I think white-out would be "too thick" and may not accomplish what you want. But hey - try it - thinning it down with your finger. I tried the "permanent marker" pen on glass and I couldn't even get it to rub off on my finger with a light press/pass so that's why I said metal to metal transfer would be, er questionable but maybe there's different types of markers - who knows?

The other point would be how tight (or loose) do you screw the upper carrier down to "zero" ? Most contact checks of machinery are performed with the only "force" being the weight of the member being checked. Then, regardless of what you find, you can always rotate either of the burrs 120 degrees(?) to POSSIBLY effect a better contact and tighten as Kristi suggested in a previous post. The specs that you might be interested in such as parallelism of burrs/burr carriers, vertical runout of lower burr/burr carrier, radial runout of burrs are, for all practical purposes, unobtainable unless you work for the OEM and, even then, you best have the need to know.

Eric S.

Yeah, white out probably doesn't taste too great when extracted along with espresso, but it definitely proved a point.
I went through and covered the outer rim of the lower burr with white out. Then I screwed in the top burr with the bottom burr rotating until they just touched, then screwed it back out. Below is the before and after result.

before:

after:


Needless to say I cleaned the burrs very well after this experiment . But obviously, they are not aligned properly. A large portion of the white out was rubbed off by the top burr while the other 2/3 of the rim was unaffected. No one is going to convince me that this is 'normal' or an 'optical illusion'...
In addition, I measured the actual RPM of the burrs just for kicks. There is a gear reduction system in this grinder and the burrs only spin around 476 RPM. The method used to measure it was creative to say the least, but it was repeatable. By comparison how fast do the Rocky burrs spin?

Update:
So I machined my tamper so the bottom is now perfectly perpendicular to the handle. I also made the base thinner so it lines up with the rim of the basket nicely and it's much easier to get a level tamp.
I then called Chris Coffee and spoke to someone whose name I don't remember, and he suggested trying to shim the bottom burr slightly to make it more level. If that failed, call again to ask for a return. So I shimmed it much closer to being parallel and ran some taste tests. So far I'm consistently finding that the Quick Mill brings outs harsher, metallic tastes in the espresso whereas the little conical grinder produces a much smoother flavor profile. I'm just as baffled by it as you may be. But the desire for a new grinder still stands.. I'm not ready to spend the kind of money required for a Macap or a Mazzer right now, and based on these results I don't know if a Rocky will be any improvement. I'll be calling Chris on Tuesday to return the grinder, unless someone has any ideas as to why this is happening. Thanks for the help everyone.

Thanks for the update. Chris' has a buyer's remorse policy and you're well within the window. I would return it for inspection and repair / replacement, or upgrade to Rocky.

Just get the Kony, it is only $1000 more.

cannonfodder wrote:Just get the Kony, it is only $1000 more.

Heh, wouldn't that be nice...
I think I'll just scour eBay for some old commercial grinder coming out of a closed coffee shop or something and find replacement burrs. I found an old Faema grinder once at this old place sitting in a warehouse unused for years, but the guy wouldn't part with it for any price. Made me sad. Seems like something like that would be the best way to go though; no point in buying something brand new.

Dan, do you honestly think a Rocky would be an improvement?

oofnik wrote:Dan, do you honestly think a Rocky would be an improvement?

I don't know, I've never used the Quickmill grinder. I only mentioned it because I assumed you wanted an alternative and the Rocky has long, solid track record.

Oofnik, can you give us an update on your progress? I'm considering this grinder too but considering your concerns makes me a bit hesitant. I'm with you regarding the alignment issue.

oofnik wrote:
I also remember reading a study conducted using a particle analyzer comparing the grind uniformity of several commercial grinders, both flat burr and conical. There were graphs similar to a that of a spectrum analyzer, showing the percent spread of the different particle sizes. I wish I could find it.

I believe you refer to Teme's grinder analysis:

Espresso Passione wrote:
Looking at the graphs, the first thing I notice is that the flat burr grinders have similar particle size distribution while the conical burr grinder does really stand out. Taking a closer look and comparing the flat burr grinders, one can see that the Ascaso i1 has more fines as well as a wider distribution in the size of the larger particles. The Mazzer and Mahlkoenig have a more uniform grind, the Mahlkoenig very slightly more so, but on the other hand it also has more fines than the Mazzer. As far as I understand, you do need some fines to hold the puck together and achieve a balanced cup, so is this a good or a bad thing?

(cont'd)

I honestly have to say that you have to take the analysis I did (with the help of others that think alike) with a pinch of salt. One must note that the test environment was not as controlled as it should be in a "serious" comparison test. Also, the only conical grinder in there (the conical Innova) is a relatively inexpensive one. In addition to a more controled test, I would have liked to include the LM conical (or an another quality conical grinder) to give a bit more perspective on the conical grinders vs the flat burr ones.

Furthermore, I did not have the opportunity to do side by side taste comparisons, which I believe is more important than the graphs.

Having said this, I was happy to see that the results more or less supported the common knowledge that you get what you pay for.

Br,
Teme

Hey thanks for resurrecting my thread
Well, to be honest I've kind of lost faith in my current espresso machine. I've had channeling problems for too long that I just can't seem to fix. I mean there is a limit to how many pounds of coffee and hours of time I'm willing to waste trying to get a decent espresso shot before I throw the towel in. Not on espresso entirely, but on my machine. So I went on eBay and got a great deal on an older Wega Mininova. It works, but the frame is pretty badly damaged (thread), so I've got a whole new headache to take care of.

I picked up an Aerobie Aeropress out of curiosity. I have seen people on CG rave about these little plastic toys, and I must say it makes a pretty good cup for the price! Great travel addition. Anyway, I've been using the Quick Mill grinder set at my normal espresso setting for the Aeropress. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, after pressing you are left with a puck of ground coffee not much different from that of an espresso machine. However, the fines like to settle to the bottom while the coarse grinds float to the top, and I've noticed quite a significant difference in particle size using the grinder. I'll try to snap a picture of it next time, but you can clearly see two separate layers in the puck, one of flour-like consistency and the other at about what espresso grind should look like. I wonder if this amount of coffee dust is normal. Anyone out there with an Aeropress care to confirm/deny this?

edit: Aeropress puck picture here.