Hi mates,

I am a december batch owner, with the unimodal burrs set, and using the grinder exclusively with lighter roasts for espresso and V60. So far, my experience is...correct.

Espresso severe extraction problems: No matter what (any variable change, any distribution method, any basket size/VST or not, flow profiling or not, grind size), the extractions are visually pure garbage: puck is destroying fast and a lot of dead spots. What's weird: taste is good (ok, more than good), and I am able to really dial in by taste.

Static: Without being a mess, but even with RDT (2 spritz), I still get a lot of it, especially at the end of the grinding session when the grounds are closer to the chute.

Variable speed: More fines at higher speeds, more unimodal grind at lower speeds. Using ''3'' most of the time, especially for V60.

Retention: I do have some retention: I calculated basically 0.3g in the chamber, which is good for me.

Burrs alignment: Usually the first thing I am looking for before even plugging the grinder, but actually our COVID confinement situation is kinda very bad and...I just can't find a non-permanent marker lol !

Would buy again: Up-to-date, no. This is an expensive CAD grinder and I would probably modded the Anfim to get less retention, instead of buying this grinder, and would not missed that much. I will wait to be able to check the burrs alignment and get used to the unimodal tighter sweet spot dial-in, but for now the pleasure factor and the feeling I upgraded my taste in the cup is kinda meh.

After reading Eric's post above I felt like sharing my experience as well, based on the 3 weeks I've been using it.
Coffees: light-medium roast (Bean Bros guest roaster subscription, Black & White, Terrain Coffee Project)
Brew methods: V60, Wave
Brew recipe: Hoffmann method for small servings (12g : 200g)
Grind setting: -4.1 to -3.7 from chirping. (seems very fine compared to others I've read but my dose is also comparatively tiny).

Been tinkering around with a lot of variables and here are my impressions + observations:

• Coming from the OG Feldgrind, I am able to achieve better flavor clarity in my brews. I have two examples for this. For the B&W Eduardo Campos anaerobic (the producer known for "cinnamon" bombs), I was able to consistently get strong cinnamon and holiday spice flavor. Prior to the Lagom, the Feldgrind brews were only able to achieve the cinnamon flavor maybe 1/2 the time. A second example is a washed Ethiopia from Terrain Coffee. I bought it because it tasted fantastic from a local cafe's batch brew (think ripe peach, nectarine, and mango. It was exceptional). At home, I was able to dial-in the coffee after 3 grind adjustments (this is very fast by my standards). The flavor was very close to what I got from the cafe. Same flavor profile, but not as clear and strong. Still, extremely satisfying, and I was rarely able to do this with my old grinder. I figure their batch brew gets inherently better extraction than my tiny 12g pour overs.
• I can now get satisfactory and predictable results with both the V60 and Wave 155. My brews with the V60 have high clarity, while the Wave produces sweeter brews with less unique flavors. Both can be enjoyable.
• Static: I have run through <5 lbs coffee so far and definitely need RDT. One spray completely eliminates static, but I really wish less water came out with each spray. I've had wet beans stick to the popcorn blocker when feeding into the grinder.
• I think I grind way finer for V60 than most here. Granted, my dose is very small at 12 g. My total brew times with 45s bloom range from 3:20-4:00 (V60 tabbed filters) and 2:45-3:15 (stainless steel Wave 155). I never taste any bitterness.
• Here are post brew photos of coffee grounds. -3.7 setting.
  
  

Overall, quite satisfied with the flavor improvements so far. I wonder if the grinds/flavor will get perceptively better for V60 after running through more beans.

Peter SVK,
I'm new and came across this forum as I do my research on Lagom P64 and finally put the deposit and waiting for Jan 2021 shipment. I really like your custom scale sticker than what come standard from Option-O. Do you mind share how to do the printing. Appreciate in-advance

I would also like to do this mod. Might not look as good with the silver version though.

Renegade wrote: Espresso severe extraction problems: No matter what (any variable change, any distribution method, any basket size/VST or not, flow profiling or not, grind size), the extractions are visually pure garbage: puck is destroying fast and a lot of dead spots. What's weird: taste is good (ok, more than good), and I am able to really dial in by taste.

Hi Eric,
I also have the new Unimodal burrs and I am not experienting nasty channeling problems. Quite the contrary actually. Mine is aligned and seasoned. This may have to do with seasoning of the burrs (SSP recommends 3-5 Kg of dark roast, coarse grind; I used 3Kg of cheap supermarket stuff). I am also using Speed 7 (as per Option-O recommendations), maybe this also helps? Anyway just a suggestion.

I am quite happy with new Unimodal burrs. I compared a few different coffes with Unimodal an HU (of course no real side by side comparison possible) , and overall I really prefer the new Unimodal.

Also a LIGHT tap with the palm of the hand on the top of the grinder helps blow the little bit of retention. With RDT and the light tap I think that carry-over retention is minimal and negligible

Hi julien,

Thank you for your reply, it is well appreciated

Regarding the seasoning aspect, I went through about 5 pounds (2.2kg): half of it was at an espresso setting, and the other half at a V60 setting. I've seasoned many grinders in my life and, while the grind's quality always got better by doing so, i've never experienced such a mess. I will continue to season the burrs properly and wait for my non-permanent marker to arrive in the mail, since I suspect something HUGE regarding anything about this grinder...

I've tried many RPM settings. I noticed a more uniform grind and less fines at lower speeds, but even at 7-9 the espresso game is still the same: the flow is just slower and the puck destroys even faster... Coarsening the grind and/or updosing just provided gushers, so I don't think I am experiencing a ''too fine of a grind channeling'' issues here...

The palm tap is something I am doing, but... I need several taps with the grinder running to get everything out of the chute. I stopped doing this, since I've found it ridiculous to do this on a 2k single dosing grinder, and also because I basically need to hammer my hand several times on the grinder to get everything out, which might not be the best for components. So I am back 10 years ago on my Vario, using a cocktail pick to clear the chute.

This morning I was pissed and I was close to just sell it on this forum adds section. We'll see, but I need a break from this crap, so I just got the Anfim out of the box (I was trying to sell it ATM, glad It didn't worked) just to try to enjoy coffee once again.

ChongKeat wrote:Peter SVK,
I'm new and came across this forum as I do my research on Lagom P64 and finally put the deposit and waiting for Jan 2021 shipment. I really like your custom scale sticker than what come standard from Option-O. Do you mind share how to do the printing. Appreciate in-advance

Baristaboys wrote: I would also like to do this mod. Might not look as good with the silver version though.

PMs sent.

Renegade wrote: Regarding the seasoning aspect, I went through about 5 pounds (2.2kg): half of it was at an espresso setting, and the other half at a V60 setting. I've seasoned many grinders in my life and, while the grind's quality always got better by doing so, i've never experienced such a mess. I will continue to season the burrs properly and wait for my non-permanent marker to arrive in the mail, since I suspect something HUGE regarding anything about this grinder...


The palm tap is something I am doing, but... I need several taps with the grinder running to get everything out of the chute. I stopped doing this, since I've found it ridiculous to do this on a 2k single dosing grinder, and also because I basically need to hammer my hand several times on the grinder to get everything out, which might not be the best for components.

This may not be related to the problems you are experiencing, but actually apparently seasoning coated burrs is a bit different vs. normal burrs. It looks like you need to use oily beans. See SSP instructions below (Point 4; also point 1 of troubleshooting). Many people seem to ignore this so I thought posting this could be helpful.

And the palm tap should be very light; it is basically using you palm as a bellow. Option-O advises against a hard tap.

I think any palm tap or even worse using a bellow, is counterproductive with this grinder in my opinion - 1/ there is really only ca. 0.25g of coffee (which is negligible) trapped in the chute during first couple of grindings (I tested that), i.e. static retention, permanent, 2/ palm tap or blower can get fine coffee particles where we don't want to see them, i.e. between upper burr carrier and adjusting collar, therefore Option-O do not recommend any hard tap (or bellow) - I had a discussion with Hayden about that.

The user manual mentions that a light tap is okay, so then I guess everything relative!