gscace wrote:Presumably the burr manufacturer got the burrs right. I've seen bad burr carriers in Cimbali grinders, but not in any Mazzer that I've ever used.

Not meaning to defend Cimbali, Greg, but you can't possibly have observed enough of either make of grinder (Cimbali or Mazzer), and studied them as you suggest above (which methodology I'm in no position to evaluate) to come to any sort of verifiable conclusion on the Quality control of either manufacturer.

I've personally owned 5 Cimbali grinders (4 of which I still have) and for what it is worth have never had reason to believe that this is a problem with any of them. I have also owned a Mazzer and did not notice a problem with that, either.

It is my personal belief that both Mazzer and Cimbali grinders are manufactured to very high standards; if a sample of either brand were to have this flaw, I'd be much more likely to blame handling enroute from the likes of UPS, than I would be to blame either manufacturer as having lax standards which allow the sale of grinders with this sort of defect.

ken

gscace wrote:Hi:

A note on axial misalignment - Be very careful when looking at bolt heads and inferring that there is axial runout of the rotating mill. It isn't unusual for the hex head to be out of true with the diameter of the bolt.

Yep, this is certainly the the reason I'm seeing gross wobble, since the same degree in the actual burr or in the sweepers would have destroyed the grinder the moment I turned it on. I put some white paper dots on the edges and strobed them, no obvious wobble.

The test you propose sounds like it takes special equipment, also I don't understand it. Michael Teahan, at one of the homecomings, proposed a simple test -- use a marker to mark the burrs where they come into contact, then zero the grinder. If the burrs are out of true, the mark will only be worn down to one side.

I have no reason other than the wobbly bolts to suspect anything. Since this is apparently not a "reasonable grounds for a search warrant," and the grinders are on loan, I consider the case dismissed.

Nick wrote:Just read through this thread for the first time. It's fascinating to read about the various testing methodologies, especially the techniques used to overcome the "low volume problem" (i.e., fashioning alternative bean hoppers, weighing down with tampers, etc.).

I was also interested to see that the caked-on messiness that we experience in the grinding chamber on the Robur and Kony aren't limited to high-volume commercial environments. On our Kony, for instance, a caked-plane of grounds forms, in the small gap between the bottom of the burrs and above the "revolving door" that pushes out the grinds.


Jim, I'm interested to see how the late/unofficial entry Compak K10 does in your tests. There are elements of the K10 that I and other professional baristas aren't big fans of (doser lid, large grind-chute volume, dosing mechanism), but most agree that the grind/shot quality is excellent. In my experience, it's a fairly close second behind the Robur in overall shot quality.

Again, interested in how this testing develops. Having had extensive commercial on-bar experience with the Super Jolly, Kony, Robur, and Compak K10 (500+ pounds each... a little less with the Kony), I'm intrigued to see how the results of this type of testing corresponds with my less-meticulous, more gross observations.

I bought the K10 for myself based on the feedback at Barista comps, and attractive pricing. For my purposes, it is better designed than any commercial espresso grinder I've owned -- the throat is very deep and perfectly cylindrical, so it is the easiest of the lot to run without a hopper (the throat is, in effect, a working nano-hopper). The grind wheel is easiest to set between espresso and french press, and the throat, while deep, is very accessible. It is also very quiet. The hopper lid is cool looking, but, you're right, harder to remove.

However, I'm not seeing it clearly distinguish itself from the pack yet. I'll try a few more blind tests at lowered doses to see if it shines more at those.

I'm not entirely sure how the assessment of a grinder in coffee shop will differ from one done at home by someone tasting and rating every shot. If you are frequently dialing in different brands of grinder and tasting the shots, I would think you would slowly come to stronger conclusions than anything we can generate. If you primarily use the grinders in service, your conclusions on consistency and packing will be stronger, but those on taste may be equally slim on evidence.

My overall impressions so far are this:

-- For commercial use, bullet proof consistency is what is most important, while the frequency of god shots is somewhat secondary. A home user will be more interested in frequent God shots, but consistency will probably still rank higher.

-- By this criteria, I think the Robur is well ahead of the others. It has been impossible to get a suck shot from it under any circumstance. The grinder performs well at all doses, it packs more easily, and it tastes better if the grind is slightly too coarse or fine. On WBC scoring it's hitting 3.5 to 4 every time, and garnering its share of 4.5 scores. But I haven't had a 5 from it yet.

-- The large Macap is also very solid in terms of consistency, but it seems to be running at a lower quality level, no 4.5 shots at all. My gut instinct is that it tends to run flatter in taste than the others. It may be the grinder of choice for a cafe running a very bright blend; but so far it is my least favorite grinder. I'm also not happy with the chrome body, which somehow looks cheaper than the powder coat on the others; and I'm distinctly unhappy that it's 1HP motor doesn't have a second starting capacitor. A person paying 1K for a grinder shouldn't be subjected to jalopy noises when he or she turns it on.

-- The little Macap responds most linearly and predictably to dosing changes. Unlike the M3 or Mini, it doesn't produce really terrible shots if the dose is too high or low. I rather think people buying this attractively priced grinder will find it a distinct improvement on flat burr ones. The Macap dosers are my least favorite in terms of feel, although they do a perfectly competent job. I've gotten some 5s from this grinder; but it is the hardest of the Titans to pack, roughly equivalent to a flat burr grinder.

-- The Compak is producing very easy to pack shots like the Robur, but is quite finicky on grind setting. In terms of taste, I haven't figured it out yet. I got a 5 from it yesterday; but as one changes dose, it seems to move very quickly from lively to dull shots. More upsetting, in terms of my extraction theory, the shots also get duller as one ups the dose from the sweet spot.

All these conclusions are personal, and subject to change as I amass more data.

another_jim wrote:I'm also not happy with the chrome body, which somehow looks cheaper than the powder coat on the others; and I'm distinctly unhappy that it's 1HP motor doesn't have a second starting capacitor. A person paying 1K for a grinder shouldn't be subjected to jalopy noises when he or she turns it on.

Just a gentle nudge to ignore cosmetics. Opinions on them have no place here. IMO, the chrome is superb and the others look distressed.

cafeIKE wrote:Just a gentle nudge to ignore cosmetics. Opinions on them have no place here.

I agree that cosmetics are highly subjective and not the focus of this review. However, reviewers and members are allowed to share their opinions, including those on cosmetics. While we've not discussed the form of the final writeup, individual opinions, if included, will be clearly attributed.

Ken Fox wrote:Not meaning to defend Cimbali, Greg, but you can't possibly have observed enough of either make of grinder (Cimbali or Mazzer), and studied them as you suggest above (which methodology I'm in no position to evaluate) to come to any sort of verifiable conclusion on the Quality control of either manufacturer.

I've personally owned 5 Cimbali grinders (4 of which I still have) and for what it is worth have never had reason to believe that this is a problem with any of them. I have also owned a Mazzer and did not notice a problem with that, either.

It is my personal belief that both Mazzer and Cimbali grinders are manufactured to very high standards; if a sample of either brand were to have this flaw, I'd be much more likely to blame handling enroute from the likes of UPS, than I would be to blame either manufacturer as having lax standards which allow the sale of grinders with this sort of defect.

ken

Yeah, well credit goes to them what deserves it. I've got good credentials as an engineer and machine designer, and my machine shop background is pretty damn solid. My first Cimbali Jr. sucked in this regard. I measured it, reported the findings to the appropriate authorities and got blown off. That thing rocked on the counter when spooling up or down. My second grinder exhibited slight axial runout, but I really liked the grinder for other reasons, so I kept it and liked it just fine. I certainly don't have good statistics because my samples are small, but it pisses me off when I get blown off and I tend to remember it. Of course if I don't end up with a machine that slipped thru the quality control net (or lack of it), then I don't tend to get blown off and pissed off.


-Greg

gscace wrote:Yeah, well credit goes to them what deserves it. I've got good credentials as an engineer and machine designer, and my machine shop background is pretty damn solid. My first Cimbali Jr. sucked in this regard. I measured it, reported the findings to the appropriate authorities and got blown off. That thing rocked on the counter when spooling up or down. My second grinder exhibited slight axial runout, but I really liked the grinder for other reasons, so I kept it and liked it just fine. I certainly don't have good statistics because my samples are small, but it pisses me off when I get blown off and I tend to remember it. Of course if I don't end up with a machine that slipped thru the quality control net (or lack of it), then I don't tend to get blown off and pissed off.


-Greg

for what it is worth, the 2 Cimbali Max grinders I obtained from TJ were shipped Yellow Freight, strapped to a pallet. At the time I resented a little the $140 shipping charge, but on reflection I would rather pay up for the sort of freight that won't result in a doorstop vs. saving some money on the likes of UPS. I'm sure I'm in the minority in that regard.

One doesn't know, one can't know, whether the boxes that these things come in are intended as external shipping boxes, for which they are commonly used here in the good ol' United States. I'd have to guess that TJ (Cimbali Importer and distributor) knows more about that than I do and I guess his company has concluded that they are not meant to be used this way which is why they use pallets. Your observation of Cimbali vs. Mazzer, even if actually representative, could reflect no more than luck with shipping or perhaps better design of Mazzer boxes vs. Cimbali ones.

Higher end espresso machines are not shipped in their factory boxes by good dealers using carriers such as UPS. Why grinders are shipped this way (without additional packaging) is unclear to me. It may well be a bad cost cutting decision on the part of US dealers that works out most but not all of the time.

ken

I did two more taste tests of the grinders, this time trying to do it on my own. The first test was sighted, the second test blind. For the second test, I ground the shots for all the grinders and shuffled, then made and tasted them in succession. The time from the first bean hitting the first grinder to the first drop hitting the last puck was 10 minutes and 12 seconds.

-------------------------------------
Grinder    Sighted   Blind    Average
-------------------------------------
Robur       28.0      33.0      30.5
Sm Macap    25.5      29.5      27.5
La Macap    26.0      30.0      28.0
Mini        29.5      30.5      30.0
Compak      25.5      30.0      27.8
--------------------------------------


The sighted coffee was my home blend. In this case, the only decent shot came from the Mini. The blind coffee was Terroir's Daterra, Northern Italian roast, which pulled a 3, "good" for every grinder (The Robur scored an extra 1/2 point on body). Both rounds were done at doses of 14 grams. I don't think the order, and length of exposure of the grinds in the blind test affected results, since the best two shots, the Robur's and Mini's were pulled in last and second to last respectively.

So far all the taste tests are boringly uniform in result: it's Robur and the rest. However, I'm not certain this is the whole story. I regularly get better walk-up shots from all the grinders using the test blends than I get even from the Robur under test conditions.

There's added stress and speed when doing a test, and the Robur obviously weathers the consequences of this better. So my impression is more that the Robur is not so much an absolutely better tasting grinder, as a grinder that remains consistent even if the grind setting, dosing and packing are slightly off.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to check this out, or on how to proceed in general.

another_jim wrote:So far all the taste tests are boringly uniform in result: it's Robur and the rest. However, I'm not certain this is the whole story. I regularly get better walk-up shots from all the grinders using the test blends than I get even from the Robur under test conditions.

There's added stress and speed when doing a test, and the Robur obviously weathers the consequences of this better. So my impression is more that the Robur is not so much an absolutely better tasting grinder, as a grinder that remains consistent even if the grind setting, dosing and packing are slightly off.

I found cupping grinders to be a tedious, difficult, frustrating task that took a lot of the fun out of making espresso. So first, a big THANKS to Jim for all his hard work. Jim's cupping skills are clearly superior to mine, and I trust his results accordingly.

Let's keep in mind that these are all excellent high-end commercial grinders, beside which the Mazzer Mini ("if you are seeking the best possible grinder for home espresso, the Mazzer Mini simply cannot be beat" - Mark Prince, 2002) is the poor stepsister. So it's not necessarily going to be a question of which is best, but which works best for your setting and taste preferences.

The Robur also stood out in my kitchen, compared with the "small" Macap MXK or my Super Jolly. However, Jim seems to prefer the MXK taste profile more than me. My reaction echoes that of Dave towards the Kony: the MXK flavor profile leans towards harsher/edgier shots that were not as much to my liking. I'm quite pleased with the flat burr Super Jolly taste profile, although it's more muted/blended than the conicals, and sometimes even preferred it to the Robur. But again, we're mostly talking "different" rather than "better".

Ken Fox wrote:...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.

Like Ken, I found the conicals easier to adjust and more forgiving of grind variations. Jim also saw this with the Robur. While you can coax spectacular shots from any good grinder, some make it easier than others. As Ken noted, this might provide justification for a home barista to spend $1K (or more) on a grinder upgrade. In a commercial setting, no further justification would be needed.

RapidCoffee wrote:Like Ken, I found the conicals easier to adjust and more forgiving of grind variations. Jim also saw this with the Robur. While you can coax spectacular shots from any good grinder, some make it easier than others. As Ken noted, this might provide justification for a home barista to spend $1K (or more) on a grinder upgrade. In a commercial setting, no further justification would be needed.

I think John's point here needs a big shout out, since this is probably the biggest news from this test.

If you buy a Robur and set it next to your Lux or Rocky, dial in everything just right, and compare the shots, is the Robur's going to be hugely better? Not a chance. It'll be, on average, a bit better, and that's about it.

... but ...

If you change blends several times a day, like I do, these grinders make a huge difference, even compared to the Versalab M3 or Mini. They all have a far wider range of acceptable grind settings. I stop shots by color, so when I get a gush or choke from the Mini, the taste is usually fairly good, but there's no saving the crema and body - extreme ristrettos or lungos always fail in that department. When I change blends with these conicals (i.e. today: 6 shots, 4 blends, this is normal for me), the variation in flow is much lower, and the crema and body on lungo-ish and ristretto-ish shots is far better.

The Robur is a bit better at this than the other conicals, but they all are hugely better at this than the smaller flat burr grinders. This difference is not showing up in the taste test data, since these are based on perfectly dialed in shots.

The irony is the same as with moving to higher end commercial espresso machines -- the expensive grinders bought by experienced home users are actually more forgiving and easier to use than the entry level equipment.