Hi

I've just got a 2nd hand Mazzer Royal from eBay and I can't get it to grind fine enough for espresso.

When I got the grinder I took it apart to clean it, removing the lower burr carrier and disassembling the doser. Once I got it all back together I noticed that it wouldn't grind fine enough for espresso and after reading around I thought it might be the burrs but after replacing them the problem persists.

I have tried to see if there is any visible "wobble" in the lower burr carrier but I can't see anything.

With the power off, I tightened it until the burrs touch and I found that there is a point where I can rotate the lower burr carrier by hand and the burrs only touch (lower burr carrier "sticks") for part of the rotation. If I tighten while running the grinder, I get a metallic ding-ding-ding noise at this point.

Does this mean the alignment is off? Is there anything that can be done to fix the grinder or is it a write-off?

Any help gratefully received!

Jon

That definitely means the burrs arent aligned, which would prevent you from grinding fine enough for espresso. Did it grind fine enough before you took it apart? Or did you check? If it did its probably something easy to fix.

Thanks for the advice.

dustin360 wrote:Did it grind fine enough before you took it apart? Or did you check?

Sadly, I didn't check... I ran some coffee through it and seem to remember it was a little coarse, but I didn't try to tighten it up before I started cleaning.

I've not laid hands on a Mazzer before so it's entirely possible I've caused the problem by doing something stupid. The grinder is built like a tank though and I certainly haven't taken a hammer to it, or dropped it.

I will try removing and re-seating the burrs again and see if that helps, otherwise I think I'll have to try taking the lower burr carrier off again and see if I somehow put that back wrongly. (Any tips for locking the lower burr carrier in position while removing or replacing it? I jammed it with a piece of wood last time, but that was not easy!)

One thing I don't really understand is how an alignment issue will only cause the burrs to touch for (roughly) 25% of a rotation. With reference to the diagram at the top of this thread, if the alignment is off, surely the burrs will be in contact for an entire revolution (although obviously only part of the top burr is scraping)? Or have I misunderstood?

Thanks
Jon

HB wrote:Are the burrs sharp? See How to know grinder burrs are worn out? to confirm.

Thanks for the suggestion - I tried replacing the burrs with some new ones (bought from BillC on this forum, actually!) and unfortunately it made no difference.

Both sets seem to touch for part of a rotation as I bring the burrs close to the zero point.

HB wrote:See Removing Mazzer lower burr carrier.

That's actually the method I used to remove the carrier - although I only had 2 bolts. The bit I found hardest was putting the carrier back again. I pushed the carrier back down the shaft by tighening the central bolt that holds it in as I didn't want to hammer it but it was extremely difficult to stop it rotating while I did this. That said, I did it once, so I can do it again - I was just asking in case ther was an easier way.

Thanks
Jon

Well, while trying to remove the lower burr carrier again I think I broke something important.

I was using the 3 screw method to lever it off and I heard a crack. At this point I realised that the burr carrier was about 2-3mm higher but it was pulling the motor axle up with it. I suspect the crack was the bearings as the carrier no longer freely rotates.

Please note, this is definitely not a criticism of the 3 screw method - I used this a few weeks ago and it worked flawlessly. I think the problem in this case was the way I put the burr carrier back as I had to use a lot of force to get it back in place.

Fixing this is beyond my limited engineering skills so I'm going to have to try and sell it for parts. If anyone reading this (based in the UK) is interested in buying a broken Mazzer Royal, PM me, otherwise I'll be putting it back on eBay (clearly marked as broken, obviously) something in the next week.

On the plus side, I've just won an auction for a reconditioned Super Jolly. More importantly, it doesn't need any work or cleaning.

Jon

If you are still having problems try this:

Now i know this sounds scary but put the unit on a firm surface and give the top of the bottom burr carrier a sharp crack with a bigish hammer. Make sure the top bolt is in place so you don't damage the threds (essentially what you need to hit is the top of the bolt!) Hit it square and harder than you really feel comfortable with. Like i said scary to do this to such an expensive piece of kit but trust me it'll free it up. These machines are (as someone else said) built like a tank so you won't kill it! What this achieves is it sets the bearings back into their housings, you pulled them out while removing the carrier - this will bed them in to where they sould be and so will also cure the off centre grinding problem.