A friend recently purchased a JX-Pro, and after 4 or 5 uses, he seems to have settled in at 23 clicks (from factory calibrated zero) for 18 gram in espresso shots. He loaned it to me to try, and I liked it so much that I purchased one the other day. Using my friend's beans, my shots are gushing at a setting of 17 clicks (mine was also calibrated at the factory to zero).
I've only used it three times, but it seems that I'm already operating it at a very fine setting. I've never used a hand grinder and am wondering if there's a break in period for it to grind fine enough for espresso without having to dial it in so close to where the burrs are closed.

You may need to reset the zero on your grinder. There are a few good You Tube videos that show how it's done. It's not that hard to do but you need to follow the directions.

Thank you Pressino. I'll definitely check the videos. The thing is though that the adjustment dial can't really be turned past zero, indicating that it's at zero. Maybe it just needs to be used more.

Hey Jebez, sorry to hear of your troubles (and disappointment into your first week). I too have JX Pro (but use it for filter as I also have a JE Plus for espresso). Nonetheless, I think you could be onto something with the break-in/seasoning idea. Do you know how old (how much use) your friend's grinder has had? I notice that the JX Pro really has pretty minimal fines (at filter coarseness)...if that's also true at finer settings, break-in (or burrs dulling a bit from factory machining) would lead to greater fines production (which should up resistance in your puck). If this is as an issue of break-in I'm not sure how much seasoning would be needed...and since it's a manual grinder that could be a while (or a lot of elbow grease) till it's producing enough fines for good puck resistance.

Only other thoughts would be burr alignment or burr geometry. Since 1ZPresso has so many models, it seems unlikely they've changed the burr geometry while keeping the model name the same (you could always check with them though). In terms of alignment, when the grinder was clean, could you freely spin the handle/burrs without any burr rub even at the very finest of settings? That's what impressed me when I got mine. I thought the burrs would rub at a few clicks from zero, but they didn't even then. If you did get some rub...seems that could indicate poor alignment.

No matter, hope you find a solution soon. Sorry again for your troubles.

Yes, it changes over time. The initial grind setting I used was around 14 and now (more than a year later) it's around 23. It's pretty stable now.

I don't understand well what do you mean for 23 clicks, if you go 23 clicks from 0 with the burrs totally shut you can't grind for no one coffee method, you need to go at least 60 clicks from 0 and you are going to be around 1 full rotation and then the number 5 and stay here, 1-5-0, if you don't touch the ring to adjust nothing the grinder never change the adjustment, my Jx Pro have 2 years and is grinding in the same settings as the first day.
If you mean 23 clicks as 2 full rotations and then the number3, 2-3-0, this is a coarse setting for espresso.
I see now that you are at 17, if this is 1 full rotation and number 7 you could be near the good setting for espresso, in my Jx Pro I'm normally around
1-3-0 to 1-4-2.

Sorry, I should probably have used the notation 1(4) and 2(3) like I do when I take notes of grind settings for myself. The number on the left is the number of full turns from zero, the number in parentheses is the number on the dial past the full turn.

I should also add that with lighter roasts and decaf I may need finer grinds, e.g. 2(2.5) or 2(2.75), and with fresh darker roasts it can go to 2(3.25).

OK, now that makes sense and I retract my advice to reset the zero. Sounds like your grinder is working OK.

spromance wrote:Hey Jebez, sorry to hear of your troubles (and disappointment into your first week). I too have JX Pro (but use it for filter as I also have a JE Plus for espresso). Nonetheless, I think you could be onto something with the break-in/seasoning idea. Do you know how old (how much use) your friend's grinder has had? I notice that the JX Pro really has pretty minimal fines (at filter coarseness)...if that's also true at finer settings, break-in (or burrs dulling a bit from factory machining) would lead to greater fines production (which should up resistance in your puck). If this is as an issue of break-in I'm not sure how much seasoning would be needed...and since it's a manual grinder that could be a while (or a lot of elbow grease) till it's producing enough fines for good puck resistance.

Only other thoughts would be burr alignment or burr geometry. Since 1ZPresso has so many models, it seems unlikely they've changed the burr geometry while keeping the model name the same (you could always check with them though). In terms of alignment, when the grinder was clean, could you freely spin the handle/burrs without any burr rub even at the very finest of settings? That's what impressed me when I got mine. I thought the burrs would rub at a few clicks from zero, but they didn't even then. If you did get some rub...seems that could indicate poor alignment.

No matter, hope you find a solution soon. Sorry again for your troubles.

Thank you spromance,
I'm going to check the settings tonight, because I'm beginning to suspect 'user error' on my part... which would be really embarrassing.

boren wrote:Sorry, I should probably have used the notation 1(4) and 2(3) like I do when I take notes of grind settings for myself. The number on the left is the number of full turns from zero, the number in parentheses is the number on the dial past the full turn.

I should also add that with lighter roasts and decaf I may need finer grinds, e.g. 2(2.5) or 2(2.75), and with fresh darker roasts it can go to 2(3.25).

Ah good, don't care so much about the notation I can say that you are not near the burrs shut, you need to go finer like I said, if you are around 1-7
you can go for espresso even to 1-3 or less if you have the grinder with the gray dot in the ring, for turkish you can go to 1-0-0, don't care to go finer, you are far from the burrs touching.