In the latest installment of upgrading my setup, I bought the MXK from 1st Line. Bringing it home tonight, and the fun starts tomorrow. I'll keep y'all informed as to my progress. Looking forward to tasting all those flavors hidden up to now

Does anyone use the overhanging tamper? Is there a way to adjust dose size? I've never used a doser... How do you get it to produce specifically weighed doses? PS the thing is massive...hopper is like an aquarium.

Took off the hopper and the finger guard in the doser so I can get access to the chute, which seems to retains ground coffee. Is that normal? Also, definitely need to put something weighty on the beans to prevent popcorning. Ideas?

retained coffee is normal. some grinders more than others. When I had an electric grinder, I brushed out the chute when it was done grinding, then toggled it on once more to get any grounds that got pushed back into the grind chamber. Anything that fits in the chute will work to prevent popcorning. The most common item is a tamper. Also sometimes spare baskets, espresso cups, yogurt cups, paper cups, bouncy balls, easter eggs, spice jars, really anything that will cover the throat and not move. I have read that some grinders need weight on the beans to produce a consistent grind while others just need a cover. I liked using a small macchiato size cup that fit nicely because I could also use it as a vessel for weighing my dose, dump them in and just sit it on top.

So I guess I need to weigh the shot after it's ground?

I think there are a few people that do it that way. Full hopper, grind a little bit, eye-ball/weigh until the right amount is in the pf. This is how cafes dose. Although they just eye-ball (which takes lotttts of practice). But what most people do is weigh out the beans you need for your shot, pour them into the grinder and grind them. This is what's known as single-dosing. In theory, what goes into the grinder will be what comes out. Now, some grinders retain more than others in various nooks and crannies so it would actually be beneficial to you the first ten times or so to weigh the beans and then weigh the ground coffee and compare. You will most likely lose a little bit. The key is to have a consistent routine so that you know exactly how much coffee will come out because you know how much gets caught in your grinder. For example, let's say through experimentation, you have concluded that with brushing out the doser and chute the best you can, you end up with 1 gram less of ground coffee than you weighed of whole beans, AND this number stays consistent +/- a tenth of a gram or so each time. Then you can accurately dose the amount of beans you need to get precise doses of ground coffee. Depending on how much coffee is held up in the grinder each time, this also makes a flush of fresh beans a requirement every morning to get out the remaining stales from the day before. A couple tenths of a gram retained may be fine, but more than likely you'll see a few grams being retained and it will make that first shot suffer.

Single dosing is all I've ever done. The Vario retained almost no coffee from bean to grind, but the MXK seems to hold on to 2g in spite of rigorous brushing. But I like your idea: updose by 2 g going in. Nevertheless, the popcorning in nasty, and the doser makes a mess as I try to position the PF in the right spot.

Have I bitten off a tad too much with this titan?

innermusic wrote:Single dosing is all I've ever done. The Vario retained almost no coffee from bean to grind, but the MXK seems to hold on to 2g in spite of rigorous brushing. But I like your idea: updose by 2 g going in. Nevertheless, the popcorning in nasty, and the doser makes a mess as I try to position the PF in the right spot.

Have I bitten off a tad too much with this titan?

MXK I believe is more useful for those who makes quite a lot of drinks throughout the day. From what I read, most people normally would purge/flush with new beans in the beginning of the day to rid of those stale beans. It's probably a waste for some but it's for the sake of getting better tasting espresso.

You can't really expect MXK to be home friendly like B. Vario that was designed with home users in mind, because MXK is definitely designed more to meet cafe use demands. But of course, you probably can't expect the taste from MXK to be the same from the Vario also. It's a trade-off I guess.(taste vs convenience or cost) Whether it's worth it or not, the value is in the eye of beholder(you).

What's your opinion on the taste though?I am curious.

Edit: I wasn't implying that Vario's taste is any inferior than from MXK. Some said that its taste is even on par with SJ that is often a standard grinder in most cafes. It's probably a flat burr vs conical burr thingie. For me myself, the marginal improvement in the cup from going any higher than SJ level is just too insignificant for the extra effort/cost. But I settled on a Mazzer Major which offers me a slightly higher convenience factor than Vario with an unbeatable build quality. Though honestly, my palate is having a hard time telling shots from Capresso Infinity is any better than the one from Vario or Major. They're slightly different, yes, maybe a very minor hint of bitterness with Capresso. But I can't justify it's really that much better. Especially going up to $500-$1000+ range for a grinder. It's really hard to beat the Vario for the things that it offers.
My point is, if you easily are able to tell the improvement from going to MXK, why not?It's definitely worth it for you.

innermusic wrote:Single dosing is all I've ever done. The Vario retained almost no coffee from bean to grind, but the MXK seems to hold on to 2g in spite of rigorous brushing. But I like your idea: updose by 2 g going in. Nevertheless, the popcorning in nasty, and the doser makes a mess as I try to position the PF in the right spot.

Have I bitten off a tad too much with this titan?

Up dosing to compensate for lost coffee is kind of just what you have to do to use a cafe grinder at home. A couple things people have done to improve the efficiency of the doser:
How to Tame a Messy Mazzer Doser
http://temesblog.blogspot.com/2005/07/m...sweep.html

Also to help push a little more coffee through the grind chamber, I used a bulb blower to shoot air down the grinder throat after all the beans had been ground. Every little bit helped.

I did like that the grinder did the hard work for me, but after spending more time collecting my coffee from the doser walls and grind chamber than it took me to grind on my hand grinder, I switched to a spong style no. 3 hand grinder which grinds a double shot in about 20 seconds, zero retention, and the grinds fall fluffily straight from the burr into my catch tray.