I just acquired a used Ditting 1203 with cast burrs (I'm assuming it's not going to be long before my wife makes me sell it, as it's way too big for home use, and fair enough) and the grinds it's producing have been behaving strangely when I've tried v60 pours. Even at coarse settings the grinds visually appear to be relatively uniform and low on fines, but my pours are clogging towards the finish.

I know the recommended starting point for v60 is around 600 microns (setting 6), but it it takes around a setting of 8.5, which looks way too coarse (9 is the highest/press) before I can get my extractions to end around 3mins. Even then the results in the cup aren't great.

I'm assuming I need to replace or sharpen the burrs right?

Also I tried to open the burr housing yesterday and the screws were not budging, and tips on how to loosen them?

What kind of dose are you working with for your targeted extraction time? I normally grind at about 6 for a 20g dose on my KR804.

I'm not too sure if it slips, but I generally recalibrate the burrs after I move the grinder around.

I normally use the back of the butter knife on the screws for the burr carrier as it makes it easier to leverage without rounding the screws.

Good score

Ditting will only resharpen cast burrs, if they haven't already been resharpened more than twice before (and depending on their measurements, thickness wise). If you're not happy with their condition it's easier to just order directly from Ditting vs Coffeetec, because all Coffeetec is going to do is place an order from Ditting and have them delivered to you and charge you sales tax. Coffeetec doesn't stock Ditting burrs in house. If you order new, they'll be machined.

That entire housing is metal and quite robust. I've had some pretty stuck screws, but they usually give with enough torque. I imagine a long screwdriver and a few light taps to it might free them up enough.

Awesome guys, thanks for the info.

To answer your question Bob, I've been dosing 24g (for 340ml of drip coffee).

I didn't actually know about the need to calibrate Dittings (I have since watched a youtube video on how to do it) and it's moved around a lot, so the numbers I've been worrying about might not have a lot of meaning at this point.

I'll try to open it up again tomorrow and see if I can gather what sort of condition the burrs are in, then deep clean, calibrate and report back. I got a great deal on it, and I have been having a blast so far playing around with different extraction methods and seeing how it compares in the cup to my HG One.

So I got the grinding chamber open (turns out the screws weren't stuck, I just needed a longer screwdriver to apply more torque). Many toothpicks, brushstrokes, paper-towels and a box of parboiled rice later, the grinder is now donut shop hazelnut coffee residue free.

It seems like once fully degunkified the burrs were actually in much better condition than expected and fairly sharp (to whatever extent it is possible to tell; they were passing the fingernail test with ease).

After:


The grinds are behaving much more normally now, and while the v60 setting is still higher than expected (~8) the results in the cup are good, so I'm not worried. I also just tried pulling some espresso shots and after sinking the first few getting (almost) dialed in, my last shot was surprisingly wonderful.

TL;DR
If you remove years of acrid flavored coffee residue from your newly acquired bulk grinder, the coffee will taste better. Go figure.

The condition looks great! I wouldn't be too worried about settings you have, as long as you enjoy the cup of coffee you have!