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We have had such good results from Quick Mill on all of our Espresso Machine projects that we decided to ask them to build a grinder for us. There are things about several of the grinders on the market today that customers continued to find fault with and complain about in various forums.

Doserless but not stepless adjustment
Needs two hands to operate
Difficult to clean out chute
Too expensive
Too big



This grinder is:

Doserless with stepless worm gear adjustments
Made of high grade stainless steel
One hand operation, simply press the portafilter up against the button under the spout to grind and pull it away to stop
We had it made with a flap over the spot so you can lift it up and clean out any coffee easily
Has a 120 watt 800 RPM motor
49 mm flat burrs
It's only 15 3/4" tall
And it sells for $275.00

As always we provide a one-year parts and labor warranty on this grinder and our no hassle buyers remorse, if you do not like the grinder you can send it back for a refund.

THIS IS NOT A MAZZER OR A MACAP AND WE DO NOT CLAIM IT TO BE BY ANY MEANS, SIMPLY A VERY GOOD REASONABLY PRICED DOSERLESS GRINDER WITH STEPLESS ADJUSTMENT.

Looks cool!
I would consider a grinder like this (if I didn't already have so many grinders!)

Excellent chute design! (And will the chute assembly be available for parts purchase separately? Wondering if it could be made to fit a Mazzer SJ...) Any pics of the burrs and burr carrier? What's the grind rpm? This could be an excellent entry level espresso grinder.

Dan
How about testing one of these out and letting us know how well it works?
Gregg

Good suggestion, but first I'd like to hear what HB members have to say. Chris offered a discount for members and I encourage them to post their impressions to this thread. With the micro adjustment and easily cleaned chute, it is worth considering as an alternative to the Rocky doserless. For those who believe one is never enough, the footprint is especially good for a second / decaf grinder.

i ordered one yesterday, and will post a review as soon as it comes.. im pretty excited, hoping it meets my needs where my tranquilo drops off
(floating zero point and stepped grinds having too big a gap are the biggest)

Well, the grinder arrived today, as well as my float kit and filter, so its been a loong day of espresso related work

1st Day Review: (im comparing it to what I currently have, a cunill tranquilo doserless)

Out of the box, its small, and its shiney. I couldnt believe what a small footprint it had! The chrome certainly catches your eye, and despite its small size, it didnt feel cheap, but quite solid.

Hopper
First impression of the the hopper is that it seemed a bit flimsy. The sliding stopper didnt impress me. Where my tranquilo has it connected completely through the hopper spout, this slider just sort of floats through one end. It doesnt come out b/c its cut out and tabbed on the inner end, and it does do its job and holds the beans if you remove the hopper, so I guess it doesnt matter from a functional standpoint. The blue color of the hopper is nice, but I think a more square design would complement the overall machine style better. The inner lip is similar to the tranquilo's; it doesnt fit 'into' the cylinder (sorry i dont know all the technical terms), so a few beans get stuck on the sides. No big deal, its only 2-3 beans, and the hopper pulls right off and in they fall. The hopper works pretty well, almost all the beans fall right in, and the few that stick to the bottom slide in with a slight tap on the side of the hopper. Better than than the tranquilo, which tends to get beans stuck in the slider spout, and you have to unscrew the slider from the hopper to dislodge all the beans. Yet another reason why this 'flimsy' slider works well.

Adjustment
The adjustment knob is ok. I think a bigger knob would make it easier to use. (I jammed my thumb this past week, which prevents me from my usual manhandlng of everything, so I notice these types of things more).

The machine edges, while finished nicely, seem to have a bit too much edge on them, and because the adjustment knob is so close to the edge, while adjusting the zero point, I cut my finger. To prove my lack of manhandling, my wife did as well, which is another reason I think a bigger knob, which will set it further away from the side edge, would help. Of course cleaning all the edges by rounding and smoothing them is another option, but im sure much more expensive!

My initial grind produced an amazingly clump free result. I was really impressed with the consistency of the grind, and the ease with which it flowed out of the spout. In the same breath, this grind was also my biggest problem. It was much too coarse for espresso. I had the knob cranked as tight as it would go, which was interestingly at the zero mark, and the I was getting 10 second pulls which felt more like sand than powder.

I called chriscoffee and a tech walked me through how to adjust the burrs more. You have remove the front panel of the machine to access 2 setscrews on the upper burr set. This allows the burrs to zero closer together. There are 2 screws at the bottom, one in the back, and 2 that hold the spout in place. Once opened, you have to remove the adjustment collar, held by one screw, and there are 2 set screws in the upper burr set which need to be backed out. These prevent you from going too fine and damaging the burrs. Good failsafe I guess. I managed to back the screws up enough to get a nice grind, but its a bit more noisy now with nothing in the machine, so I hope the burrs arent eating themselves alive. My new 'zero', and ideal espresso grind range is now between 0 and 6, so like a -6.5. The numbers are pretty funny, because for espresso, youll never go out of a 1 number range. They could have been a bit more wide with the numbering system, like 0-50, so the gap between your zero point and your next marking isnt so pointless. Then again, once dialed in to a certain range, the minute changes dont really need to be 'marked'.

Now that its adjusted, zeroed, and assembled, time for another test. I had my tranquilo next to it, did a typical grind from it (6 over my zero), and one from the quickmill. Nice match, and the shot came out perfectly! Time to grind was 25-30 seconds, a bit less than my tranquilo. Less time is always good!

With some fine tuning and using the stepless feature, I can make such small adjustments that I can actually get my espresso shots to range with ± 1 second of each other!! Steps between my tranquilo would give me 5+ seconds on some days. Very frustrating on those weird humid days when nothing wants to work well.

Grinding and Dosing
This is an impressively clean machine! With my tranquilo, after each grind I would have to open the funnel, sweep the chute, sweep the funnel insides, sweep around the grinder since the static causes some of the swept grinds to fly out and around, etc.

With the quickmill, I use my dosing device (the bottom half of a water bottle..hehe), hold it in my hand and use the back of my hand to press the grind button, and it goes from the chute right into the container. Dosing right into a PF gets a bit messy once its about 2/3 full, so I prefer to grind into a container, and flush while doing so. There is NO mess. I tap the top of the chute cover when its done, a few grinds fall from the top of the chute, and im done. It really is that simple. No more cleaning! No more sweeping!! That alone fills my anal retentive needs!

Grinding is good, with minimal clumping, and extreme consistency. Noise isnt bad. I thought with the size and all the metal it would be noisy, but its not any louder than the tranquilo, and may be even slightly more quiet.

Final Impressions
After one day of use, this is an impressive little machine! I've included some pics next to the tranquilo so you can see what a small footprint it has. The polished steel is of course a great complement to my espresso machine, its grinds very consistently with only a small amount of clumping on fine grinds, (the clumping isnt an issue to me since I grind into a container and shake it) and the zero mess makes my shot process that much quicker!

I'll be testing it out even more over the next few days, and any major items to note will be posted here.

Hope this helps everyone!

Chris, could you please clone yourself and set up a business downunder? I'm getting might sick of seeing all of these awesome machines in the northern hemisphere ...

just a quick update on a few more days of use. im wondering if my backing out the setscrews has caused the burrs to touch. with the tranquilo its blatently obvious, and when the machine is off, you can almost lock them together by tightening. with the quickmill, it sounds as if they are touching, but the grind is where i need it to be, and i can continue to tighten it, so maybe that much 'touching resistance' isnt there. (this is with an empty hopper, btw) Assuming this is the sound of them rubbing, its a much different sound than the tranquilo, sort of hollow, which could be from the smaller burr size.

the edges are starting to get on my nerves. adjusting the grind has me slicing my finger almost every time, and i dont have big hands. in addition, if you use your fingers to wipe grinds off the bottom plate, the side edges, which sit higher than the middle plate, are also a bit sharp and can cut you. they arent tight against the middle plate, so i guess some runaway grinds are getting inside the machine. it would have been smart to overlap the other way, with the middle plate over the top of the sides, so its easier to wipe and no worry of grinds getting into the machine.

finally, finer grinds tend to get stuck in the chute. a bit of a knock on the side of the chute during operation, and a small screwdriver or paperclip stuck up it after grinding clears it out well. dont open the hatch though during grinding, it will spray!

anything else, ill be back!

ps- anyone else grab this thing? id love to hear others comments..

i thought id add some pics. dont know if they will help anyone but maybe we can have some of the seasoned members comment on the grind.. to me it looks just as good as the tranquilo, which i assume is nice for the home user

first pic is right out of the chute into a container



next we have it dumped into the PF


this is ready to rock


the pour. dont mind the single basket. this is my 4th for the day!


and the end result. not bad i guess


ok, sorry, i whored some pics.. ive never done that before