I bought a Zassenhaus Santiago Espresso grinder a few months ago to. I don't use it for espresso but with Aeropress, French Press or a Hario V60. It produces a lot less uniform result than I was expecting...

For the Aeropress I turn the knob gradually towards a finer grind until I hear the burrs touching at some point in the revolution of the crank. Then I back it off a touch, add beans and grind. There is quite a difference in the size of the grounds. When i grind for the french press at a more coarse setting the difference is even more apparent. Am I doing something wrong? Are there adjustments I can do?

For one I was expecting there to be some device making sure the two burrs are centered relative to each other. I can't see that there is such a thing and (at least without beans in the "hopper") the burrs move around all over the place relative to each other when i turn the crank.

A couple of photos might help. It may be that the grinder only works well for espresso, when the burrs are so close together that they can't wiggle. Many of the older hand grinders have a fixed top and bottom point so that the inner burr must stay on the same axis, and only move up and down.

I've had decent luck getting a coarser grind with my PeDe Dienes wall mount grinder

Here are two pictures:


This first picture shows how the burr that rotates can be tilted (the movement is exaggerated a bit here, when screwed in its not really this bad but it doesn't take much to generate un-even grinds)


There are no fixed points locking the axis of the two burrs relative to each other. Instead there are four teflon (?) supports that assist with keeping the rotating burr centered. This grinder was bought brand new a month ago and already these show serious wear.


The design here is really disappointing to me. I was expecting more from a Zassenhaus grinder...

OK, so a summary of what I think happened...
At first the grinder was working well with a decent particle distribution. I am assuming those teflon pieces where completely straight at first, and that the small portion of the rotating burr that is flat was gliding nicely up and down the teflon. The finish of that flat piece is really rough though, not by any means a polished surface. And so the teflon is worn down, and the grind becomes increasingly non-uniform. The grinder in my pictures has ground roughly 2,5 kg of coffee.

I've seen that problem before. A bad spot to use plastic. This was a modification that was done by a member Zass Mod. Not sure how well it worked. Zassenhaus has a guarantee but maybe not for a second owner.

I bought mine new a month ago so it should still be covered by warranty. I sent Zass an email just now, will see what happens. From what i have read in the hand grinder jive thread they are not the best at answering customer emails...

I just don't get the design though... I am sure it could work if the metal surface that touches it was slick, but mine is quite rough. It has (several) edges and degrees.

I can't see how that design could work for long either. Yet the all metal older ones last for a very long time. I think your right about the burr edge and if your get a replacement it might be worth polishing that edge smooth.

Just an update... I returned the grinder and received a brand new one to replace it. After a couple of weeks it looked just like my first.

This patent is horrible!

Bad news, but good to hear more about it's time limitation.

The Zass really are designed (in their current iteration) for fine grinding - designed to have the burrs very close. The little plastic fingers to hold the burr just doesn't seem to be the best of solutions. Without a lower bearing, there isn't any way to keep the burrs in alignment - you see that on all modern grinders. We've remanufactured the Kyocera CM-50, and installed a lower bearing to fix this problem for coarse grinding, and we call it the OE-PFP . You can see a video demonstrating the wobble of the burr without, and the performance with the bearing in: