pjizzy wrote:Add these two together and you have just shy of 30 grams. Ouch! I speculate that this experiment might not be very accurate, while the displacement of stale to fresh coffee might give dissimilar results with their more similar densities.]

Seems pretty accurate. It would therefore suggest since you came to your conclusion based on rice purging, and I've come up with a similar figure for straight residual grounds, that it would at least be a fairly linear displacement of stale coffee.

Chris--I did the rice test on my grinder, both with my routine chute sweeps and without them. In short, you're right about how bad it is with a full chute. My test results suggest that it may be even worse than the Robur E, as the lack of the anti-static screen means that the chute never really fills up entirely, preferring to fill up mostly and then throw the coffee out primarily through the upper-right corner. The 'stopped up' sections of the chute seem to slowly mix with the high-velocity section, but again the operative word is slowly. With my ritual chute-sweeping, it's pretty decent, as the empty chute seems to free it to "throw" the full contents of each vane in the grinding chamber as it passes by the chute. The problem, though, is that the output is a lot more statically charged upon exit with the empty chute, so the entire doser gets peppered, and even the grinds in the bottom part cling to the sides of the vanes and the sides of the doser that aren't swept. This is no surprise (my Robur has been like this since I bought it, of course), but it becomes a serious source of mess when you're thinking of converting to doserless. From what I can see right now, the basic Robur design presents the would-be doserless converter (including Mazzer themselves with the E model) with a choice between extremely messy static from a fully purged chute, or a rather wasteful purgation of spent grinds, whatever the exact cause of that may be.

Anyway, I'll post more details and some photos from my test when I get a chance.

This really is a very interesting thread. Wonderful sharing of experience and information.

Many thanks.

I drink around 6-8 a day, most days, with my wife having her own arrangements (Illy preground and Moka pot) and only sometimes concocting for her, or friends or our son.

So as you can imagine I am trying to weigh up the cup differences with the potential waste issues that are being highlighted here.

I've read through the TGP several times, so have swotted up on the SJ vs. Robur. Most of the comparisons of the SJ to Major seem to concentrate on clumping and speed, rather than differences in the cup and there seems very little on Major vs. Robur cup differences, so its helpful to know that the general feeling is that it's somewhere between the SK and Robur but possibly much closer to the former than the latter... I'm thinking of getting a second grinder because I like drinking different beans through the day, which is why I'm asking.

Then of course there's the Elektra.....

I really don't think I could bring myself to chuck out a double or two every morning....

Cheers

Mike

Moderator note: posts relating to the Kony E's waste from Short Hopper Mod for Mazzer Kony have been merged to this topic. See the original thread for context.

misterdoggy wrote:Everything is clean clean clean.

You sure?



I'd be interested to hear you chime in about what level of coffee is held up behind the screen, and how you deal with that (just purging the waste in the morning, etc.).

Hey Nicholas,

When I meant clean clean clean, I was talking about the work area which was messy messy messy with the doser.

The question about how much retention in the shoot and burrs is a a good one. I don't think I can become so fanatical that I will have to only use the 18g beans going in the machine then clean it after every use.

I have not cracked it open yet to see, but I've read somewhere in a thread that the amount of grinds left in a conical is more than in the flat burrs. That there is a "buildup" that doesn't move along and only comes out with a cleaning but can't report first hand whether or not its true.

In 7 seconds the machine produces 18g approx and by running 1 1/2 seconds first I'm throwing away 4-5g of coffee in the chute. Is this enough ? Well maybe I ought to empty out the chute and weigh it, but I'll bet its close.

In short, not really. Its not only the 'compacted' grinds in the chute, but also the coffee in the chamber that will stale overnight. Have a read through the thread to see what we are talking about. Caked on coffee, to me at least, isn't much of a concern since its not going to come out the chute the next time either. I can't recall seeing Kony figures, but based on my experience with the Robur I would have thought more like a solid doubles worth of grinds as a 'purge' first thing in the morning would be more appropriate. Cheers, Chris

Thanks Chris

Very Interesting indeed

There is more place in the conical grinder for stale grinds to rest.

No matter what you do, there is always a certain amount of stale grinds attached to all kinds of areas ie: burr chamber, Burrs themselves, chute etc, and if you really want 1000% clean new coffee, you would have to clean everything after each shot (wouldn't be surprised if some do)

I will shoot out a double before each session then....

I purge 8-10 grams after the grinder sits more than 2 minutes, or when changing grind. Basically, I fill the double basket 1/2 full or a bit more, then dump the coffee. If I purge less than this, I can definitely taste the difference in the cup. I find that these big conical grinders amplify the nastiness of stale coffee as well as accentuating the positive.

-Mike

So if a 7 second timer produces about 18g I will set the single for purging to 3.5 seconds and 9g approx should do the trick.

Basically this means that we throw away almost 30 to 40% of the coffee we buy. ?

No, I purge only once at the beginning of a session, if the grind is not adjusted, and if I use only one type of beans. Grind adjustments are rare, once dialed in, from day to day, with the coffees I use.

-mike

mivanitsky wrote:No, I purge only once at the beginning of a session, if the grind is not adjusted, and if I use only one type of beans. Grind adjustments are rare, once dialed in, from day to day, with the coffees I use.

What's a 'session' entail? I have a no more than two or three 'sessions' with my machine, usually one or two doppios per, a day. This would mean that I'd be burning eight or nine grams (call it a singles worth) of coffee every session, or three shots a day? Compared to my average of this ends up being from twenty to thirty percent of the coffee I buy, going straight from the grinder into the knockbox.
I'd rather measure per-shot, and brush every last crumb and grind into the basket.

Psyd wrote:I'd rather measure per-shot, and brush every last crumb and grind into the basket.

Not really an option. Grind changes without the bean weight on top, and a painful task to brush out since the static screen gets in the way. On the Robur-E, its really only achievable if you run the grinder dry (which ejects roughly half of the remnants, but results in grind change). Then with some 'tools' you can remove most of the rest with manipulation and pulsing. I agree with Mike, best bet is to purge before a session. How often this needs to be done is dependent on your palate. For me on the Robur-E, it needed 2 doubles worth in the morning and that was that. My coffee drinking is over in the am, spread over two sessions, but I didn't feel the need redo it for the second an hour or two later.

I am sure its a great grinder, the Robur-E certainly is, but it is not designed for home use. If you want the grind quality it provides, you have to live with a certain amount of waste or inconvenience in a home (low volume) setting. Cafe use is an entirely different story.

Cheers, Chris

Psyd wrote:What's a 'session' entail? I have a no more than two or three 'sessions' with my machine, usually one or two doppios per, a day. This would mean that I'd be burning eight or nine grams (call it a singles worth) of coffee every session, or three shots a day? Compared to my average of this ends up being from twenty to thirty percent of the coffee I buy, going straight from the grinder into the knockbox.
I'd rather measure per-shot, and brush every last crumb and grind into the basket.

For me, a session is 3-6 doubles, with 1-2 sessions per day, depending on guests' coffee consumption. Even if it's just me in one session, the ratio never would be above 20% waste once dialed in. This is currently the cost of doing business with these grinders. Coffee to me is the cheap part of the equation, for most of my homeroasted stuff. I occasionally wish I had a B.Vario for really expensive stuff (e.g. El Soccorro from Barefoot), but then, the taste I get from the Kony-E eases the pain of coffee waste. That said, a major reason I got the Kony instead of the Robur was the difference in retained coffee.

-mike

Paul demonstrated in the other above referred thread that the Robur ejects approx 11g of grinds left in the chamber and chute on a Robur.

Since the Robur has 71mm Burrs, it would stand to reason that the Kony has a smaller chamber with 63mm burrs and therefore should have less to purge ?

The ONLY real way to judge is to do the same exact test on a Kony.

I have it dialed in perfectly and hate to mess with it for the moment, but the next time I do a cleaning I will foto and weigh.

But guesstimate would say slightly less

misterdoggy wrote:Paul demonstrated in the other above referred thread that the Robur ejects approx 11g of grinds left in the chamber and chute on a Robur.

The real problem is the additional 17g in the chamber waiting to get to the chute.

misterdoggy wrote:Since the Robur has 71mm Burrs, it would stand to reason that the Kony has a smaller chamber with 63mm burrs and therefore should have less to purge ?

Sounds fair.

misterdoggy wrote:I have it dialed in perfectly and hate to mess with it for the moment, but the next time I do a cleaning I will foto and weigh.

Make sure you stop grinding while there is a weight of beans still in the hopper. Remove all beans in the hopper, vacuum out from the top, then weigh everything left in the chute and chamber. That will be your figure.

Cheers, Chris

The real problem is the additional 17g in the chamber waiting to get to the chute

In Paul's foto's, he emptied the chamber and chute and arrived at 11g total for both

misterdoggy wrote:In Paul's foto's, he emptied the chamber and chute and arrived at 11g total for both

Not quite.

Since my Robur grinds a double (17-18grams) in 3.0 sec's, one could estimate that this is the amount of coffee it would take to displace stale with fresh coffee once that fresh coffee appeared at the chute opening. You would then have to add the weight of stale grinds already in the chute and chamber that was purged before the fresh coffee appeared at the opening. I weighed the amount of grinds left behind in the chamber as well as chute after grinding which equaled a little over 11 grams. Add these two together and you have just shy of 30 grams. Ouch! I speculate that this experiment might not be very accurate, while the displacement of stale to fresh coffee might give dissimilar results with their more similar densities.

But I actually weighed it all as well... 11g in the chute, 17g in the chamber, or thereabouts.

gyro wrote:Surprising (on the bad side) I was able to liberate 28 grams. This purposely did not include perhaps another gram of caked on grounds that I assumed was there for the long haul, and therefore not likely to influence things.

Anyway, we digress a bit off topic. If you do take your Kony-E apart to clean, I'm sure it would be useful to post your results in the other thread for people's reference.

Cheers, Chris

I took apart the Kony and was surprised to see a chamber full of grinds. The total weight of the chamber plus the chute was close to the results for the robur at 16.3g to 16.5g

Full Chamber - How much stays put and how much moves on ??


Clean Chamber


Grinds that came out


Weight which is close as I am sure to have lost a minor amount

misterdoggy wrote:Full Chamber - How much stays put and how much moves on ??

On that part, the flat, cracked, compressed bits of coffee tend to stay there on my Robur. I've never gotten it to fall off like yours did (usually it comes up with the top carrier and I have to brush it off from there), but in general that is the area of the top burr carrier that's not properly swept by the vanes of the lower burr carrier, and it will likely have minimal if any mixing during normal operation. However, I imagine it can foul over time and negatively effect your coffee, so you probably want to pull the carrier every couple of weeks and clean it out as you have above.

So, that should save you some grinds in terms of the total that's backed up in your grind path. On the other hand, such a large chute won't purge as a FIFO (first in first out) queue... some of the fresh grinds will come out as you purge, and there will be some degree of mixing between the stale coffee and fresh coffee. From that perspective, you're really looking to purge till you have the ratio of stale to fresh coffee down to something that won't detectably effect taste. I'd guess about 15-20 grams will do this for you on the Kony; It's naturally somewhat more on the Robur, as the guys documented.

I'd also note that it's a good idea to be careful with grind changes on the Mazzer E's. It seems like it takes at least a shot for the grind adjustment to take effect, as expected, but there's also some drift that occurs over the next few shots as the mixing of adjusted and pre-adjusted grinds, as well as the change in the dose the grinder produces at the given grind. This can make your grinder a little more of a pain to dial in and give the impression of inconsistency. If I were using one day-to-day, I would try and get the grind about right for the dose that I want and then adjust shot time/volume with small dose adjustments using the timer. Anyway, that's just a suggestion and I'd be curious to hear how it works for you if you try it, or how whatever other method you may use works for you.