So the ROBUR E finally made its arrival. Reading back through many threads, I can see some people have reported troubles dialing in their new conicals. I had a lot of trouble and its all been behaving in a manner that hasn't made a lot of sense to me... Its been fairly inconsistent in timing, visually the grind has looked far too coarse yet has resulted in appropriate pour times. Coffee 'cubes' have been coming out the chute and grind times have been much longer than what i expected, even for 50Hz.
So I did some more digging and came up with this recent post which I found very interesting and details by and large the same as what I am seeing, and its posted by people who should know what they are talking about.
Guess I just need another couple of hundred bags of coffee for seasoning! If those figures are anywhere near accurate, then thats an important consideration before buying one.
On the positive side, I immediately noticed quite a dramatic reduction in bitterness vs my Mini-E. However, out of the first 6 bags of coffee, I only drank three shots so it will take a while to pull my average up.
Anyone else had similar issues with new conicals? and how long did it take to settle down?
gyro wrote:Anyone else had similar issues with new conicals? and how long did it take to settle down?
The Robur wasn't the first candidate to arrive at my house on the TGP Tour so I cannot confirm. But the Compak K10 WBC did arrive fresh from the factory and I noticed its grind setting drifted initially. Counter Culture generously donated 5 pounds of stale coffee to help break it in and there's been no drift problems since.
Oh!And I thought,that it was mine only. Yes I have the same problem,and it is for this,why I have not written yet,about my Nino. I confirm, the lack of bitterness,vs my Mini. I try to drink more coffee, so as to break it in.
I have the Kony E. It has the impeller augur like the Robur E.
It improved greatly, in terms of ease of dialing-in and flavor, over its very real break-in period. This was mostly over by 8lbs through the grinder, but I noticed some change up to 12lbs.
Incidentally, I did not clean the grinder until 15 lbs went through. It looked almost new, even then, with almost no retention of grounds, and all came out with just a light brushing. I never, ever use oily beans, which may help.
gyro wrote:So I did some more digging and came up with this recent post which I found very interesting and details by and large the same as what I am seeing, and its posted by people who should know what they are talking about.
Guess I just need another couple of hundred bags of coffee for seasoning! If those figures are anywhere near accurate, then thats an important consideration before buying one.
Hi Chris. I read that post with some amusement and a great deal of skepticism. A few pounds to "season" the burrs, sure. But 150-200 pounds?
Just one person's counterpoint: I received the TGP Robur brand new, and loved it right out of the box. The Macap MXKR, a 63mm conical, may have been a different story. I liked it less than the other TGP participants, and it's possible this may have been a burr seasoning issue. But I have replaced burrs on several commercial flat burr grinders, and never noticed any need to run vast quantities of beans through the burrs prior to use.
gyro wrote:Its been fairly inconsistent in timing, visually the grind has looked far too coarse yet has resulted in appropriate pour times. Coffee 'cubes' have been coming out the chute and grind times have been much longer than what i expected, even for 50Hz.
Chris,
Can you describe the coffee 'cubes,' and maybe even post a picture? Are they clumps?
It makes sense that the E-series Mazzers might extrude squarish clumps as the grinds get pushed through the anti-static grid that covers the chute.
The Kony was out of box new for my titan grinder round. I noticed a harsher brighter cup that others did not have, or it was not as pronounced which could be attributed to break in. I put a good 5 pounds through it and did not notice much change. You could try getting 5 or 10 pounds of the cheapest coffee you can find at the supermarket and just grind away to season it.
I did an initial test on the Compak, which arrived new, and was disappointed since it tasted slightly dull and burnt compared to the other Titans (which I got broken in). After about 5 pounds, it pulled even. The same happened on the super Jolly's duranium burrs, which I got after a short break in. I initially disliked it, and then got happier with it as time went by.
A grinder crushes the beans on the flat parts of the burr surface (the burrs push the beans through). So the microscopic texture of those surfaces is in play. The burrs are made of carbon steel, not stainless, and my guess is that these surfaces need to be polished and seasoned, much like those of a cast iron or carbon steel pans.
I wonder if what Mike P said in the coffeed thread Chris linked to is true--that it takes a few pounds to get them tasting right, but >100lbs to get them to stop clumping?
That would be interesting. My Robur is an impressively low-clumping beast, but now I am wondering if I put another 50 lbs of coffee through it if those will go away too.... Time to call up my local shop and ask them if they'd consider donating or selling (for dirt prices) their stale coffee for such an experiment. I'd be interested to try shots that had even more edge taken off of them than my Robur already does.
It sounds fishy, but on the other hand--I am a big fan of cast iron cookware, and I know firsthand that it takes a very, very long time to fully season a cast iron skillet. Persuading my wife to bake cake and cornbread in it definitely seemed to speed up the process on my favorite skillet, but it certainly improves only slowly for me. I would imagine if someone at a restaurant took it under their wing, it would be fully seasoned in a matter of weeks.
Have burrs been microscopically examined? it would be interesting to compare seasoned and unseasoned burrs, as well as, perhaps, compare the grinds with SEM or something similar. Seems like a great epilogue for the TGP...
shadowfax wrote:My Robur is an impressively low-clumping beast, but now I am wondering if I put another 50 lbs of coffee through it if those will go away too.... Time to call up my local shop and ask them if they'd consider donating or selling (for dirt prices) their stale coffee for such an experiment. I'd be interested to try shots that had even more edge taken off of them than my Robur already does.
Nicholas, that's far too much trouble. Let's just swap burrs instead. You send me your new Robur burrs and I'll send you the old ones from my used Robur. They've had a couple of years in a commercial setting, and are fully seasoned by now.
No, don't thank me. Just being my usual helpful self.
John, that won't help, because neither of us would be able to do side-by-side, blind comparisons. You need to send me your Robur on loan so I can do the necessary testing. If I like your burrs better, I'll swap with you and send yours back with my burrs.
shadowfax wrote:It sounds fishy, but on the other hand--I am a big fan of cast iron cookware, and I know firsthand that it takes a very, very long time to fully season a cast iron skillet. Persuading my wife to bake cake and cornbread in it definitely seemed to speed up the process on my favorite skillet, but it certainly improves only slowly for me. I would imagine if someone at a restaurant took it under their wing, it would be fully seasoned in a matter of weeks.
Have you tried removing your burrs and baking them into a few cornbread batches?
Hmm, that could be interesting... Maybe not cornbread, but coffee cake? eh? Who's got the guts to try that? Not me. I was just illustrating how long it can take to season metal with oil...
Hi guys, thanks for the responses. I figure I've only put through around 4lbs so far. Perhaps I used the wrong title for this thread... 'Grinder break in' may have been more appropriate. I have no doubt that the taste will improve, but I suspect the performance will improve over a longer time period as the burrs settle in a bit.
At present, the taste is a definite improvement over the Mini-E (with SJ burrs) I have been using. The main point of concern is the apparent inconsistency and 'relative' lack of speed. I'm doing a double in about 7.5secs, which is about half the speed what I expected and what the grinder was factory set at for a double timed dose.
From the video, the speed is apparent, but so is the fluffy grind. Looks a little different on mine to date...
HB wrote:But the Compak K10 WBC did arrive fresh from the factory and I noticed its grind setting drifted initially.
mivanitsky wrote:I have the Kony E. It has the impeller augur like the Robur E.
It improved greatly, in terms of ease of dialing-in and flavor, over its very real break-in period. This was mostly over by 8lbs through the grinder, but I noticed some change up to 12lbs.
another_jim wrote: did an initial test on the Compak, which arrived new, and was disappointed since it tasted slightly dull and burnt compared to the other Titans (which I got broken in). After about 5 pounds, it pulled even.
I am thinking perhaps the speed has something to do with the 'lumping'. The extractions even without WDT are still visually on par with the Mini-s WDT pours, but they are disconcerting to look at in the basket. I wonder if as the burrs get worn down a little to a more 'even' state if grinding speed increases and literally throws the coffee out the chute. At present it is slow, backs up, and gets forced out the chute once its clogged. At the end of the chute, the anti-static wire cuts it into nice little cubes that eventually break off and fall into the portafilter.
This may be masked a lot on a dosered grinder, as the lumps are broken up by the thwacking of the doser.
Do you think its possible that as the burrs wear that speed will increase. I am thinking along the lines of during manufacture, the burrs cannot possibly be all even. That must mean that during grinding, if a few are sitting proud, they must be doing the lion's share of the work. So instead of 420RPM, if only half the burrs are actually doing the business when brand new, perhaps I am getting more like and equivalent of half that. Just an idea that could explain it? or not...
RapidCoffee wrote:But I have replaced burrs on several commercial flat burr grinders, and never noticed any need to run vast quantities of beans through the burrs prior to use.
Me too, a difference between conicals and flat burrs? dunno... got me stumped.
I keep coming back to this though, from the current USBC, from coffeed...
"Having seen the first lbs through 3 or so new Robur Es, I can agree that they need seasoning. 150 to 200 sounds excessive but it certainly takes a bit. When ours first landed in our Chicago shops they were spiting out cubes... literally small cubes of coffee falling into the portafilter. The dosing was a bit inconsistent at this point as well. Now however (several hundreds of pounds later) they are working like magic, smooth, consistent and fast. However, even when they were spiting out cubes, we could still pull good shots, it was just really disconcerting.."
I suspect Nicholas may have it right
shadowfax wrote:it takes a few pounds to get them tasting right, but >100lbs to get them to stop clumping?
I think I'll pop down the road and see if I can find some cheap coffee to sacrifice, although 'cheap' and 'coffee' are two words you don't often find in the same sentence in HK. Mind you, neither is 'good' and 'coffee'...
I keep wondering who's sillier; the grinder manufacturer's who keep converting grinders designed for dosers to doserless, or the people who keep buying them. Is there any grinder originally designed to operate with a doser that is better without one?
The thing that shocks me most about your comment (Chris) is that it takes 7.5 s to grind a double shot. I've used my own Robur and a friend's Robur E--both of them grind 14-17g of coffee (a good variety of coffees from light to dark roast) in about half the time you're getting. The Robur E I used is noticeably faster than my own Robur, which I attribute to the augur that's on it. On the other hand, I know John Weiss has said that his Robur is somewhat slower than mine... I really wonder what the deal is there.
another_jim wrote:I keep wondering who's sillier; the grinder manufacturer's who keep converting grinders designed for dosers to doserless, or the people who keep buying them
Thanks Jim. I love the doserless design on the Mini-E and from the look of the You Tube clip, the ROBUR E when running properly looks great. Each to their own I guess, plenty of threads on that one... I wonder how many people here use the doser version how it was designed for (ie full)?
shadowfax wrote:The thing that shocks me most about your comment (Chris) is that it takes 7.5 s to grind a double shot.
Yup, seems odd, given the factory setting was in the mid 3s range if I remember correctly before I had to change it. Just got another couple of pounds of stale beans, so will feed those through it. I would expect it to be slightly slower than the 110V versions, since on 50Hz it runs at 420 vs 500 RPM, but the video previously posted was 50Hz so its still off by a factor of 2.
RapidCoffee wrote:Measurements of grinding speed and grinds retention:
Robur: ground 20.0g in 8-9 seconds, yielding 19.6g grinds MXK: ground 20.0g in 20-22 seconds, yielding 19.2g grinds Super Jolly: ground 20.0g in 10-11 seconds, yielding 20.0g grinds (using my doserless mod )
Robur and MXK were brand new, fresh out of the box. Different coffees, roasts, and especially grind settings will have an impact on grinding speed. But I'm getting similar results on my used Robur.
Conicals are not (typically) speed demons, due to their (typically) slower rpm. The flat burr Major (or SJ with duranium burrs) beats the Robur in grinding speed. But for home use, who cares?
Thanks John. Interesting to note that there may be quite a variance between grinders of the same make and model. As for speed, I hope to use the grinder in a cafe in around 2-3 years (after a career change), but the difference of 3 or 4 seconds is unlikely to be of real significance. It was just my thought that the grinding speed may have been affecting the exit velocity, which in turn has caused the lumps...
I found a fairly inexpensive 1kg bag down the road, so thats been through. Just dumped a kg out of the roaster as well of old SM greens that are way past their best before date. That will give me some freshly roasted stuff to play around with before I move back onto the nice tasting stuff.
I've got a Major which was converted to doserless using the funnel approach and I couldn't be more happy with it. Yes the grinds are pushed through the grid, but I have no clumping problems what so ever, so I'm a bit surprised that you are getting some.
another_jim wrote:I keep wondering who's sillier; the grinder manufacturer's who keep converting grinders designed for dosers to doserless, or the people who keep buying them
I can't really agree with you here Jim, I think the funnel works very well, even though it leaves some coffee stuck in the grinder 'throat'. Besides what else is there on the market that offers doserless grinding without the need to weigh the beans everytime you make a shot? K30, the new Elektra grinder, anything else?
Strange thing about the grinding times, although the Robur is 3 times slower than the Major (and I doubt that conicals grind 3 times faster than flat burrs).
by gyro on Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:38 am 
Time to call up my local shop and ask them if they'd consider donating or selling (for dirt prices) their stale coffee for such an experiment. I'd be interested to try shots that had even more edge taken off of them than my Robur already does. 
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