I think the flat burr mazzers are difficult to adjust and require constant fiddling.

OTOH while I have no experience with the Mazzer Mini I have pulled many thousands of shots with Mazzer Super Jollys and Majors and find them relatively easy to adjust and not that difficult or finnicky to keep dialed in to a bean throughout the day or day to day. The difference likely many thousands of shots experience with them.

You've already received some spot on advice especially regarding sticking with a single bean and staying in the 3-14 day bean freshness window until you understand the grinder.

What I will add is a suggestion that will make it a little easier to do very small adjustments.

get a second screw in adjuster arm (they are inexpensive, even the Mazzer ones). I find it much easier to use both hands (one hand on each adjustment arm) and move the setting an infinitesimal distance without having it "jump" too far.

Compass Coffee wrote:OTOH while I have no experience with the Mazzer Mini I have pulled many thousands of shots with Mazzer Super Jollys and Majors and find them relatively easy to adjust and not that difficult or finnicky to keep dialed in to a bean throughout the day or day to day. The difference likely many thousands of shots experience with them.

I think thousands of Italian baristas would agree with that. It also helps not to constantly change beans.

turtle wrote:You've already received some spot on advice especially regarding sticking with a single bean and staying in the 3-14 day bean freshness window until you understand the grinder.

What I will add is a suggestion that will make it a little easier to do very small adjustments.

get a second screw in adjuster arm (they are inexpensive, even the Mazzer ones). I find it much easier to use both hands (one hand on each adjustment arm) and move the setting an infinitesimal distance without having it "jump" too far.

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+1. Take one bean and work with it until you get the technique. The double adjusting handles really do help. These were sourced through Espresso Parts NW.

badmajon wrote:To make things worse, I think my tamping skills suck. I have a little plastic tamper that came with the strega and I can't ever seem to tamp with any consistency- so getting the grind right is like trying to hit a moving target.

Matt, although tamping is probably the least important aspect, why invest thousands in equipment only to use the crappy plastic tamper that manufacturers continue to supply (for some unknown reason)?

You can get a decent tamper for $20, and at least you will enjoy using it. FWIW, I never had major issues dialing-in my Mini, so yo will soon have success.

I'm a bit non-plussed with the Mazzer Mini E A too. I was gifted one for Christmas just what I wanted... or so I thought.

In my experience it delivers a fluffy grind but hard to break up clumps. Extractions were all gushers at first. I took to: weighing my dose (17g), grinding into a cup, whisking vigorously to break up the clumps but this removes some of the loft from the grind, very carefully loading the portafilter, WDT, NSEW sweep with a blade (taking real care to seal the edges of the portafilter), tamping absolutely flat at 30lbs with a click tamper, and every variation of this technique.

Eventually I started to get pulls without doughnutting (the extraction arrived simultaneously across the whole VST basket) but then it would start to blonde at the centre and/or channel after about 12 seconds.

I've thoroughly cleaned the grinder internals, played with grind, put through about four kilos of coffee to season the burrs, thoroughly cleaned my espresso machine, tried every variation I can think of for building my dose in the PF, thrown a tantrum, gone back to my three year old Mignon that grinds faster, requires a WDT and sweep, then delivers a perfectly even and sweet extraction.

My conclusion, having now trawled the forums, is that the MM acquired its reputation as a doser machine and that the doserless version has some foibles that make it a pain to use. It seems everyone has coping techniques or modifications; recommendations include:
- change the standard 64mm MM burrs for 64mm Super Jolly burrs (a straight swap on the MM AE) to get a better and faster grind. This seems a good idea given the short 20s on/50s off duty cycle of my machine.
- remove the anti-static grill at the chute exit that causes retention and clumping. This requires cutting the gasket ie not easily reversed.
- use a metal whisk ball from a sports-mixer-bottle in the dosing funnel to alleviate the resulting static.
- be prepared to agitate the ball at the end of your grind to get all of your dose out of the dosing funnel.
- you'll probably still need to WDT.

I'm just not sure a £600 grinder should need all this faffing about to get a decent pull. I'm certain that I want something more friendly - grind, groom, sweep, tamp, pull. I'm not convinced the MMAE should inherit the reputation of its predecessor.

Compass Coffee wrote:1) weigh your dose for consistency using 0.1g resolution scale - likely your biggest problem dose varying.

2) get a real tamper

I can +1 the above advice too. When I first got my Mini type B (doserless chute model) I went through nearly a pound of coffee trying to get a respectable shot. Now I have been able to dial in something good, and without a 0.1g scale, this would have been impossible. Now between different beans, I have only had to adjust at most 2 notches up or down. 17g in that double basket seems like a sweet spot for my machine, so I don't adjust weight anymore, I adjust my shot by grind. With my 58MM stock double basket, I can get ~17g of grounds in there, tamp, and get a good long pull with a slow start.

As far a tamper goes, I have only ever had a "real" one. But a real tamper is useless without good tamping technique.

I love my MMeB... beats grinding by hand any day :)