Quamar M80e - a new owner's view

Grinders are one of the keys to exceptional espresso. Discuss them here.
khestehave
Posts: 46
Joined: 12 years ago

#1: Post by khestehave »

ALRIGHT! Upgradilitus yet again cured....by my wife :o Merry Christmas!! Yes I was so lucky that my darling wife bought me a beautiful Quamar M80e grinder (2012 model). Not much info on that particular grinder anywhere to be found online or otherwise. Therefore I would like to start up an info thread on this grinder.



First impressions are that it is solidly built. Heavy. Every part of it is chunky, heavy and has a very tactile feel to it. I got it in white as this was more acceptable for wifey :D To me it looks really nice in white and the coating seems like it is really thick and of good quality. Power cord and the attachment to the body is also of good quality. The power switch is very weighty and seems like it's of high quality. Only thing on it that seems a bit cheap is the button that holds the grind setting in place. That is made of a weird hard plastic that seems like it's damaged already or something, but it's only a cosmetic thing, it functions perfectly and keeps every thing in place as intended, but it's ugly as sin. The hopper is nice and thick polycarbonate but the little tab that holds back the beans from falling out when you remove the hopper is quite flimsy, but I have no comparison to other grinders with this feature, so this could just be the industry standard. The display on the chute lights up in bright blue, which I find is ok, but some might think it's a bit too bright, but hey you can just set the brightness if you like.



The controls and the menus are actually pretty easy to navigate once you get the language set. I was really fearing that it would have been a real "Italian" MMI. You know one that makes no sense, has a butt load of totally unnecessary functions and has all the functions you actually need hidden way deep in the bottom of the lists so it would take ages to set the grind time or something useful, but the function to set the display to render dolphins or penguins across the display were straight at the top (don't worry no dolphins anywhere, just an example). But it's not. It's very neat and tidy.
The English manual however....wow....what a piece of doo doo. How can they seriously write this stuff? I mean it's 2012, there must be some Italian guy who can speak English who can help them out. Half the stuff in there I don't understand. They use the word "erogated" everywhere and I don't know why. I put some of the Italian through Google Translate and it did a better job of translating. Here's an example: ENG:"Total count of erogated doses". What? IT: "Conteggio totale dosi erogato", Google: "Count of the total dose delivered"....ahh OK. I remember it was the same with my old Silvia and also the Domobar (Thank you Randy G for providing a GREAT guide for Domo BTW). Why are Italian's like that? Use Google Translate for Pete's sake!



On to the performance. Now I am upgrading from a doserless Rocky and this is what I am comparing to. Also I make one or two shots on weeks days and up to 5 per day on weekends. So I'm not running a small café or anything...The machine I use is my darling Vibiemme Domobar Jr Hx, which I have also been documenting my time with here: My time with Vibiemme Domobar Junior HX

I have been using Rocky with the WDT for a while and I don't do any micro measurements of the grinds and doses or anything like that. I'm work more on look and feel and for that the Rocky is a great "analog" starter grinder and I have been VERY happy with it until I got Domo Jr. Then it felt like it was holding me back a bit. Too inconsistent and hard to dial in perfectly. And now that I have just a few shots under my belt with a bigger grinder I can definitely say that Rocky is only for beginners. That being said going for an electronic grinder from the get go could be overkill in my book as Rocky is very analog and extremely easy to use and if you want to learn how making espresso "works" you need something simple that you can learn with. Therefore going for an electronic grinder is harder to learn with in my opinion. Alright enough about Rocky.



I needed to do some dialing in, so I roasted a pound of my own blend 50/50 Papua New Guinea/Yirgacheffe to Full City and went at it. I started at "10" and worked my way down the scale but quickly ended up in the area of "5". Then I started timing the grind and "shooting" espresso to hit a good flow and around 25 second shot time. Choked a few and I ended up at "6" + 4 notches 9 seconds grind time (triple shot). Perfect! Didn't take as many tries as I had feared. I'm not really experiencing much static as I have read about on the few reports there are on the M80. There is a little, but nothing to mention really. Clumping? What clumping? I don't see any clumping worth mentioning so far. I only use a naked filter with a triple VBM basket and the distribution is very good. Taste is tough to judge as I haven't done a direct side by side comparison, but the taste seems to be richer and more chocolatier somehow. Latte's are really good too, which is good 'cause that's 99% of what I drink.
For pure "house management" reasons I have made a new smaller funnel then I normally used for WDT'ing, but I just use it to lessen the spillage and it works like a charm. So now I just place the PF in the holder with the funnel and hit "3-cups" and 9 seconds later I just remove the funnel, do a little shake and tamp. Result: perfect espresso! I'll be playing with it more tomorrow and during the weekend and will report more when I have some more shots under my belt. But until then here are some more photos.






Until next time...

Klaus

espressotime
Posts: 1751
Joined: 14 years ago

#2: Post by espressotime »

i've owned that grinder for three months and sold it.I had the polished version.I just don't like doserless grinders.What struck me was the clumping.The moment I went to finer grinds for my Strega the machine gave lots of clumps.
The grind quality was pretty good.I compared it with my super Jolly and Major.

Typical that you don't notice any clumping.

Good luck with the Quamar.

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Terranova
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Posts: 723
Joined: 12 years ago

#3: Post by Terranova »

Congrats to the M80e.
In my view the best value for money in middle class grinders.
Never had clumps, nice speed and sound.
Compared to the Mazzer Mini and Macap M4d way ahead. (imo)
Looks very good in white.

espressotime
Posts: 1751
Joined: 14 years ago

#4: Post by espressotime »

I noticed very few members had clumping problems on Kaffee-netz.de.Maybe it's the Dutch weather. :mrgreen:

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jfrescki
Posts: 625
Joined: 14 years ago

#5: Post by jfrescki »

What a timely post. My Vario went the way of the dodo this morning. I took it apart to give a good cleaning because the grind adjustment was going out of whack (and I just fixed it two weeks ago). After giving it several whacks with my hand to get out grounds.........dead. Turns on, but when I try to grind, there's a small click and then nothing.

Anyway, I think I'm now between a regular super Jolly, or the M80e. I guess I could always go for the M80 w/ doser if that would provide a better shot. I really don't want to go higher on price or I'd end up with a K10.
Write to your Congressman. Even if he can’t read, write to him.
- Will Rogers

CSME9
Posts: 499
Joined: 19 years ago

#6: Post by CSME9 »

Klaus,

Nice looking grinder, there is substantial cost savings between this and the mini e doserless. This might just be the Rocky upgrade i was looking for. Do you find it difficult to push/hold the 1 & 2 cup buttons at the same time to dispense the grind manually ?

Thanks, Will

khestehave (original poster)
Posts: 46
Joined: 12 years ago

#7: Post by khestehave (original poster) »

Hi Will

This 2012 model has a different button setup than the previous model with 5 buttons instead of 2. Press "Man" and it grinds until you press the "Menu" button to stop the grind. I do however think it can only grind for 30 sec straight, but it's hard to tell from the "english" manual ;)

Br
Klaus

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the_trystero
Posts: 918
Joined: 13 years ago

#8: Post by the_trystero »

Ah, cool, I have the previous model M80E. In the summer it clumps a little but that hasn't effected my extractions. If I go for 2 grinders for my garage espresso bar I would probably get another.

I'm usually around 3.5 to 4.25 for the grind setting, with doses anywhere from 14 to 19.5 grams.

Holding the two buttons on my model is a piece of cake but it looks like the current method is much better.

But after using it for over a year I still have one gripe, it jams, at some times more often than others. Sometimes I just hit the start button a couple of times and it unjams. Other times I have to turn the setting to full coarse before it will start grinding again.
"A screaming comes across the sky..." - Thomas Pynchon

CSME9
Posts: 499
Joined: 19 years ago

#9: Post by CSME9 »

I found out that the model avail here you have to push both the 1 & 2 cup to dispense manually, a small inconvenience. The M80e still seems like a nice grinder though.

WS

hamish5178
Posts: 187
Joined: 13 years ago

#10: Post by hamish5178 »

I'm curious as to what sort of static-reducing system this grinder uses. Is it a flap or a mazzer-type grid in the chute? My dad has an M80 and it's really awesome, wondering how the E version works, because the Mazzer grids really are a lame solution on the smaller grinders (so much clumping).

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