coffeechan wrote:The micrometric adjustment knob makes it great for single use grinder, but makes it less convenient for a multi-use grinder. The NZ is a great grinder and is to be applauded for what they did for the market. On the other hand, I think folks are drastically downplaying what Eureka has done themselves over the last few years. Eureka has paid attention to the trends and have taken notice of the different features that make a grinder good at single dosing. They've been engineering their models for tighter internal dimensions and tolerances in the grind chamber (not to the level of Kafatek or LW, but its a mass manufacture company). They've re-designed exit chutes etc to reduce retention. This can be seen in the Atom 65/75 and Mignon Specialita/XL. Plenty of folks are happy with those grinders as single dosers, with or without mods. 2-3g of retention is what many folks seem to experience after break-in. The Mignon SD completes the remaining feature of the incline to make it specialize as a single doser. Of course I cannot say for sure if the SD will perform, but the outlook is very good just based on their record so far.

Can you tell us more? Especially the bolded part.

it does seem like a Eureka Specialita

No based on the XL!

Why not making this available as so many people are single dosing there Mignon/Specialits/XL models with aftermarket bellows.

The XL has very little retention already. So even without bellows I expect the SD to have only a small exchange...

Time will tell.

zefkir wrote:Can you tell us more? Especially the bolded part.

This is based on the distributor testing. Here's a good video of ECS testing the retention on the Mignon XL. You get to see the grind chamber a bit as well. Start at the 5:00 mark to get the relevant info.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcjlcokBccw

stump007 wrote:Yup same feeling here.

I have limited knowledge on this grinder. But, from the looks of it, it does seem like a Eureka Specialita version of the NZ. Leveraging existing design is totally ok for cost saving, but here it seems there are 0 innovation, and just trying to adress a market they didn't know existed or ignored until the NZ's success.

The worst is that it seems, judging by the pics in first page, that they kept the same dial knob as the Specialita, which is frankly not great for single-dosing/often changing beans. Hope I'm wrong.

the Specialita has a smaller burr size and it comes from a mignon series with a pile of different options one named Mignon Filtro/Brew Pro designed for filter. the difference being the adjustment wheel is tuned for filter so turning the knob has a larger adjustment and you don't have to rotate it 20 times to get to the coarsest end. This is the same idea with the Mazzer mini for filter, it's the same grinder just with larger adjustments. they can do this with the SD but then it won't be good for espresso since you need the small adjustments to dial in. So I'm not sure what the best option is unless they introduced a new wheel that allows micro and macro adjustments. I think a double wheel option would work for macro and micro which a lot of grinders do but I can't see this solved with one wheel. either it's good for filter or it's good for espresso. I would like to see them release a conversion kit to take your existing mignon, put it on an angled base, and add a small hopper/bellows (if even possible) to make me feel more valued as a consumer and give me more options. who wants to buy another grinder that's exactly the same but just put on an angle and was given a new hopper.

coffeechan wrote:This is based on the distributor testing. Here's a good video of ECS testing the retention on the Mignon XL. You get to see the grind chamber a bit as well. Start at the 5:00 mark to get the relevant info.

video

Smaller grinder chamber and lower retention, sure, but I don't see anything about tighter tolerances, that's the big part.

DamianWarS wrote:the Specialita has a smaller burr size and it comes from a mignon series with a pile of different options one named Mignon Filtro/Brew Pro designed for filter. the difference being the adjustment wheel is tuned for filter so turning the knob has a larger adjustment and you don't have to rotate it 20 times to get to the coarsest end. This is the same idea with the Mazzer mini for filter, it's the same grinder just with larger adjustments. they can do this with the SD but then it won't be good for espresso since you need the small adjustments to dial in. So I'm not sure what the best option is unless they introduced a new wheel that allows micro and macro adjustments. I think a double wheel option

Well I'm not sure really, and have only ever used Mignon Specialita for espresso. But the knob is indeed painful when switching between beans. Say if I fancy rotating between 2 beans at the same time, it's a nightmare to get the knob back to where it was. I was under the impression that NZ solved this use case by using a stepped-wheel, but I've never had the chance to try it

DamianWarS wrote:I would like to see them release a conversion kit to take your existing mignon, put it on an angled base, and add a small hopper/bellows (if even possible) to make me feel more valued as a consumer and give me more options. who wants to buy another grinder that's exactly the same but just put on an angle and was given a new hopper.

Hahaha, that reminds me how manually I tilt the grinder forward every time to release the grounds stuck in the chute

coffeechan wrote:The micrometric adjustment knob makes it great for single use grinder, but makes it less convenient for a multi-use grinder. The NZ is a great grinder and is to be applauded for what they did for the market. On the other hand, I think folks are drastically downplaying what Eureka has done themselves over the last few years. Eureka has paid attention to the trends and have taken notice of the different features that make a grinder good at single dosing. They've been engineering their models for tighter internal dimensions and tolerances in the grind chamber (not to the level of Kafatek or LW, but its a mass manufacture company). They've re-designed exit chutes etc to reduce retention. This can be seen in the Atom 65/75 and Mignon Specialita/XL. Plenty of folks are happy with those grinders as single dosers, with or without mods. 2-3g of retention is what many folks seem to experience after break-in. The Mignon SD completes the remaining feature of the incline to make it specialize as a single doser. Of course I cannot say for sure if the SD will perform, but the outlook is very good just based on their record so far.

Sorry I am not familiar with their history. Don't aim to disrepect Eureka in any way, and I do think the Mignon Specialita I own is a great product. Simply sharing my view on this specific new model for single dose.

stump007 wrote:Well I'm not sure really, and have only ever used Mignon Specialita for espresso. But the knob is indeed painful when switching between beans. Say if I fancy rotating between 2 beans at the same time, it's a nightmare to get the knob back to where it was.

I switch beans all the time within espresso range and don't find the knob difficult to use at all. It's firm with no play and responds precisely to my fingers. I remember the grind setting for each coffee in 0.1 increment and it's quite easy to get back to where it was. My eyeballing could be off by as much as 0.05 at times but that's virtually undetectable in the pulls in my experience. At a coarse espresso setting like 1.0 or higher, even 0.1 error is hardly noticeable. For context, the real zero point for my unit is somewhere between -1.0 and -1.4.

Well maybe it's psychological or pure clumsiness, but I almost always need to fine tune with one or two shots to get back from the position I remembered

Why would this new SD hopper need a bean gate?