I know chances are quite slim, but I am quite interested in the monolith and have to ask: does the PF holder have a chance in hell at working with a small Olympia Cremona PF? It doesn't make a large difference but I use a bottomless Penney PF on mine.

Here is my Richard Penney portafilter with brackets Denis made for me. I have an Elektra MCAL.

CrabRangoon wrote:I know chances are quite slim, but I am quite interested in the monolith and have to ask: does the PF holder have a chance in hell at working with a small Olympia Cremona PF? It doesn't make a large difference but I use a bottomless Penney PF on mine.

Standard and bottomless Cremina portafilters work fine on my Kafatek conical. As others have noted, it helps if you have a widemouth funnel. I use the Orphan Espresso Ipanema funnel, quite possibly the single best espresso accessory ever invented.

Thanks guys, that's very encouraging, I knew it was adjustable but I hadn't imagined it would play well with smaller than 53mm! Moving soon and the Mythos has no way of fitting in the kitchen & I can only stomach grinding elsewhere for so long. Can't wait to pre-order.

I use the OE smaller/lightweight funnel, but always wanted the Ipanema. Mythos distribution was so tidy and fine that I never needed one, but I'll gladly add one along with the Monolith.

CrabRangoon wrote:Thanks guys, that's very encouraging, I knew it was adjustable but I hadn't imagined it would play well with smaller than 53mm! Moving soon and the Mythos has no way of fitting in the kitchen & I can only stomach grinding elsewhere for so long. Can't wait to pre-order.


I use the OE smaller/lightweight funnel, but always wanted the Ipanema. Mythos distribution was so tidy and fine that I never needed one, but I'll gladly add one along with the Monolith.

Heck, you could pick up/support a marble with the adjustable PF Forks Nice design.

I use both funnels and or my large custom funnel but as time goes by and I get more beans through the machine it is less static prone. And has been said before the beans themselves are a big contributor to the static.

FotonDrv wrote:I use both funnels and or my large custom funnel but as time goes by and I get more beans through the machine it is less static prone. And has been said before the beans themselves are a big contributor to the static.

Static is a function of weather (local humidity) and bean conductivity (i.e. water and ion-contributing mineral content) and to somewhat lesser extent - the design of the grinder's normalizer.

Burrs ALWAYS cause static buildup by triboelectric rubbing between insulated powder granules - coffee grinds in this case.

Grinder design can help somewhat - Normalizers (wipers, chutes, grates, paddles) can deal with some level of static buildup; it works to a point until humidity drops so low and electrostatic attraction high - that even paddles cannot break them up. RDT or very tough WDT love can help in these extreme cases.

Notes:
1. It matters little how many uses you grinder has. Place a hygrometer next to your grinder and observe the fluffiness / clumpiness of grind as humidity undulates. If you have a dry spell - it makes a great science demonstration!
2. Burr grounding - excess electrons (or missing electrons - holes) can be somewhat resolved by having a conductive grinder/chute; with powders, however, the real problem with powder static attraction is subsurface charges. Since the material is an insulator - they are stuck and cannot move or be dissipated.
3. Look at H-B users who suddenly have "clumps"; punch their location into a weather service that shows humidity - and verify a local dry spell - it never failed me once! (too bad I did not know this when I got rid of the Mini E).
4. RDT and WDT work differently. RDT adds conductivity to the grind - so less charges created; less clumps. WDT breaks the clumps. In very dry weather and freshly roasted coffee - it will take effort to break these clumps.
5. Adding paddles and normalizing blades helps quite a bit - I added 2 extra paddles to the Versalab wiper. It can all but mitigate the effect of a dry spell.

I have a hunch slower grinding may also help in low humidity situations but I have yet to try this out (have to wait for a severe dry spell to arrive). My hypothesis is that slower grinding may create somewhat less static (the grinder comminutes the same amount of coffee but perhaps the force of impact of a faster rotating burr creates more?) - but even more so that the lower amount of grind powder means less opportunity for granules to hit each other and form clumps.
So if the hunch is correct grinding faster in higher humidity - slower in lower humidity may help somewhat.

There is a magical piece of plastic in the Mythos 1 grind exit path that looks like it could have been originally wrapped around a piece of peppermint chewing gum. Coincidentally it seems to break any clumps into fluffy static free powder without any rdt or wdt. Could that piece of plastic be added in the grind path of other grinders like the Monoliths?

I'm familiar with the "clump crusher". I made and retrofitted a similar device to a Ceado e37s grinder (as have many others on the 'net, look up the arse mod)

The Monolith doesn't need it, nor do I think it would work with the low grind speeds it employs.

Edited, moved picture to the other monolith thread.

Simon345 wrote:There is a magical piece of plastic in the Mythos 1 grind exit path that looks like it could have been originally wrapped around a piece of peppermint chewing gum. Coincidentally it seems to break any clumps into fluffy static free powder without any rdt or wdt. Could that piece of plastic be added in the grind path of other grinders like the Monoliths?

In the Brita Fulmer book (in the chapter on grinding written by Christian Klatt from Mahlkonig and Martin von Blittersdorf from CAFEA) the so called "clump crusher" is actually part of a grinding path called "normalizer".

Its job is not just to "Crush" agglomerates created by the burrs or rollers (so called "clumps") but mainly to ensure uniform density across the puck. This is accomplished by making a homogenous mixture of particle sizes.

A grinder whos output is uneven in density (i.e. dense spots vs. sparse areas) will result in lower EY at best and channeling at worst. WDT (or tumbler...) may solve that if done rigorously.

Slower grinding does result in less visible clumping, but indeed reduces the effectiveness of a normalizer. On the Versalab, I tripled the number of "wipers" to compensate for the lowered (300RPM) burr speed. That said, when we had a severe dry spell (5-7% humidity) a year ago - it clumped like crazy. Since the speed is slow, the result was small tiny clumps that had no affect on pull timing nor flavor - but nonetheless the static attraction was so great that the wiper was unable to crush them.

From reading the reviews and results here (as well as on Socratic Coffee) - the Kafatek grinders seem to provide both a uniform grind AND good normalization of the grinds (reducing the yield difference between a non-WDT pull and a rigorously executed WDT pull). Which would put it in a unique category of grinders with the Mythos, the Titus (as far as reviews are available for the Titus...) - and the occasional well tempered Versalab (or ones that were sent to Frank Durra for TLC).