One of the "hot button" topics in the coffee world revolves around dosered vs. doserless grinders. I have never been a fan of dosers for home use, finding the noise and extra effort associated with doser thwacking to be a disadvantage. However, I seem to be espousing a minority opinion, with most of my friends on H-B preferring dosers.

I have two large Mazzer grinders in my kitchen: a Robur (for espresso) and a Major (for non-espresso brewing). Both are doser models, but I removed the doser from the Major, and ghetto-modded it to doserless. The doserless conversion cost me one sheet of sticky-backed neoprene foam paper and a small plastic milk bottle.

Here is a video, illustrating the results:

Grinding 20g of coffee for Aeropress.

Hello John,

That's the fun of having your own doser-less-kitchen,
your free to do what you like best !

Some women like there men with socks most of them don't.

Can't wait until 3D-printing is coming to our aid.
Then we can make some elegant solutions to our demand.
Until then use your cleverly converted plastic bottle from .........
At your local supermarket for just ....... dollarcent!

Keep grinding,
ciao Bernard from Holland

And exactly your mucking about with detachable funnels made from litter indicates why I prefer a dosered grinder.

Thwacking a doser is easier than holding a funnel in front of an opening if you ask me.

Bluecold wrote:Thwacking a doser is easier than holding a funnel in front of an opening if you ask me.

Well, you're wrong. Do I really need to post a companion dosered video, just to illustrate all the thwacking?

This mod is obviously a prototype, but it works very well nonetheless. I'd love to come up with a detachable funnel (allowing easy access to the grinder throat) that snaps into pace.

This Major was a grinder that I rescued from the scrap heap, pretty beat up but in good working order. I didn't mind hacking it in the interests of coffee science. But the Robur... well, let's just say that I plan to wait for a more aesthetically pleasing solution before modding it to doserless.

The problem is, any retrofit to a dosered grinder will not be as elegant as a grinder that is designed to be doserless from the ground up. Baratza and Mahlkoenig, in particular, are doing very well along these lines. Mazzer, unfortunately, is not.

RapidCoffee wrote:This mod is obviously a prototype, but it works very well nonetheless. I'd love to come up with a detachable funnel (allowing easy access to the grinder throat) that snaps into pace.

That Mazzer is fast - nice!

Since you want a detachable funnel, why not take a large rubber band (or other appropriate strap for fastening) and place it around the grinder body - it should hold the funnel in place while grinding but also allow easy removal for the brushing step shown at the end of the clip.

EricBNC wrote:That Mazzer is fast - nice!

Since you want a detachable funnel, why not take a large rubber band (or other appropriate strap for fastening) and place it around the grinder body - it should hold the funnel in place while grinding but also allow easy removal for the brushing step shown at the end of the clip.

The Major is very fast, but this was an AP grind. It takes a couple of second longer for an espresso grind.

I've tried the rubber band attachment trick, and it works - but looks even more "ghetto". Hand-coupling the funnel to a grinds container (drinking glass, aeropress, filter basket) is just as easy.

BTW, I rotated the grinder 90 degrees for videography, which made all my movements clumsier than usual. I don't ordinarily have to reach across the grinder to hit the power switch.

To each his own.

I single dose with my K10 WBC, and hardly have to thwack the doser at all to fill the basket or a cup. Most of the effort goes into pulsing and brushing grinds out the chute into the doser. I would have to do that with or without the doser, as John's video illustrates.

The doser ends up being a handy and convenient place into which to brush the grinds and I don't have to hold it in place. Having removed the split plate in the doser, it only takes two or three thwacks to get all the grinds into the basket or cup, which sits on a .1g scale on the forks.

Most of the thwacking takes place at the end of the session, when I'm sweeping out the doser. Yeah, I'd like to skip that step, but only have to do it once.

I think the real potential advantage of grinders designed from the ground up to be doserless is minimizing the chute volume and either angling it down or making it vertical to minimize retention. I never have to brush the chute in my Baratza Vario.

@ peppersass: couldn't have said it better myself.

RapidCoffee wrote:The problem is, any retrofit to a dosered grinder will not be as elegant as a grinder that is designed to be doserless from the ground up. Baratza and Mahlkoenig, in particular, are doing very well along these lines. Mazzer, unfortunately, is not.

I believe that Krups led the way with this design, silly as that sounds. My first burr grinder was (what, a 20mm flat burr?) Pictured here (OK, this is an artists rendition of its more famous cousin...):

I've supered a not-accurate-but-really-indicative picture of a small rotor approximately where the real motor lives, and an artist's rendition of what the bean hopper looks like Say what you will 'bout his li'l guy, but he was remarkably portable, remarkable in consistency, lasted forever, FP to Turkish, could stall Silvia, and never stored more'n about a tenth of a gram of ground coffee.
Straight through design, from the bean to the funnel shaped grounds hopper.

RapidCoffee wrote:This mod is obviously a prototype, but it works very well nonetheless. I'd love to come up with a detachable funnel (allowing easy access to the grinder throat) that snaps into pace.

Magnets!

Seriously, I think magnets would be perfect. Isn't that part of the grinder magnetic?