whitedime wrote:I found removing the screen helped ENORMOUSLY

You noticed a change in the taste after removing the screen?

fdpiton wrote:You noticed a change in the taste after removing the screen?

no, all the clumping was gone, and the grinds don't have to be forced out through the screen anymore. so its made better extracted coffee, so yes it tasted better.

That is a good thing to know,thanks.

Luckily so far minimal issues with clumping.

whitedime wrote:no, all the clumping was gone, and the grinds don't have to be forced out through the screen anymore. so its made better extracted coffee, so yes it tasted better.

Any issues with static retention inside the cone?

fdpiton wrote:That is a good thing to know,thanks.

Luckily so far minimal issues with clumping.

My Mazzer has a similar screen and I opted not to remove it, although I did remove the finger guard in the cone in order to be able to clean up better. The reason that I left the screen is that I switch coffees a lot and some beans can suffer from static resulting in clumping and poor flow. As long as you understand that grinding different beans results in different levels of static you can choose to use the screen or not. Besides, as time goes on I am becoming less convinced as to the significance of clumping. Assuming the coffee is roughly level in the filter, if you apply 30 lbs of pressure to a clumpy grind vs a non-clumpy grind you are not going to notice the difference in the mouth. No, you are not, even if you think you are. No. Nope. However, if you add 4 grams of day-old retention (stuck behind a screen) to your shot, then you could very well notice the difference.

Kellyk wrote:Any issues with static retention inside the cone?

a little dust sometimes, I just used a little brush and sweep everything out each day, no big deal. Also with the screen removed I can completely remove all the last grinds from the previous shot if I've adjusted the settings. Simply running more beans though tends to give you half old beans and half new beans, and then you keep adjusting your machine and you wonder why it's never consistent. That was the reason for me.

Has anyone tried opening the grinder to clean it? I wanted to clean it as I bought a store demo model for a nice discount and there was some stale grinds inside. Here's what I did:
1. Unplug grinder
2. Remove hopper and remove 3 collar screws and hopper screw
3. Remove black collar
4. Unscrew top burr assembly
5. Scrub top and bottom burr assembly with nylon brush and vacuum inside to remove stale grinds
6. Once satisfied with cleanup operation re thread upper burr assembly until fully tightened and burrs touch (not sure if I need to rethread at a certain position or not or if that does not matter)
7. Rethread until burrs are together and reinsert collar at fine position and screw it in
8. Back off burrs by moving to coarse grind
9. Plug in and run motor and move to fine setting until burrs start chirping (this is your 0 position which for me is on the 2 setting)

Does this sound correct? Next time I open I would like to do it with pictures but let me know if my process sounds correct. I am 3 months into the espresso world so this is all new to me.

Thanks

Good Question,

Sounds like a good process.
I have not taken mine apart, I have just unplugged, removed hopper and used brush to clean the areas I could reach with it.

How is the grinding of beans after your cleaning ?

Thanks for the response. Seems to be running quite smoothly and I had a feeling that some of the grinds that were caked in were dislodging and making its way into my coffee. Not something I would attempt everyday but definitely makes sense as part of a biannual/quarterly checkup of the grinder depending on how much coffee is getting run through it.

Once in a while, usually if there is a bean change, I'll clean '64 out. One way to do it (with caution) is to take off the hopper then blow down the 'inlet'. Not while it's running. A lot of grounds will come out. Or use a vacuum on the outlet...