Ken Fox wrote:In actual use, the first thing I noticed with my new Max grinders was that it seemed that grind adjustments were easier, and needed less often. By this I mean, that changing in between different coffees, or adapting to changes in coffee as it aged, or dealing with weather and humidity changes -- all of which normally require grinder setting adjustments on the Junior and Cadet grinders, seemed to require less adjusting or in some cases no adjusting in order to use the Max to get good espresso shots with proper time/volume relationships. In addition, the "quality" of the grinds are different; from the Junior, they are like grains of sand, but from the Max, even with robust doser thwacking, one gets small clumps. These are not "bad clumps," however, and the basket dose is easily distributed and packed, with no added channeling evident on a bottomless portafilter. I also noticed a small and subjective improvement in shot quality with the Max, but of course that sort of conclusion is pretty easy to talk yourself into, especially as a means of justifying a recent (and expensive) purchase.
Personally speaking, I find these results interesting however from my perspective, after using the Max daily for more than a month, I think the most persuasive reason to buy one is the increased certainty of getting a good shot without excessive fiddling with grinder settings. Although I had made the observation about the setting being less critical on the Max before I set up this tasting trial, the proof of that observation came as I used the grinders in this testing. Before my friend Bob came over for the tasting, I dialed the grinders in with the Rocket Coffee Roasters Classic Espresso blend. It took SIX double shots, 5 of which were sink shots, to get the Cadet dialed in. With the Max, there was one sink shot, one mediocre shot, and beautiful shot for the 3rd. Midway through the actual tasting when we switched the grinder machine pairs, I had to toss one set of shots because the Cadet needed to be adjusted to go from the vibe machine to the rotary. Not only that, but I needed to make small adjustments on the Cadet a couple of other times during the 10 shot trial. I never adjusted the Max, not even once, from start to finish of the testing including the switchover from pairing it with the rotary to the vibe.
My experience with the Robur and MXK conicals echoes your observations. These conical burr grinders make it easy, almost effortless, to dial in the correct grind adjustment. Coincidentally, it also took me only three shots to dial in each conical, beginning with an overly fine factory setting that choked the pour. New beans often required only one grind adjustment.
The grind adjustment seems more finicky on my flat burr Super Jolly, and it's not as easy to obtain a "pretty" extraction. Grinds are clumpier, to be expected from a doserless grinder. But it should be noted that the burrs on this grinder are two years old. Your comparisons are more valid because the grinders match up better.
Taste is another issue. The conical burr grinders produce a different taste profile, not necessarily better.
Believe it or not, these cuppings comprise a lot of hard, tedious work. So a big
thanks to Ken and Bob for performing these experiments.
by HB on Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:44 am 
