Been on espresso rabbit hole for a while, and had Specialita & Monolith Conical grinder. The monolith produce best shots at far from burr touch, which is great and gives comfort to me.

While on Specialita (especially on one anaerobic ethiopian I recently tried), shot tasted best @ exactly at burr touch (not complete lock, just slight touching sound when on without beans, but the metal on metal grinding sound is gone when actually grinding beans). Produced an amazing 18:40 ratio at 30 sec.

Question: Would it affect longevity of the burr? My limited logic thinks that it only touches on the non-grinding flat surface of the burr, so shouldn't hurt any burr teeth. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on it?

Thanks much!

Sounds strange. Espresso range should be far from touching position. I think the burrs could be misaligned, or as an option burr carrier mounted improperly. Need to disassemble the top burr, clean, inspect if all sitting well and parallel, no stuck beans etc... check burr touching surfaces, do "marker test"...

Boris, appreciate your input! Did the marker test and shims couple months back, and it's 90% or so clean wipe, but I'll try to redo & clean too just in case it's moved!

I was pretty surprised too since other beans I've tried so far sits well beyond touch point, except for this new bean (I imagine this is closer to filter roast? It's pretty light)

I'm not aware about anaerobic process dependence, but if you see that this is the very light roast, maybe that's the answer. It should be acidic and fruity as well.
Conicals produce more fines and have less touching surfaces and this could give more room with very light roasts.
Another factor is burr size... we comparing 71 conical against 55 flat For sure monolith will be more productive and consistent with bigger burrs and less tolerances in bearings and carriers...

I think that such usage will affect on longevity of the whole unit. Small burrs are cheap, but what's about the motor? It could have a hard times now