusion.
The Kony was the focus of my grinder pair and the Super Jolly a point of reference and comparison for planar (or flat) burred grinders. As such, most of my time has been on the Kony. I must say the experience has been eye opening and to be quite blunt, disappointing. With the buzz on the Internet about conical grinders, I was expecting nothing less than a 'religious experience'. But then I am getting ahead of myself.
The grinders arrived at my home several weeks ago, much to the lament of the UPS delivery man. If you are contemplating purchasing a Kony, let me forewarn you: It is big and heavy. It shows it commercial pedigree in both design and materials. There is no plastic on this machine (other than the hopper). From the polished aluminum top, stainless steel doser and cast body everything about this grinder is heavy duty. The Kony measures 25.5 inches tall (with hopper) 9.5 inches wide and 16.5 inches deep (from grounds catch tray to back).
The electronics are easily accessible and repairable by removing 5 screws in its base. Four of those screws also hold the feet on and the fifth holds on the grounds drop tray. Once removed the base drops right off. Mounted to the base are all the electronics. If a part fails, it can easily be repaired to get the grinder back into service. That is a very important feature in a commercial environment.
The burrs on the Kony are 63mm conical. If you are familiar with Mazzer grinders, then the burr assemblies will not hold any surprises. The lower burr is bolted to the grinder's spindle and is the rotating half of the burr assembly. The upper burr is mounted in a carrier that rides atop three stiff springs. The entire assembly is held in place by the large adjustment collar, which is standard on Mazzer grinders. To clean the burrs, simply unscrew the adjustment collar and lift out the upper burr carrier.
As I pointed out in a previous post, I was surprised at the amount of coffee that cakes up in the burr assembly. An occasional disassembly and cleaning would be a wise decision. You could also try running a handful of Grindz burr cleaner through the machine to periodically clean it.
Dosers tend to be a love or hate relationship. The doser on the Kony is the standard Mazzer doser with one exception. There is a counter on the right side of the doser and that counter is attached to the switch. When the power switch is in the ON position, the grinder auto grinds every 12th pull of doser handle. That is a handy feature in a busy cafe but an annoyance in the home environment. Thankfully there is an override position so you can switch the grinder on manually for grind per dose operation.
Build aside, the real measure of a grinder is how well it grinds.
The grind from the Kony appears uniform and light to my eye. The grind speed on the Kony is slower than that of the Super Jolly. A side effect of that slower grind speed is more clumping of the grounds. This is where a doser comes into play. A vigorous thwacking of the doser handle while grinding breaks up those clumps. Using that method I could get a relatively clump-free dose in my portafilter.
The Kony does not like to have an empty hopper. As the hopper empties, the grind changes. As long as you keep a modest amount of coffee in the hopper (about 3 shots worth), it will buzz away. Those who pre-measure coffee and drop in enough for one shot will be disappointed. Without that top pressure pushing the beans through the grind chamber, the grind shifts. It starts out even, then gets progressively coarser as the bean load lightens. Most of the time, I kept a quarter pound of coffee in the hopper and had no grind consistency issues. I would use the final 18 or so grams in the hopper to do my seasoning shots after a detergent backflush.
My experience confirmed that little fuss was needed with the conical grinder. The dose took next to no work. A few quick thwacks of the doser as the beans were grinding, brief level of any high spots, a little downward tap of the portafilter to settle the dose, followed by a tamp was all that's necessary. No sweeping, no coffee torture devices, no chopping, just dose, tap, tamp. Another observation, it appears that the grounds from the Kony are more easily compacted, so be wary of updosing more than would be the case for flat burr grinders.
The Kony grinds slightly cooler than the Super Jolly. The delta is relatively small, but there is a difference when measured in the grind chute with a type K thermocouple. The temperature difference when grinding for a single shot is minimal. Both of the below graphs were generated while grinding a half pound of coffee with the grinders adjusted for comparable espresso shots.
I noticed right away that there was a difference in the extractions from the Kony, both in taste and appearance. The extractions flowed visually thicker. We often hear the analogy that espresso "should flow like warm honey" during a proper extraction. The shots from the Kony most definitely flow like warm honey. The crema is very abundant and retains a deeper tone through most of the extraction.
The cup produced by the Kony is unique. The grinder appears to accentuate the lighter, more acidic tones and fruit in a blend. While the brighter flavors are being enhanced, the deeper flavors such as cocoa and leather are muted. The cup was, for lack of better terms, harsh and edgy when using lighter northern Italian style roasts. These blends tend to be brighter, a trait that the Kony exploited. Blends that tended to be a little flat were more lively. In short, the grinder brought out the subtle fruit and acidity of the deeper blends while reducing the heavier flavors.
I do not want to forget about the crema. The Kony grinds produced crema that was just off the charts. Thick, rich, persistent and top to bottom 99% crema shots. If you have never sampled an all crema shot, you should. The experience is quite unique; the closest analogy I can describe is a cup of espresso flavored mousse. The mouthfeel is incredible. Unfortunately in order to experience that you have to drink the shot right out from under the portafilter. No sipping allowed you have toss the entire shot back at once to get the full effect. Be careful though, an espresso straight from the pull is
very hot. You may find that you can not taste anything for a day because you just blanched your tongue. But after a shot like that, who needs to taste food?
To verify that I was not simply imagining the difference between the Super Jolly and Kony, I decided to try a few blind espresso tasting sessions. Being the only coffee drinker in the house, this proved to be problematic, so I went with espressos prepared from one of two prepared baskets selected at random.
I adjusted both the Kony and Super Jolly to pull a 28 second, two ounce shot using 16 grams of coffee, and two identical Faema-style baskets. to help mask any apparent differences in the crema, I used the stock single spout portafilter from my Elektra A3. Removing the retaining spring from the portafilter allowed me to easily drop in a prepared basket. Each basket was marked with a tiny K for the Kony and S for the Super Jolly and then the marks were covered with a small piece of tape.
I would grind, dose and tamp a 16 gram sample from each grinder into the appropriate basket. Then those baskets were set on a table and my son would bring me one of the two baskets. I would pull a two ounce shot, allow the shot to sit for 30 seconds to allow the crema to settle and sample. I would then place the basket on the grinds catch tray of the machine I thought the sample was from and then repeat with the second shot.
My sampling covered 4 different blends from three different roasters and one coffee that I had not sampled before from either grinder. While my amateur cupping was limited and my conditions not ideal, I was still able to easily pick out which shot came from the Kony and Super Jolly 6 out of 6 times. While some may argue that such a limited sample spread over a couple of weeks are statistically insignificant, it was more than enough to convince me that the Kony produced a very distinguishable cup.
However, it's noteworthy that its unique cup characteristics were not always favorable. I found the shots to be too acidic and edgy for my palate. The Super Jolly produced a less defined cup, but with smoother edges and no harsh attacking flavors. Given all the hype about conical grinders, it was not the outcome I had expected. I wanted to fall in love with the Kony. But in the end, I found myself not enjoying the drinks I was producing. I have tried varying dose, temperature, blend, and extracted volume and never found myself having that 'heavenly experience' I was so anticipating. I did find that a slightly reduced, borderline ristretto to be more agreeable to my palate. Keeping with the 16 gram dose, I would pull 1.5-1.75 ounce shots and the edgy, almost bitter attack was reduced but still present.
So as I pack up the Mazzer brothers to send onto the next recipient, I admit being somewhat disappointed. Maybe my personal taste preference is not best suited to the Kony. I had talked myself into purchasing one before it arrived; now I am not shedding any tears over its departure. Strange.
I would like to pass on thanks to Larry of
Rocket Coffee Roasters for providing a 'Clash of the Titan Grinders' 5 pound bag of Classic Espresso and even tossing in a cool T-shirt.
The fresh coffee infusion was well received. I have been going through two pounds of coffee per week and even more at the onset of the project. I have put a good 7 pounds of coffee through the grinders in three weeks (I was out on business one week), talk about an over caffeinated month! A big thanks to Jim at
1st-Line for supplying us with these Titans of the grinder world.
One last parting beauty shot series of some Classic Espresso ground in the Kony and pulled on a Vibiemme Domobar Super.
