My main grinder is an Elektra Nino, with which I have to say I am extremely pleased.

Unfortunately, I drink at least two different types of coffee in a day, generally a couple of singles of something like a Yirgacheffee for breakfast and then darker things as the day progresses.

The Nino is immensely convenient, requiring comparatively little work over distribution and having very low grind retention. But for consistent timed dosing you need to keep a decent height of beans in the hopper, which means it's not really that suitable for chopping and changing beans throughout the day.

At the same time I have been offered a potentially good deal on a dosered Robur, which would be a lot cheaper than adding a second Nino and possibly more versatile if there is any hope of actually using a Robur successfully for single dosing: weighing the dose out, dropping the beans in the throat, covering it with a little cup or 58mm basket or tamper and then just grinding everything through.

Has anyone tried this or is anyone doing it on a regular basis? If so how is working out?

I can get away with it on my Super Jolly and know that the Major is even more suited to single dosing, but then these are fast flat burrs. I have no idea whether it would work on the slower-moving conical burrs on the Robur, which also has very different behaviour regarding grind retention.

The Nino's spoilt me and now I want this grind quality throughout the day

So..... please help!

michaelbenis wrote:...is any hope of actually using a Robur successfully for single dosing: weighing the dose out, dropping the beans in the throat, covering it with a little cup or 58mm basket or tamper and then just grinding everything through.

Has anyone tried this or is anyone doing it on a regular basis? If so how is working out?

This is what I do every day (except that I use a small hopper with the sliding gate - no tamper on the beans. It works fine for me.

I weigh the beans, load into the hopper, start the grinder and then open the slide and close it again (to keep beans from flying out). I grind the dose through, stop the motor and brush the chute with a 1/2" paintbrush. It takes a couple of "bump & brush" cycles to clear the grounds path and chute, but if reasonably careful I get the same weighed dose in the portafilter as I started with (± 0.2g)

+1 That's how I operated during most of the TGP, and I experienced no problems.

Michael,
I've been following your interest in Mazzer grinders for the past 6 months or so. As I've commented on previously I have both a Robur and Major doserless at home. My experience is that for you're intended use the Major is much better suited to small and or single doses (flavour profile notwithstanding). In the 8 months I've been using these grinders (just passed the 1000 dose mark on the Major, 750 on the Robur) I've reached the conclusion that if I could only have one it would be the Major. I've also noted that depending on which type of machine I'm using (lever or pump, commercial or consumer) the flavour advantages of the Robur diminish significantly. Soon I'll be taking the Robur to a place where it gets a lot more use and can start living up to its potential.

JonR10 wrote:This is what I do every day (except that I use a small hopper with the sliding gate

I weigh the beans, load into the hopper, start the grinder and then open the slide

Start the grinder and *then* open the gate? To what advantage over just opening the gate and letting the beans sit in the chamber when you start? I do the same thing, short of dropping the beans on the moving burrs with my major, but I can load a second shot on the gate if I'm pulling two in a row.

Oh, and the other thing I wanted to know is; if the Robur's conical burrs have a gap, similar to the Major's, under the burrs where grinds accumulate?

Psyd wrote:Oh, and the other thing I wanted to know is; if the Robur's conical burrs have a gap, similar to the Major's, under the burrs where grinds accumulate?

Yes, I believe the Robur's chamber is of the same proportion. It has massively wide sweepers, and grinds accumulate and pack tightly in the space above the sweepers on the bottom of the top burr/burr carrier.


Robur top burr + carrier.

Basically, the entire base as seen here gets coated with ~1/8" of ultra-packed stale coffee. It's particularly fun to dig out of the screw holes. I think I'd recommend cleaning it (taking the top off and brushing it all out) weekly or so, more often if you have an affinity for darker-roasted coffee.

Another Robur alternative worth considering is the Compak K10 WBC (see discussions). In my experience, it is less sensitive to how much coffee is in the hopper than the Mazzers, thanks to its narrow throat and slower burr rotation speed. However, it retains a lot of coffee in the chute and it doesn't have the tank-like build of a Mazzer. I like the K10's small(er) footprint and dosing better than the Mazzer's.

shadowfax wrote:Yes, I believe the Robur's chamber is of the same proportion. It has massively wide sweepers, and grinds accumulate and pack tightly in the space above the sweepers on the bottom of the top burr/burr carrier.

The Major's burrs have a raised ridge at the back of the burr (the face that does *not* grind beans, but is against the carrier) that allows broken beans bits to accumulate between the carrier and the burr. Are we saying the same thing? It's kinda hard to tell...

Psyd wrote:Are we saying the same thing? It's kinda hard to tell...

Flat burrs have a slightly different geometry when it comes to the coffee exit, and as such they do look a little different in terms of where and how coffee builds up in the chamber, but the principle is the same (indeed, on every grinder I've ever seen, but the quantities get massive with most of the titans--Nino is the only exception I know of). So it's not really a ridge per se; it's just a flat plate with 4 screw holes and a ridge where the top burr meets the carrier. The bottom burr carrier does the sweeping and there is headspace in between it and the top burr/carrier, where the coffee packs, and starts to look and smell awful after awhile:


Dirty Kony Upper Burr & Carrier by Dave Stephens, from The TGP

That's just the 'tiny' Kony carrier. The Major and Robur have a larger housing that holds more of the stuff you love.

shadowfax wrote:The bottom burr carrier does the sweeping and there is headspace in between it and the top burr/carrier, where the coffee packs, and starts to look and smell awful after awhile:

Now, doesn't that space get emptied with every new grind that goes through? Is that grind retention til the next shot, or simply grind retention?

My Majors (both) after being disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled, will take an 18g dose and return 16.2g. The next 18g dose might return 17.5, and the subsequent dose returns 17.8. That lost two and a half to three grams is something that will live under the burrs (technically, between the burrs and the carriers) until the next disassembly and cleaning. Every dose, from about the third dose or fourth dose on, after that will weigh the same coming out of the grinder as it did going in.