Just picked up a used Compak K8 Platinum grinder. The guy said it was about 6yrs old. He showed me how to adjust the grind setting, but said it was so stiff you needed two people (which seemed really odd to begin with). Never the less, we managed to get it to turn a few notches at his place. Got it home, and found the grind to be a little too coarse. My BZ07 was taking forever to extract any coffee. Just looking for any advice on how to free up the dial, or if in fact it is supposed to be that difficult to turn? This is my first experience with commercial/semi commercial style grinder. Also, what are some of the basic settings you guys/gals keep yours at? My gf makes mostly cappuccinos and lattes. I know a lot comes down to personal preference, but just looking for a baseline setting before we can get ours dialed in to where she likes it. Never really use the FP anymore, so it likely wont get changed too often. But it would still be nice not to have to call He-Man over with a plumbers wrench every time we do decide to :p
Thanks

No experience with a k8 specifically, but it shouldn't be that hard to turn.

I used to have a K3 and it got harder to turn with with use. Every 6-12 months you should pull it apart, check the burrs and clean it. My guess is coffee has got into the threads and gummed things up. And if it's that gummed up, it probably hasn't been cleaned in awhile. Which likely means some volume has gone through it and burrs are probably old, it would be a good idea to change those.

Note: new burrs will take some break in, 10-15 lbs maybe. During that time you'll see the required grind setting wander. If you have some old/stale beans you can run them through on a fine grind setting to speed up break in, and help settle things down (even 2-3lbs here will help).

To take apart to clean/change burrs:
Follow the instructions online for a burr change to get everything apart. Should be the same as this, unless you have the Fresh model: I also wouldn't use a wire brush. I prefer a hard bristle tooth brush for this.


As for grind setting:
It will change based on your coffee, you'll also find yourself making small adjustments as the coffee ages. However once your grinder is clean, it will be much easier to do so.

I cleaned out my K3 but now I can't seem to get a grind finer than for pour over. After cleaning, I re thread it until it touches the burrs then backed off half a turn as directed in the video but it just gives me coarse and uneven grinds. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

Did you take the burrs off? If so, perhaps when you screwed them back down you also had some coffee lodged under one side? One tiny piece of coffee or gunk is enough to throw things out of alignment. Everything being perfectly clean is a must.

Or when tightening them down you over tightened one side before putting the other screws in? When I tightening the burrs I slowly tightening them down in stages with a star pattern (just like a tire on a car). Perhaps overkill, but good a practice I think.

Just an update... I managed to turn the dial (having to use freakin vise straps) enough to get the machine apart. Can't believe how gunked up it was in there. The guy I bought it off obviously didn't look after his stuff. Or knew he'd be selling it and didnt care. Did a good thorough clean of the burrs and threads and everything else I could get at. Still a little stiff turning the adjustment dial, but nothing like before. One hand will do it with no additional tooling required :p
Got myself a bit of another issue now though, similar to that of Allansmith. With the exception that my girlfriend is still able to get a good espresso grind out of it (we've been playing around with the setting for a few days). My problem is that the setting marks on the dial are all out of whack now. Tightened it down until the burrs touched, then backed it off just enough to get the bolt past the stopper. Half a turn seems like a lot, Allansmith. At least on my machine it did...

Allansmith wrote:I cleaned out my K3 but now I can't seem to get a grind finer than for pour over. After cleaning, I re thread it until it touches the burrs then backed off half a turn as directed in the video but it just gives me coarse and uneven grinds. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

Allan,

Make sure that the silver screw (which holds the hopper to the top burr assembly) is pointing towards you when rethreading the top burr on the k3. In other words, the silver screw and the doser should be on the same side. I realized this, after cleaning my K3 as well and getting coarse grinds yesterday.

BTW, which food safe lubricants (for the threads) do people recommend for grinders? or is it even necessary?

I considered a lubricant when putting mine back together, since it still required a little bit of effort to turn. However, not knowing enough about these machines and how it could interact or 'contaminate' the coffee beans, I held off. Especially since I was just happy to be able to turn the damn dial in the first place, haha.
Having said that, I know LPS makes a food grade lubricant. They make a whole range of lubricants ranging from aerospace to cleaning your firearms to maintaining chains and equipment in food factories. We use some of their products at work and they perform quite well. And dont smell all that bad either, compared to some of the harsher, more hazardous stuff out there. Usually a pretty good initial indicator of how 'safe' something is... haha.

While it is certainly possible that it was seized because having rarely been cleaned, I have seen more of the compak grinders (compared to other brands) become extremely difficult to adjust after a quick cleaning and replacement of the burr carrier. It seems this is due to not thoroughly cleaning all the old coffee out of the threads. The threads are tighter on these than other brands and the old coffee seems to create so much friction on the carrier making it difficult to adjust (or even bind up). I like to use a stiff paint brush and a shop vac to clean the threads. Adding a dab of lubricant is also recommended. We have been using dow 111 as it is the only NSF approved lube we have in house and it seems to work very well. Only use a small amount and rub it in, wiping off any excess.

zookeeper wrote:Just an update... I managed to turn the dial (having to use freakin vise straps) enough to get the machine apart. Can't believe how gunked up it was in there. The guy I bought it off obviously didn't look after his stuff. Or knew he'd be selling it and didnt care. Did a good thorough clean of the burrs and threads and everything else I could get at. Still a little stiff turning the adjustment dial, but nothing like before. One hand will do it with no additional tooling required :p

We have also used Lubri-film lubricant in the past and it worked very well. Also one of the few NSF approved lubes for food processing equipment. As a home end user you are more free to used other non-approved lubes, but we would recommend sticking to a NSF approved lube for safety.