So I finally went dropped in a set of SSP burrs on my old Ditting KR804. The first 3 shots of espresso came out weird, the grounds feel quite gritty and yet it choked my espresso machine. When it finally hit an "acceptable" brew time of 35s, the espresso was weak but not overly bitter. I stopped there before going any further because I didn't want to waste anymore beans.

Did anyone else experience the same issue? I know that new burrs need to be worn in, but I don't know if I should be getting gritty coarse grounds mixed in fine powder.

I would suggest doing a dry-erase marker "alignment" on one side, then the other, then rechecking. It is quite an effective technique IMO, especially for the burr you can't measure with a dial indicator.

It helped me with my SSP super jolly.

I don't think it's related to breaking in - my SSPs were ready to go from day one, and I noticed an immediate improvement in grind. It might be alignment as someone else suggested. I did align mine when installing using the marker method.

weak? up your dose.

thank you everyone for the replies! I finally got the time to tinker with the grinder this past weekend, and I don't know what helped since I did everything.

The dry erase marker technique seemed to show that the burr alignment was relatively level without any adjustments but I did clean the collar where the top plate screws into the main body before putting it back together.



I also ran a bag of IKEA coffee beans to "coat" the burrs.

I'm pleased to say that the espresso pulled is subjectively better than before, less bitter for the same intensity, additional tastes of dates that weren't there before. The grains do look/feel coarser than before usual but I guess it's the taste that matters.

I'm certainly not an expert, but those don't look like any espresso burrs I've ever seen before, they look more like what I would expect a pourover burr to look like. Not to say they won't work for espresso, but I'm surprised at that picture.

Ira

You are right, I meant to use a unimodal grind particle size of a brew grinder for espresso.

In theory there might be a limit to how fine those burrs will grind because of the large exit passages so the correct burr spacing for espresso might be a very small range. Or I could be completely wrong!

Ira

The exit passage that you mention is know as outfall depth. This groove that creates the "flute" of the tooth has a large impact on how fine you can grind. The orientation of this flute also sets the angle of the final tooth relative to the center of the burr. Most espresso burrs have a large angle that induces a large amount of scissors action at the final teeth and helps force coffee out which is needed due to the small gap between burrs for espresso. These angles are critical as too little will stop coffee flow out of the burr set and too much will tend to stall the grinder at start up. Flute horizontal angle has a large impact on particle distribution. Flat flute geometry will provide a more consistent particle size which is what I believe the original users of the EK43 used for espresso stumbled onto. It would be interesting to see how the burrs produced coffee if they where surface ground to reduce the outfall depth. Something I could do here in my shop if one was interested.
And my own observation of coffee grounds is that they are all bimodal in distribution due to the fact that coffee is produced not only when the teeth line up but also when the teeth don't line up although the particle size is restricted by only having only one flute exposed at the outside diameter. I have burrs that I import that fit either the Peak or 804 grinder. They have a much shallower outfall and actually produce a tighter distribution curve that the Ditting burrs used in the Peak. They have a much shallower outfall depth but still have the negative final tooth profile that tends to crack the coffee rather than cut it like an espresso burr.
jpboyt