nicholasnumbers wrote:It's calibrated to 5 clicks off of burr touch so out of the box it's tailored to not do espresso. We do that intentionally.

Nick

Thanks, Nick! I should have made clear I'm only interested in it for drip (I forgot about the convo going on above). I guess I also should have said "aligned" and not calibrated. Unsure whether or not I will need to (or should) align with the marker test right out of the box.

We unfortunately cannot hyper align at our factory because it would just take too long. We try to hold the best tolerances we possibly can at the price point.

I say try out the grinder stock, and if you're happy leave it be. If you're after that next level, aligning can only help.

Nick

I just received my Ode with SSP MP burrs and brewed my first V60. SEY's Gore Dako, a washed Ethiopian from Agaro.

My recipe: 1:17 ratio (16g/272g). Grind setting at 4. 50g bloom, 100g at 400s, then 122g at 1:20. Drawdown finished around 3 min.

Wow. What a difference! The Helor 101 has given me great results for the last couple of years, but with the Ode & SSP MP, there is the capacity to extract more and produce a clearer, more rounded cup. Some of the astringency that annoyed me with the Helor 101 is now rounded out and the acidity/structure is more integrated. I am so glad to have finally moved to a flat burr at home! It's putting a huge grin on my face as I sip and write this.

One thing I am noticing is that there is quite a lot of fines. The finished grinds had a significant amount of sludge atop the bed and around the walls. Is this a function of 1) lack of seasoning or 2) alignment?

I am actually very happy with this cup, so I don't know that I will care to do the alignment anytime soon. If any of the users with experience have a recommendation on whether I should accelerate the seasoning or do an alignment, it would be very appreciated.

A big kudos to Fellow. Cheers.

Is it calibrated to touch at 1? If so, 4 is a fairly fine setting with SSP burrs, so you can expect some sludge. But on the other hand, the amount of fine particles you'll see if different depending on how water is poured, I really wouldn't pay much attention to it.

As an aside, with my SSP brew burrs, there are less real fines compared to many other burrs and it's quite even, but there's actually a substantial amount of what you could call huge fines - say >400µm.

Anyway, if you're happy with the flavor I'd say just enjoy the coffee.

Gotcha - thanks for that insight.

It's currently factory calibrated which means 1 is five clicks from touch. The grind is quite fine - much finer than I'm used to brewing with the Helor 101 which have conical burrs. The taste is very good, and I think I could even go finer. In this case, I think the unimodal distribution really helps with the higher extraction as there are not many boulders, and the amount fines might even be a plus in that it provides some body/sweetness which I prefer. I can do a test of sifting the fines to compare, but this is more reminiscent to me of coffee from the ditting lab sweets (not the SSP version) than the Mahlkonig Guatemala - both of which I've used extensively in a cafe setting.

Since the SSP MP is supposed to be based on the guat, I wonder if the lack of perfect alignment is actually doing something I want inadvertently - adding a measure of fines to add body/sweetness vs. expressing acidity in a more clinical way (guatemala was very much like this).

Which Guatemala did you use? The 71 and 73mm versions can have very different geometry, not to mention more than twice the RPM.

I'd say the results from my 71mm Guatemala is less clear but with more pronounced acidity. Not overly similar, but both delivering quite nice brews.

Has anyone had a chance to compare the Ode with SSP MP burrs to the Baratza Forte BG?

Jonk wrote:Which Guatemala did you use? The 71 and 73mm versions can have very different geometry, not to mention more than twice the RPM.

I'd say the results from my 71mm Guatemala is less clear but with more pronounced acidity. Not overly similar, but both delivering quite nice brews.

Ah, I didn't know there were two versions. I'm not sure - it's whatever we used at the shop for batch/filter.

I spent the better part of today aligning the burrs. Can't tell whether there is much improvement...I probably did it wrong. I'm wondering because I didn't do the stepless mod yet, the clicks are two wide to get the burrs to touch just close enough. My zero point may have gone too far, giving me a false reading perhaps.

I measured the fines level and it's actually very good at ~5% of total grinds at 4 (factory setup aka 5 clicks from touch = zero). The conical hand grinders I've used generally have 10%+ at similar grind settings. I'm hoping that with seasoning this figure will decrease a bit, but for now it's acceptable in theory.

Coarse grinding isn't giving me very unimodal results, although I am getting very little fines. At the factory setting for SSP MP, things start to get quite uneven after 7. Although it doesn't matter for me since I never grind that big (batch brew or french press), I'm wondering what other people experience at the far end of the coarse range.

Lastly, does seasoning really improve grind quality? In what way? I would appreciate less fines at the finer range (16g V60), and more uniformity/unimodal at the coarse range (say, 40g V60 or cold brew). My cups today were a bit disappointing as there was significant dryness to the finish due to the overextraction of fines. My second cup was brewed with a coarser setting and shorter brew time - this was even worse with sharper acidity and same dryness/bitterness in the finish. I've read a couple of posts on reddit and here talking about the changes in seasoning improving cup quality. Anyone have more insight on that? SSP MP burrs specifically...

Apologies if some of these comments are redundant. It's a big thread, and it's been tough to locate the questions I'm interested in.

They're quite similar ime but the dittings steels seems to have a bigger sweet spot while being a teensy bit less clear.

baristainzmking wrote:Has anyone had a chance to compare the Ode with SSP MP burrs to the Baratza Forte BG?

There has been some discussion about this, mainly compared to the Vario BG I guess, but that's applicable to the Forté BG as well.

One example: Fellow Ode brew grinder review (slightly different unimodal/brew(/UM?) instead of MP)

My take is that Forté/Vario BG has bigger sweet spot for what kind of beans I like to grind with it. Not about roast level, just resulting flavor profile. That said, nowadays I reach for the Ode more often.