Hi,
I'm planning ahead a bit here, but i'm wondering what the best/fastest way is to dose with a versalab grinder?
do i need to weigh EACH shot or would it be close enough to dose the first shot and then just fill the measuring cup again with the same amount? would that vary too much? versalab has an optional doser that does it the same way, just fills the void/bushing and drops it into the grinder chute, i'm not sure if i can use the doser due to height issues, unless there's such a thing as a 250 gram hopper for it? please let me know.

What I do is have couple of small measuring cups (baby bottle caps . At beginning of the session I pre-measure on scale as many cups as I need then I make them in succession. It really does not take more time than just eyeballing it...

so would that be a better option then using their doser?
if a doser is better, where can i get a shorter hopper for it? i need to get it no higher then a mazzer mini with short hopper,

I pre dose using a gram scale into Bodum 2 oz slope sided cups. They look good, hold about the right amount and allow me to pour easily directly into the grinder. Some cups seem to hit on the upper edge of the grinder housing and make it difficult to pour in the beans.

rattaps wrote:so would that be a better option then using their doser?
if a doser is better, where can i get a shorter hopper for it? i need to get it no higher then a mazzer mini with short hopper,

I just pre-weigh the dose before grinding and have a record of the optimum dose for me at various stages of aging for the different coffees I use regularly.

I use the spoon scale. Beans pour directly into the Versalab.

Recommended inexpensive scale for weighing coffee?

i have a nice palm scale, but i just want to use that for the first shot, after that i would kinda like to measure and pour instead of weighing every shot, i think the doser is perfect, but i need a shorter hopper,

Versalab sells a half pound Mazzer hopper that is substantially shorter than the standard hopper however, although the grinder is compact, the doser and hopper mount sit up a bit over 3" and the small hopper adds another 3 3/4" to the height.

The design of the grinder is very efficient in itself but the doser and hopper are not as well executed as the grinder itself. The height is such that even with the small hopper the grinder with hopper will not fit under many kitchen cabinets, the little trough that is used to route the beans from the doser to the grinder is a simple piece of bent metal secured to the doser by a single screw and if you chance to bump the trough it will easily move out of alignment and dump beans all over the place (it should at least have an indexing pin). In addition, using the doser means that beans are moving into the grinder with somewhat more momentum than if they were added by hand and this results in popcorning on every dose (at least in my experience). Further, spending $2,000 on a grinder than loading it with a volume based doser is somewhat contradictory since does not allow the user to realize as much dosing consistency as he would by weighing each shot. Unless the grinder is being used in a demanding production environment I think that most users would be much happier with the Versalab without doser and they will save more than $300 which will buy a lot of coffee and a nice scale.