For the longest time, Jason, you were extolling the virtues of the Cimbali Max Hybrid on various threads some of which you started. So it was surprising you relegated the CMH to the office and introduced a Mahlkonig Vario for home. It's good to be the king! Curious to learn if there is a detectable taste distinction in the cup.
Good luck on your new acquisition.

perstare

Since I started this talk of hopper chopping Let me say a couple of things:
1. The lathe idea is not safe! I've taught woodshop safety for 20 years and I'm currently working on a book on the subject. I can tell you for certain that this will end badly. Cannonfodder please email me if you want to discuss it further.
2. Here are a couple of photos of the method I used. I had to use a piece of black tape to hold the parts together for the pretend cutting shot (since the photos were taken after the fact). Also, I screwed the hopper to the circular pc of wood before making the cut. You can see the holes but I did not show the screws.The 3 pictures may be self explanatory but if they are not, and you are interested in knowing more, and have access to a bandsaw, please email me so I can give all the detailed info you need to do it right. I really don't want anyone to get hurt because of something I brought up.
3. The total height of my K30 is now 18"- post hopper reduction. The new outer diameter is 7and 9/16"s. so if you wanted to go shorter you would need to find a smaller lid or make one. Also I'd say the new hopper will hold about 1 and 1/2 pounds of coffee.
Cheers, Garryv

shadowfax wrote:. . . I was duly impressed with the way [the Mahlkönig] works--everything you praise, really, Jason. But I can't help my intuition that it's a grinder that will be like a BMW. The super-hot, maybe a little superficial, high maintenance girlfriend. Good performance, very clean, but how easily will its electronics go, how easy will it be to fix yourself, and how much will parts cost? Maybe I am totally off and they are super reliable in the long term, and easy to repair, but they sure look intimidating vs. a gigantic hunk of aluminum with a single external switch on it that is every Mazzer made until these new whizz-bang Electronic grinders--and even those look impressively geared towards a messy shop (which my bar is not).

Well, it certainly is more BMW M6 than it is VW Beetle (or BMW Izetta, for that matter)

in terms of appearance, but let's hope it's more dependable -- kinda like those old Mercedes 190D models that have driven 300,000+ miles . . .

shadowfax wrote:Anyway, I look forward to reading more feedback from you. I have to take exception to your clumping comment. Cuvée's K30 was extremely clumped--to the point of annoyance. I noticed serious resistance to the clumps breaking against my finger as I was leveling. Granted, that did not stop the roaster from pulling some out-of-this world espresso on their prototype LM 3-group with the classic paddle-wheel groups...

I don't know . . . I can't think it has anything to do with the difference between a K30 and a Vario. That doesn't make sense to me. (And maybe Cuvée's was a Vario?) Was there a design change? Maybe? Perhaps my grinder is "cleaner"? (It was torn down and "professionally" cleaned and tested by the people at Mahlkönig before I picked it up, but wouldn't a café keep their equipment clean, too?) OK, I can't explain it in terms of equipment or beans . . . but -- trust me -- it's MUCH more humid in Houston than it is in California. Could that be a part of it?

perstare wrote:For the longest time, Jason, you were extolling the virtues of the Cimbali Max Hybrid on various threads some of which you started. So it was surprising you relegated the CMH to the office and introduced a Mahlkonig Vario for home . . . Curious to learn if there is a detectable taste distinction in the cup . . .

Right now I'd have to say that the move from Mazzer Mini to CMH remains the most significant jump in quality to my espresso. But the Mahlkönig Vario is definitely easier, neater, quieter, faster, and . . . better? It's at least the equal. (I want to be careful and not let the joy of a new purchase sway my opinion.) Strangely -- now that I think about it -- I never pulled side-by-side shots when I had the two machines together . . . D'Oh!

My original (and completely convoluted) thinking was that, IF the K30 wasn't as good as the CMH, I could probably resell it on eBay for the same price I paid for it. Then, I was thinking I could probably recoup a significant percentage of the cost of the CMH by selling it . . . it is, after all, not that old. But then, I decided to get rid of the the Nuova Simonelli MCF grinder and move the CMH to my office: it may be overkill, but it's significantly better than the NS -- why keep that? The CMH is still in use five days a week (rather than seven, for the K30), and probably grinds 2/3's the amount of coffee a week as does the K30, so it's not that much of a "demotion."

Cheers,
Jason

zin1953 wrote:I don't know . . . I can't think it has anything to do with the difference between a K30 and a Vario. That doesn't make sense to me. (And maybe Cuvée's was a Vario?) Was there a design change? Maybe? Perhaps my grinder is "cleaner"? (It was torn down and "professionally" cleaned and tested by the people at Mahlkönig before I picked it up, but wouldn't a café keep their equipment clean, too?) OK, I can't explain it in terms of equipment or beans . . . but -- trust me -- it's MUCH more humid in Houston than it is in California. Could that be a part of it?

I'd be surprised if your grinder is particularly cleaner... Cuvée isn't a coffee shop so much as a roaster. They let customers come to their cupping labs for free by appointment (totally awesome!). I think it's fairly general wisdom that different beans and atmospheres produce really different clumping levels. My point would be that it's difficult to say that your grinder clumps less than other grinders after a small selection of coffees--I'd think you'd need to experience your grinder at different times of year, with a lot of different coffees of varying roast degree, to finally make that call. As far as I know, clumping has ALWAYS been a "YMMV" type of issue.

And even when you do have 'serious' clumping, it's not a given that it will produce problems in the cup--uneven extractions that lead to imbalanced espresso. We weren't using bottomless portafilters at Cuvée, so I couldn't tell you how even the extractions were. But I an definitely say that the Ditting/Mahlkönig put out some really impressive results in the cup, clumping and all, in the hands of a professional. So... I am not trying to criticize, just share my observations.

As far as the grinder model that I used. It was the same as yours, except it was labeled as a Ditting: Here is a link to Cuvée's product sheet.

You would have to be very careful with the lathe and it would be best to turn it by hand to cut, but if you have a lathe you probably have a band saw anyway. Chuck it in a wood lathe and spin it at 1800rpm, it would probably blow up, 500rpm would probably do the same. At any rate, I surprised your band saw did not melt the plexy or ball it up unless you have an adjustable and can turn the speed way down. That is a huge saw, looks like a 24" or larger, lot bigger than my little 14" Jet.

Back to the Mahlkonig, I have seen them used before in videos and they looked like speed demon grinders. I have never had the opportunity to use one; the Robur is the biggest bean crusher I have used. The R2-D2 body is kind of neat as well. It will be interesting to see how your experience shakes out over the next few months.

networkcrasher wrote:Anyone feel like measuring their lids? I think I need one about 8" in diameter. How big are the Mazzer or Macap lids?
-M

I measured my Mazzer lid. The inside diameter of the lid (the lid is designed to go around the top of the hopper, rather than sit on top with a groove holding it in) is 6 1/8". I measured the outside diameter of my hopper and it is 6 1/16". This is the shorty hopper, but I'm pretty sure they're the same diameter as the regular Mazzer hoppers.

There's no play or slop with the 1/16" difference because of the way the hopper lid gently curves in, accounting for the slight difference and fitting pretty snugly, but without fear of ever getting stuck.

Hope this helps.

Awesome! Thanks Fred. I might actually get this project off the ground soon. Just have to figure out a good place to cut the current hopper to accommodate one of the manufactured lids.

cannonfodder wrote:Back to the Mahlkonig, I have seen them used before in videos and they looked like speed demon grinders. I have never had the opportunity to use one; the Robur is the biggest bean crusher I have used. The R2-D2 body is kind of neat as well. It will be interesting to see how your experience shakes out over the next few months.

It definitely is FAST. I think the big difference between it and a Robur is the robur has a lot more going on with it... You're turning on the grinder, thwacking, looking to turn it off, and then thwacking some more. It's the turn it off part that's hard... I would always overgrind with it.

The K30 is obviously a lot easier - and TONS quieter. I mean it's shockingly quiet.

shadowfax wrote:I'd be surprised if your grinder is particularly cleaner...

So would I! Whether it's a coffee shop or a roaster . . . eithe way, they're professionals, right? So I can't conceive of it being cleaner -- or more precisely, theirs being dirtier -- than mine. I'm just grasping at straws, Nicholas; I never said they were the RIGHT straws!

shadowfax wrote:I think it's fairly general wisdom that different beans and atmospheres produce really different clumping levels. My point would be that it's difficult to say that your grinder clumps less than other grinders after a small selection of coffees--I'd think you'd need to experience your grinder at different times of year, with a lot of different coffees of varying roast degree, to finally make that call. As far as I know, clumping has ALWAYS been a "YMMV" type of issue.

Yeah, I readily admit I haven't used it through various times of the year and with a variety of beans . . . that's what I was trying to get at with my comment re: Houston's humidity.

I'll take some pictures to show my results . . . .

cannonfodder wrote:You would have to be very careful with the lathe and it would be best to turn it by hand to cut, but if you have a lathe you probably have a band saw anyway. Chuck it in a wood lathe and spin it at 1800rpm, it would probably blow up, 500rpm would probably do the same. At any rate, I surprised your band saw did not melt the plexy or ball it up unless you have an adjustable and can turn the speed way down. That is a huge saw, looks like a 24" or larger, lot bigger than my little 14" Jet.

I agree that hand turning would be safer. I'm not sure you could cut all the way through the plastic that way, but nothing bad would happen... I used a 30"Oliver bandsaw. I know what you mean about the plastic melting. It is a problem with some plastics but the plastic in the K30 hopper cut about as well as could be expected, and I was able to clean up the edge with sand paper wrapped around a wood block(220wetdry).

Now back to the mahlkonig. For what it's worth, I also get very little clumping, but I have only ground about 10 different coffees in the grinder thus far and I've only had it for a relatively short time. I also find it to be almost too fast, really quiet,easy to use, and solidly made. I've only compared it to a Rocky and a Cimbali jr (perhaps not fair based on the price difference) but the k30 leaves those two in the dust in every way.
The difference in the cup is very easy to taste.
garryv