I've had the Quick Mill doserless stepless grinder for a few months now, and until this day I've never really felt like I've spent my $270 well. I was thinking that spending this amount of money would provide me with a grinder capable of producing better espresso than the one built into my La Pavoni machine, with its resin burr carrier and little 30mm conical burrs. I've tried just about everything with this grinder and it just seems like either I'm incompetent or the thing is defective.

The first thing that led me to believe that something is up with the grinder is when I tried to find the zero point, there was a distinctive sound that indicated that only a small area of the burrs were touching. Nearing certain death for the burrs, I went a bit further and sure enough, the sound became more and more consistent - a pretty good sign that something is not parallel.

So to find out for sure, I took it all apart. There's this square shaft that sticks out from the bottom burr assembly, and I've noticed that it's not exactly centered. But that's no indication of the alignment of the bottom burr as they're not on one solid machined piece of metal. So anyway, I unscrewed the bottom burr and carefully lowered a pen onto the spinning carrier. The wobble was very noticeable, and so was the fact that the ink only showed up on one side. So obviously something is off balance. Maybe not by much, but enough to be considered excessive for a $270 piece of equipment in my opinion. Everything I've read has preached uniform grind over and over, and I can see with my own eyes that this grinder is producing bits of coffee that are of different sizes. So what do you all think? Am I being obsessive or is there seriously something wrong with my grinder?

There's another possibility: The grinder is defective and you are crazy. OK, bad joke, but you may want to read La Cimbali Junior - Burr "Wobble"? The irregular sound of the burrs touching and the look of them spinning can be deceptive. Have you called Chris' Coffee for their technicians' take on it? It's a new grinder and they may be willing to swap it out.

Well, we all have to be a little crazy to spend the kind of money we do on machines that make coffee, right?
Back to the point, though, I read through the thread about the Cimbali grinder. From Mr. Azzarello himself:

3) The final method for evaluating whether your burrs are aligned is by setting them so they are slightly in contact with each other. At the point of contact, they will make a high pitched sound, which should remain uniform and constant during rotation.

This is most definitely not the case with my grinder. It seems like the Cimbali people had a slight ego trip in that thread, stating with confidence that it was pretty much impossible for a grinder to be misaligned. They failed to acknowledge the possibility of something being broken during shipment, or perhaps the possibility that someone in the factory came into work a little hung over. There is no such thing as absence of some degree of manufacturing defect. If a company threw out all of their products that weren't perfect, everything would cost a great deal more than it does now. It just isn't feasible, and the same rule even applies to espresso machine equipment manufacturers.

I think I'll call Chris tomorrow to see what they think about the issue. I'm sitting here examining the spent puck of my muddy, bitter tasting espresso of 10 day old beans, and I'm finding both chunks and bits of coffee dust. This can't be right.

Let us know what Chris & company say. I don't dispute there is potentially a problem, but your comment made me wonder:

oofnik wrote:So anyway, I unscrewed the bottom burr and carefully lowered a pen onto the spinning carrier. The wobble was very noticeable, and so was the fact that the ink only showed up on one side. So obviously something is off balance. Maybe not by much, but enough to be considered excessive for a $270 piece of equipment in my opinion.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless this grinder is wildly out of whack, aren't we still talking about thousandths of an inch tolerances? I haven't been able to hold something that steady for years.

What do your extractions look like? I would suggest trying something like the needle stirring distribution method to ensure even coffee in the portafilter. Then make sure your tamp is perfect. After that see how the extraction is, if it's even then the grinder is probably fine. I'm assuming you have a bottomless portafilter here, not quite so easy otherwise.

HB wrote:Let us know what Chris & company say. I don't dispute there is potentially a problem, but your comment made me wonder:


Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless this grinder is wildly out of whack, aren't we still talking about thousandths of an inch tolerances? I haven't been able to hold something that steady for years.

Hehe.. good point. Maybe I've overestimated my ability!
I did anchor the pen to the side of the grinder quite strongly however. And I'm still a kid, relative to the age of the folks on here it seems.. not even into my 20s yet, so I've still got that whole youth thing going, you know, hearing high pitch sounds, non-jitteryness, yeah, sort of.

Anyway, yes, it is a difference of a few thousandths for sure. But I wouldn't expect the wobble to be noticeable by my unaided hand. Also, aren't espresso grinds also just several thousands of an inch in size? So if one grind is, say six thousands, and the other one 13-something, that's not very uniform.

Maybe I'm being a little obsessive compulsive and splitting hairs here, but I'll call and find out anyway, because I don't like to spend my hard-earned student money on something that doesn't do any better of a job than something else I already have, you know what I mean?

Everman wrote:What do your extractions look like? I would suggest trying something like the needle stirring distribution method to ensure even coffee in the portafilter. Then make sure your tamp is perfect. After that see how the extraction is, if it's even then the grinder is probably fine. I'm assuming you have a bottomless portafilter here, not quite so easy otherwise.

Yes, I usually grind into a small container and stir up the grinds with a circular motion with a toothpick before emptying into my PF. I'm having an issue with my tamper, though, which is definitely not helping my extractions. Basically it's way too tall and it is extremely difficult to get a perfectly level tamp. I plan to chuck it back on the lathe this weekend when I have a chance to remedy this however.

I am using a bottomless PF. I usually get a few jets here and there, and some dead spots, despite trying very fresh roasts and at least a two dozen combinations of different distribution techniques, dosages, etc.

First, I don't think, in all the different grinders I have owned in this relatively short time, that any has really sounded like the whole burr was in contact at light zero.

Second, I remember that I was told or read a while back that one should tighten the 3 screws holding the burr to the carrier in the same way that one is supposed to tighten the bolts on an auto tyre - lightly at first and alternating, and then slowly with more force, again alternating. The idea is to let all the bolts help in centering the burr on the carrier. You might try that to both the upper and lower and see if it makes any difference.

oofnik wrote:And I'm still a kid, relative to the age of the folks on here it seems.. not even into my 20s yet, so I've still got that whole youth thing going, you know, hearing high pitch sounds, non-jitteryness, yeah, sort of.

oofnik wrote:I'm having an issue with my tamper, though, which is definitely not helping my extractions. Basically it's way too tall and it is extremely difficult to get a perfectly level tamp.

I never thought that I'd see the day when someone said "...relative to the age of the folks on here" and they were referring to me. Hey whippersnapper, if I knew where you lived, I'd hit you with my cane! Better yet, I'd send one of my kids on their scooter to your place to show you how to tamp properly.

Seriously, an unlevel tamp would readily explain the inconsistencies you report.

Hey man, you said it yourself! Haha, I was just joking though. They say "respect your elders" for a reason right?
Yeah, I'm going to get the tamper fixed up most probably over the weekend, so that should help make it much easier to get a level tamp.
If Chris decides that there's nothing wrong with my grinder, I might just have to take the lower burr carrier right out and chuck it in the lathe too, just to satisfy my own obsessive intentions...
Having a father with a hobby of restoring vintage British motorcycles sure is a great compliment to espresso machine part modification and fabrication. We use the same machinery all the time!

But seriously, I can see an actual difference in particle size in the ground coffee. If I can see it with my naked eye, I'm pretty sure there's something fishy going on, even if my tamp isn't completely 100% absolutely perfect.