In an Instagram post his CTO has said they use a "house coating" to avoid "eggshell effect" and further said "eggshell effect is a super hard coating on a soft metal....a high temp PVD coating is useless when you exceed the tempering temperature after the hardening process."

Not sure what that means exactly, but there it is..

Using too high of a temperature anneals the underlying metal (makes it softer). It's a very legit thing, even more important with cast metal because the melt temperature is lower. Most burrs/metals are case hardened to improve durability. Some coatings require a high enough temperature that you have to surpass the base metal's temperating temperature, basically, which softens the metal significantly and in those cases all your hardness is leaning on a couple micron thick layer of ceramic assuming it doesn't prematurely rub off.

ira wrote:I think we still put to much faith in the ability of burr designers to design something that will taste good or create a particular flavor or grind profile. I base this somewhat on stories about the development of the Peak where it was said that after trying to design the burrs for the Peak and not being happy the designers went to a cabinet at Ditting where they store samples of every burr design they've made and tested every one that fit the Peak and discovered that this old obsolete cast burr was the best burr they had tried. So it went back into production.

Totally agree.

I tried to find some very early PEAK burrs pictures on the internet and felt that they seemed not exactly the same as the PEAK burrs on the Mahlkonig website now which is the same as the Ditting 804 Lab Sweet burrs.

It's interesting that when Ditting KR804 switched the burrs from cast to machined, many people were very happy with the new machined burrs. Now some people believe that the new Lab Sweet burrs are the same as the old cast burrs and switch their KR804 machined burrs to the old cast burrs. Some are happy and others are not with the result. I got the Mahlkonig Tanzania last month which should be the same as the Ditting KR805, using the blind version of the KR804 burrs. They performed totally different. I am happy to have both of them.

Ejquin wrote:...
Not sure what that means exactly, but there it is..

To add ti what was explained above. A hard coating on a soft metal might lead to the coating chipping off when force is applied that bend the soft metal below.

What you want is a hard coating on top of a hard base. The reasoning is perfectly fine, the other question is which coating leads to what exactly. Especially PVD is known for that issue though. There are good and bad PVD processes though. No clue about the other methods.

bakafish wrote: I got the Mahlkonig Tanzania last month which should be the same as the Ditting KR805, using the blind version of the KR804 burrs. They performed totally different. I am happy to have both of them.

Can you give more details about the differences in taste profile between Ditting 805 and Lab Sweet?

bakafish wrote:
It's interesting that when Ditting KR804 switched the burrs from cast to machined, many people were very happy with the new machined burrs. Now some people believe that the new Lab Sweet burrs are the same as the old cast burrs and switch their KR804 machined burrs to the old cast burrs. Some are happy and others are not with the result.

I think some of that is just coffee changing over time. Those cast burrs in the past were the status quo when most of the world was roasting darker than now.

When you have very light roasted coffee where the most common roast problem is constantly toeing the line of underdevelopment, the more espresso and multipurpose oriented high uniformity burrs don't punish you as badly as they would on a more developed roast. In some cases the higher fines/fewer boulders nature of those designs can sometimes help offset more vegetal and acidic flavors where with say the Ditting machined burrs those flavors are front and center. I think that's a lot of why some people love them and some are meh about it. Objectivity can tell a lot but it won't tell a person what they like

dimka323 wrote:Can you give more details about the differences in taste profile between Ditting 805 and Lab Sweet?

805 shows more clean, clarity, acid, seperation, and Lab Sweet shows more sweet, round, blended. The most interesting is I roast my own coffee. The Lab Sweet hides defects and often let me think my roasts are so perfect till I use the Tanzania. If you can have one grinder, especially for espresso and filter with the same grinder, the Lab Sweet is the only one. But if you roast, the Lab Sweet may let your technique stop growing.

franklin270h wrote:I think some of that is just coffee changing over time. Those cast burrs in the past were the status quo when most of the world was roasting darker than now.

When you have very light roasted coffee where the most common roast problem is constantly toeing the line of underdevelopment, the more espresso and multipurpose oriented high uniformity burrs don't punish you as badly as they would on a more developed roast. In some cases the higher fines/fewer boulders nature of those designs can sometimes help offset more vegetal and acidic flavors where with say the Ditting machined burrs those flavors are front and center. I think that's a lot of why some people love them and some are meh about it. Objectivity can tell a lot but it won't tell a person what they like

I'm not sure the coffee change is the reason. When I started drinking coffee, about 10 years ago, there were many light roasts already. Now the very light roasts are still not so popular here although the 2013 Nordic Roaster champion James Chen's coffee shop Fika Fika is famous. I don't think the very light roasts are the preference of most people in most countries either. I'm thinking the old cast burrs perform not exactly the same as the Lab Sweet burrs. The happy users may just prefer the taste of the cast burrs, but the unsatisfied users taste the defects of the old cast burrs.

Has anyone compared the taste of old 804 cast burrs against the new lab sweet burrs? I've got the old cast burrs which have been resharpened and had about 10-15kg through them to season, and aligned as good as perfect. And to be honest I find the a bit hit and miss. Definitely not the same impression as Michael had in his 2020 grinder showdown.

I'd love to try a set of the lab sweet burrs, but at $750AUD I definitely can't justify it!

Are Ditting 805/Tanzania burrs and 804 machined burrs have the same geometry and taste profile?

Yes, just without the screw holes.