Justify your existence! Rocky vs Compak K3 Touch vs Cheap Conical

#1: Post by **luca** » September 27th, 2006, 6:10 am

Hi guys,

The rift between the mazzers at work, the mazzers that I have borrowed at home and the rocky at home has been a thorn in my side for a while now. This afternoon was a classic - and terrible - illustration. My first double was a gusher, I moved one notch finer and the next was a choker. The line "she's gone from suck to blow" in Spaceballs came to mind.

So I got to thinking about the upgrade that I have idly been considering for a while, particularly two grinders either side of the Rocky in price terms. The first is the Iberital Challenge and the other is the new model of the Compak K3 Touch (link is to the old model). Prices in $AUD are more or less $250 for the Iberital Challenge, $440 for the Rocky and $550 for the old model. I gather that the US analogue to the Iberital would be the stepless, conical Innova grinder, so those of you who have never heard of the Iberital might prefer to consider it to be that grinder for the purposes of the discussion.

Iberital Challenge/Innova

In Australia, at least, this is a dirt cheap conical burr grinder with a stepless adjustment system. I gather that there is a lot of rebranding and using of the same burr set when we're talking about these cheapies. However, I don't think that I'm alone in thinking that they perform very well for the price. Jim Schulman had the following to say in the "Considering an upgrade from the Mini E?" thread:

jim wrote:[T]he Trespade burrs on the Innova (Lux, Quaha, Pavoni, etc), produces excellent shots when new, better to my palate than small burr commercials like the Mini. This means the comparison isn't as absurd as it sounds

These grinders seem to grind fairly well and the stepless adjustment knob is pretty good, provided that you don't want to switch to anything other than espresso. So the question is one of quality and longevity. The Iberital certainly has a pretty poxy plastic shell, but is also available, for more money, with a poxy looking stainless steel shell. The SS shell looks like the quality of the MACAP shell, but slightly thinner gauge steel. Alan Frew had the following to say about the burr carrier:

Alan Frew wrote:The one weakness of this burr set is that the threaded burr carrier is made from some sort of hard black plastic, however in practice this particular set seems to last as long and work as well as a brass carrier. The oldest model I have in the field is now 6 years old and still performing well, but will require new burrs sometime in the next year or so.

Combined with Jim's allusion to a need to replace the burrs relatively frequently - which is not an opinion of his that is confined to conicals - Alan's comments suggest that this is a high performer for the price that might need parts replaced every now and then. It's not much in the looks department and the doserless version is messy, whilst the doser seems to be relatively bad quality to me.

Rocky

OK, I'm going to guess that I don't need to go into much detail with this one.

To me, this grinder seems to have a big motor and OK burrs, but it loses it in the details. Not only does it have a frustratingly large stepped adjustment, but the adjustment mechanism is, IMO, pretty crappy. Just a pin that sticks into the holes in the plastic hopper, with the ill-aligned number sticker on it. The body seems to be thicker gauge stainless steel, but it's not particularly nicely finished and the black paint on it screams cheap - mine has a few chips out of it, presumably where I have bumped my PF into it. Another design stupidity is the SS foot that sticks out. It might well be for balance, but it is jsut cheap not to have a removable tray there for easy cleaning. Whenever I grind, I get the customary rocks and coffee grounds all over the place. OK, that all sounded pretty negative, but I really do get the impression that people deify the Silvia/Rocky combo - just wanted to put it in perspective.

Compak K3 Touch

This one seems to be off the radar in the US.

Compak seem to be vying to compete with Mazzer - as evinced by their barista comp sponsorship and their creation of a "WBC version" of their K10 grinder. The K3 Touch caught my attention because the K3 Elite is clearly designed to be a mazzer mini competitor, but where mazzer made their mini E more expensive, Compak have made their doserless grinder cheaper. The Compak grinders have a stepless adjustment mechanism that is basically the same as the mazzers - turn the collar. This means that it should be easy to switch between espresso and other types of grind. I know that the K10 has a locking screw, but I'm not sure how the rest of them go about locking the burr carrier in place.

Anyhoo, the K3 Touch had a serious problem in that it basically extruded a giant square log of grounds. Utterly terrible. Someone at Compak seems to have been listening because there is a new model coming out, which I'll hopefully get to play with soon, that is rumored to address this issue. The compak grinders are actually finished off quite nicely; much more like the mazzers than the MACAPs and they have a removeable grounds tray. I think that the old K3 Touch had 54mm parallel burrs, but the K3 Elite has 58mm burrs ... hopefully the new revamp will have the bigger burrs.

The Wrap-Up

... so does anyone have experience with both the Rocky and the other grinders? Any thoughts?

I don't know what I'll do, but the Iberital is starting to look like a very attractive option, even though it is cheaper. I'm just itching to try out the new Compak. At the moment, I struggle to see how the Rocky can justify in its price against the Iberital, and things will be even more difficult if the Compak lives up to what they've promised. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy the mazzers at work and the brasilia competition at my local roastery.

Cheers,

Luca "wanna buy a Rocky?" C

September 27th, 2006, 10:36 am

Greatly reduced shot adustability tends to be s symptom of worn burrs. Approx' how many pounds are are your Rocky burrs? I Have Rocky and Mazzer SJ and find their grind fairly comparable. That is with both having new burrs. I replace my Rocky burrs ~every 75 to 100#, currently on my 4th set of burrs in ~5yrs (including the originals.) Makes a huge difference.

#3: Post by HB » September 28th, 2006, 8:35 pm

luca wrote:The rift between the mazzers at work, the mazzers that I have borrowed at home and the rocky at home has been a thorn in my side for a while now. This afternoon was a classic - and terrible - illustration. My first double was a gusher, I moved one notch finer and the next was a choker.

I'm not one to get between a man and his upgrade lust, but have you considered the stepless Rocky mod?

#4: Post by **SylvainMtl** » September 28th, 2006, 8:59 pm

I had an Innova, I did like it and others are surely more apt to describe its positives.

The less shining things I've found on it were 1) fragile plastic chute (minor issue), 2) slow to grind (and since it's doserless, you have to fork you pf for a while under the chute) and 3) it takes a while to find back your grind after post-cleaning re-assembly.

Sylvain

September 29th, 2006, 2:03 am

HB wrote:I'm not one to get between a man and his upgrade lust, but have you considered the stepless Rocky mod?

Yep, I've seen that. Innovative, to be sure, but it doesn't exactly inspire confidence that the burr carriers will actually be held in place. Still, it looks like it can be done reversibly, so it might be worth a go. Snoboy, oh Snoboy, how's it holding up?

Mike wrote:Greatly reduced shot adustability tends to be s symptom of worn burrs. Approx' how many pounds are are your Rocky burrs? I Have Rocky and Mazzer SJ and find their grind fairly comparable. That is with both having new burrs. I replace my Rocky burrs ~every 75 to 100#, currently on my 4th set of burrs in ~5yrs (including the originals.) Makes a huge difference.

Yep, I'm probably due for new burrs ... at a guess, they've gone through, maybe, 80lbs. But even with sharp burrs, people report that one notch = 7 to 10 seconds difference. Hrmmm ... I've got some extra, albeit stale, coffee around. I should pull a few shots a few notches apart and time them. Then run some Grindz through!

Thanks for the thoughts, guys; keep them coming.

Cheers,

Luca

#6: Post by **jesawdy** » September 29th, 2006, 9:41 am

luca wrote:Yep, I've seen that. Innovative, to be sure, but it doesn't exactly inspire confidence that the burr carriers will actually be held in place. Still, it looks like it can be done reversibly, so it might be worth a go. Snoboy, oh Snoboy, how's it holding up?

.........

Yep, I'm probably due for new burrs ... at a guess, they've gone through, maybe, 80lbs. But even with sharp burrs, people report that one notch = 7 to 10 seconds difference. Hrmmm ... I've got some extra, albeit stale, coffee around. I should pull a few shots a few notches apart and time them. Then run some Grindz through!

I think 10 secs per step is a bit exaggerated.... My Rocky doesn't seem to be that drastic, but to be honest, I'm not sure the grind is my biggest variable (meaning my skills are only so honed). I'm also not super hung up on volume and I watch the time and for blonding to stop a shot.

Also, Snoboy did give an update on his stepless mod as he approched a year of use... he just replaced some of his adhesive strips. If my Rocky hangs around (I've upgraded to a Cimbali Jr. which is one mean grinder), I might do this mod. I had an idea for a quick release of the bolt that disengages the stepless adjustment for quick large changes.

September 30th, 2006, 9:48 pm

OK, I'm helping to run a barista comp next week, so I had to run out and buy a cheap stopwatch. Seein as I have some staling sumatran mandheling sitting around, I figured that I might as well test out the whole extraction time/steps. I over-dosed, levelled off with my finger, rapped the pf on the counter five times, then over-dosed and levelled off again - something that I would expect to give me good results. Out came the measuring shotglass. 60mL in 19 seconds. Went one notch finer, ground for about five seconds to remove any of the old grind. Same dosing procedure. 60mL in 32 seconds. Even if I screwed up my dose to the tune of five seconds worth of time, that's still an 8 second difference! Of course, that was only two shots. I should repeat the experiment later. I should also get some new burrs! The thing is, though, that dull burrs are a constant across all shots, not a variable, so I wouldn't expect them to impact that much on the adjustability. But who knows!

I saw snoboy's update on the thread, but nowhere has he commented about how well his mechanism actually holds the burrs in place. That's what interests me.

Thanks for the reply,

Luca

October 2nd, 2006, 8:40 am

Just did the test again. Different coffee, same methodology. Shot 1: 60mL in 22 seconds. Shot 2 (one notch finer): 60mL in 35 seconds.

Not enough to be statistically significant, but a pleasant ... and unpleasant ... surprise to see that the 13 second interval holds up. Will have to try two shots at one setting back-to-back to make sure that I'm consistent across the same shots.

#9: Post by **randomperson** » October 2nd, 2006, 9:16 am

That is weird -- with my Rocky the difference between steps is consistently 7 seconds. Maybe your burrs are loose? Some people have reported that Teflon tape or some such seems to help.

You need a Mini E!

No kidding, I used to scoff at the idea of stepless -- and now I an vary the pour by two seconds! Incredible!

Curious as to why buying a Mini for home use isn't top on your list vs these other grinders? (I love the Mini E, as you know!)

October 2nd, 2006, 9:57 am

randomperson wrote:That is weird -- with my Rocky the difference between steps is consistently 7 seconds. Maybe your burrs are loose? Some people have reported that Teflon tape or some such seems to help.

My burrs are taped. They're actually really tight. I could barely get any tape in there at all.

The thing is that I would have thought that dull burrs or wobbly burrs would stop you from getting repeatable results, not increase the step size. This is wierd.

randomperson wrote:Curious as to why buying a Mini for home use isn't top on your list vs these other grinders? (I love the Mini E, as you know!)

Simple; the post is about working out whether or not the Rocky can justify its price point, so I took a look at two grinders priced on either side of it.

Like I said on your CG thread, I have had probably two months worth of loans of minis and mini es and would love to have either at home! But I am a poor uni student, so I need to be a bit realistic! The Compak K3 Elite performs basically identically to the mini, just at a slightly lower price point. Need to play around with it a bit more ...

Cheers,

Luca