nicholasnumbers wrote:This isn't rocket science. SSP makes one 64mm burr set for brewing. The different coating thicknesses are negligible. They have a tolerancing issue; not a burr clarification issue. This is just a bummer; and shows the disconnect going on.

Nick

What is the reason people are switching to SSP burrs in the Ode? Is it because they grind finer than the stock burrs?

Yes. The stock burrs are set up for fairly high uniformity, but due to the burr geometry even the finest setting on the Ode is pretty coarse. I originally wanted more grind range which is why I attempted it.

Nick

nicholasnumbers wrote:Yes. The stock burrs are set up for fairly high uniformity, but due to the burr geometry even the finest setting on the Ode is pretty coarse. I originally wanted more grind range which is why I attempted it.

Ok thank you. I'm noticing the same thing with the stock burrs. I've tried to really slow down my pours and that has helped. I'm wondering if it will grind a touch finer after I season the burrs more.

nicholasnumbers wrote:This is a standard method of ramping for production. A milled housing will be 5-6X the cost of a cast housing. They started production using machined components until the casting was tooled up. Unfortunately they just missed this tolerance.

Nick

This is correct. It takes a while to get the tooling build for cast parts and the cost is pretty high so prototyping is done with machined parts until the design is locked down enough to move to cast parts.

The cost for the tooling for cast parts is spread over a large number of units resulting in lower costs, but eventually tooling wears out which can result in tolerance slips at which point a company will need to decide if they're going to pay for new tooling, change their tolerance spec, or just ignore the problem. In this case it sounds like the cast parts tooling is not accepting the SSP burrs right from the start.

So I've used the Ode about 5-6 times now. I'm a Kickstarter backer in Canada.

Mine doesn't auto shut-off. I'm waiting on Fellow CS to get back to me on that.

Having read through this thread, it seems a common issue most are having is that the grinder isn't grinding fine enough. Oddly enough, I'm having the opposite issue. I started out at the recommended 4, and have had to grind coarser. I only brew light coffees (I've brewed Friedhats, Mame, and Nomad thus far), and my drawdowns are sitting at a minimum of 3:10, max has been 3:30, and most importantly, I'm just getting overextraction and astringency with 20g/340ml V60 brews.

Anyone relating to any of this?

I've also needed a somewhat coarser grind (@4,1-5,0 range) with the stock burrs to avoid astringency with light roasts. I also brew much more quickly than usual (end of draw down ~2:30-2:45). I felt like the brews lacked flavor but to be honest I didn't spend much time playing with the stock burrs since I had the SSPs in hand.

So I finally got around to comparing the stock burrs to the Comandante and the Ode+SSP burrs. Visually, the Ode burrs seem to produce grinds that are a little more biased towards large particles once you get to the coarser side of pour-over (according to the lid). Same caveats apply as the previous post, but I did use the same exact beans. I tried to stay in pour over range so this wouldn't take too much time. Also did Stock Ode at 1,0 (1 click past burr chirp) to get a sense of what the finest setting would look like.

As a reminder, the Ode+SSP @ 7,2 is currently what I'm using for pour over (Origami dripper + Kalita 185) with an Ethiopian light roast from Klatch and very happy with the flavor of the coffee. It's incredibly fruity but the cup is also very well balanced (imo). No astringency.



Here are a couple more direct, albeit visually less nice, comparisons.

Stock Ode vs Comandante:


Stock Ode vs Ode+SSP:

I just picked a Fellow Ode from someone on CL selling it for Kickstarter price so thought that was a deal since the cheapest you can get it now is 300+tax. I opened it to find it was indeed machined and not cast which is good. I tried sticking some Mazzer OEM Super Jolly burrs in for kicks and the non-stationary carrier is tight where i'd have to put some pressure to snap it into place. Look at one of the fins, it is not exactly 90 degrees vertical so giving that a slight bend would probably help the situation. I am on the fence keeping it as I have been hearing various reviews in this thread, but will put it through its paces to verify that everything works properly before deciding.

Also while cleaning the burr chamber, I did clean out a couple of metal shavings. Good thing those didn't end up in the cup!

violin_geek123 wrote:
I then set the Ode calibration to 3 clicks past burr chirp so there's no chance of me damaging the burrs. Did a test batch of 20g (Intelli House blend, bought for testing), at setting 4.0 and the grounds came out looking super uniform. Did a single-pour v60 and it drained at 3:05. Bed below. Some fines but I'll see how that changes as the burrs season.

That's it for now. I feel happy now that I have a working grinder and can play around with the newly installed SSP brew burrs for a while. Will pop back in with more findings soon.

Very helpful post!

Do you have a sifter? If so, I'd love to know the particle distribution at the finest setting. I haven't changed from the stock Ode burrs and have done a couple of siftings with a Kruve to figure out why a 3-pour 22gr/375gr Kalita Wave drawdown time is consistently under 3 min. I compared the results to my Vario and the Ode is definitely producing more large particles.

If anyone has a sifter and has changed to the SSP burrs, let's compare results.

Another successful SSP burr install here. No fitment issues were encountered. My unit is a spring pre-order from Fellow directly.

I don't understand some of the unconstructive negativity in this thread. I think it's a clever design. But then again I haven't had any issues.

I calibrated right at burr contact. Now my pour over range is so much coarser, maybe a 5-6 compared to the stock Ode burrs at a 2-3. So the SSP burrs do appear to grind much finer using the same calibration method.

They grind so fine in fact, that I really wonder if in the 1 range it's fine enough to be getting close to espresso territory.

Hey friend. Can you confirm which SSP 64 burrs you purchased? I'm about to do the same and want to be sure I'm buying the correct item.

Side note: if any Ode owners purchased non-fitting SSP burrs and want to offload them, please let me know and we can work something out.

Thanks!