JonR10 wrote:For those who wanted to get the burrs as a replacement, did the Marco information indicate that the burrs are held in place magnetically? Wouldn't that indicate a challenge for retrofitting the Tanzania?

Both of the grinders have magnetic fittings.

HB wrote:Hmm-m. If someone posts while you are composing your reply, their post is shown in the edit window and the message "At least one new post has been made to this topic. You may wish to review your post in light of this" is displayed; you must press Submit a second time to confirm to wish to post your message.

Strange, I thought that feature did not exist in HB. I must have somehow missed the warning.

Maybe the best solution is for me to drink more coffee so that I'm alert while browsing through forums.

rmongiovi wrote:Ditting also said the amount of fines would improve after the burrs were broken in - about 3-400 pounds of coffee. I calculate that will take me about 11 years.

The 5th graph on this page from the Marco blog http://marco.ie/uberproject/?p=401 shows the results of "seasoning" the burrs by glass beading.

to give the teeth a consistent output with no 'scraggly' bits,

I may try a VERY light glass beading of my 804 machined burrs to see if I can speed up the break-in as it could be 10 years before I run 400lbs through these burrs.

I know I don't post here as much but if anyone has any questions then - as an owner of one of the grinders, and being vaguely involved in its creation - I can try my best to answer them.

The burr housing is indeed unique to the grinder, so you can't retrofit the burrs into a Tanzania. There are a couple of other changes to do with the bag clip and shaker, but the body of the grinder is pretty similar.

It may well produce less fines than other grinders but I'd still like to see less. We've brewed (and measured) a lot of cups of different coffees using it. As I said - any questions, I'll do my best?

It looks to me that any media blasting is detrimental. I wouldn't blast at all based on the the anecdotal statement that it might break in after 400lbs given that the data suggests that 60seconds has a marked decrease in performance. Seems like a good way to screw up your burrs hoping for a slight increase in performance before rapidly degrading. Looks like there is a very fine line between seasoned and degraded if that sharpening of the peak even exists.

60 seconds was too long & did remove too much material. Hardly surprising if you've done much blasting. Lightly blasting the burrs to knock down the irregularities, pretty much what you'd expect to see with fully seasoned burrs, did improve performance/reduce fines according to the blog. As I mentioned before 400lbs is going to be WAY down the road for me so I plan to experiment with a quick clean up of the burr surface in my blast cabinet.

King Seven wrote:It may well produce less fines than other grinders but I'd still like to see less. We've brewed (and measured) a lot of cups of different coffees using it. As I said - any questions, I'll do my best?

Do you know of any grinder that would produce even less fines?

My understanding is that big industrial roller grinders produce significantly less fines. At least if you compare your supermarket coffee to home ground, the difference is huge.

I think the resulting burrset were the best Ditting felt they could do when it comes to fines reduction with flat burrs. I'd really like to learn more about roller mills, and their resulting grind profiles.