***
Do so at your own risk.

I suppose someone might decide to try running a drill at a ridiculously high RPM and risk injury or damaging something. This approach was never intended to be done in such a way. It takes out the time and muscle strength required to crank the handle forever to accomplish the same task. Paul and Craig don't have to endorse it, but I can still do it safely.***

Instead of piling up more info in the main thread, this would be easier to find in a separate one.
5 minutes of prep and I can grind thru several pounds of coffee at once. Here's a quick and relatively easy way to put a lot of coffee thru the HG one's small chute without having to stop every 18g to refill, which would take an eternity.

- 1 One liter bottle. bottom and top removed with a utility knife and split up the side.
- A bit of tape to run up the sides.
- Cordless drill with a 5mm bit or a 3/16th and an extra battery or two. My cordless is a cheap piece of junk. A corded one would work a lot better. Or one that has bigger cajones than mine does.
- A big tupperware bowl that fits underneath (take the funnel off too)





Make sure to cut the neck off the top of the soda bottle or the beans just bottleneck and take forever. Remove the handle since you don't want it swinging around like crazy and risk it whacking your arm. Take off the lower funnel since you don't need it and it will likely just choke up with grinds anyway. As long as your lower bowl is larger enough in diameter, it wont make any mess either, which is nice.

If you tape up the sides of the split side of the 1 liter bottle, you can fill the whole thing with close to 10 or more ounces of coffee at a time.

Steady arm and pace and you'll have the burrs broken in in no time.

Very inventive! Thanks for sharing.

So Tom,

Enquiring minds want to know...

How did this experiment work out?

Please tell us also how many pounds you used for your break-in.

This screams for a video, of course!

-Mike

Still working on sourcing a large amount of old beans. Ideally I'd like to put another 10-15lbs thru it. I already have done about 6lbs getting started. It will take longer to save up or source old beans than it will to grind thru them.

I fully agree with the inventive part BUT, even more interesting would be what the manufacturer has to say as regards this break-in or even the need for same.

* added later* The grind particles on the well broken in prototypes I used looked more typical of bimodal grinds of a typical conical grinder whereas visually, the new burrs seem to produce a far more uniform grind at least visually. Whether this bears as proof of needing more break in beans ground thru them will soon be seen.*

And, the burr discussion is long and difficult to tackle. Are the burrs from the manufacturer fully pre-seasoned and consistent, each and every one of them? Not sure and I doubt we'll know for certain until a lot of users put a lot of coffee thru them and evaluate them for themselves. Back when Paul dropped it off to me we chatted about doing something similar to this and he's the one that suggested a drill and 5mm bit to do the work. It's certainly not going to hurt anything. He did say they went to great lengths to acquire and use pre-seasoned burrs from the top mill.

Using my grinder up till now, I cannot see much variation in grind size at all. It doesn't mean it's not there, but it's not obvious to the naked eye that there's much fines. On my K30 Vario, I could see them better.

Tom I wish I had come up with that. I just ran a bunch thru mine the hard way.

You can also file them by hands, which goes much quicker.
Thats what I did.
Then a Titannitrid (bio compatible TiN) coating which increases the Binary hardness of 700 HV = 60,1 HRC ( original Mazzer)

To 2.300 HV which is nearly 4 times more.

Edit: Without getting weak on the inside of course

They should last an average barista life

You have got to tell us more about "file them by hands"

I would be a little concerned about damaging the alignment mechanisms. There must be a considerable amount of wobble when holding the drill above the grinder, and you're doing a lot more RPMs than you would be doing by hand.

PC