Sharing this as a potential discovery or perhaps an attempt at confirmation bias lol

I've been using a Fellow Ode with SSP MP for over a year, and there has always been a nagging "dirtiness" let's say to the finish of the coffee's I've been drinking. While I used to roast on my own on the Huky, since moving into a NY apt, I've been buying coffees from many amazing roasters around the world - La Cabra, SEY, NOMAD, Coffee Collectif, Manhattan so on and so forth. Although the SSP MP V2 was incredible at providing clarity, it just had that finish issue that kept coffees from being juicy. Sweet? Sure. But that clean, rounded juiciness which I'm so fond of was never achievable with the MP V2.

So when I found out that SSP started selling the MP V1 (the original unimodal) again, I decided to bite the bullet.

Today I installed it the V1 burrs with the silver knight coating, seasoned it with 1.5lbs of old coffee on a finer brew setting (think aeropress 12g V60), then gave it ago.

Wow, the cup I got was clean! Juicy! Rounded! The nagging astrigency was mostly gone. There's still like 1% of astringency left, but maybe that's just a byproduct of 1) 64mm burrs 2) the alignment tolerances of the Ode not being as tight as say a Guatemala which I used to use when I worked in the industry.

When I first received the MP V1 burrs, I thought it was a total bust. The flat vs. non-flat edge between V1 and V2 is so subtle to the eye and to the touch that I immediately regretted buying the V1s. How could such a minimal different make an impact at the brew range?

This is why I worry my perception might just be placebo, and I wanted to post this to ask if anyone else experienced a similar change in the cup quality when going from the MP V2 to MP v1.

For espresso, I would think that the differences would be very clear and obvious, but for brew? Let me know.

I'll keep you all posted on if my initial impressions change. I feel that the results of this post could be helpful to people wondering if they should buy the MP v1 for brew or if they're looking at the timemore Sculptor because of Lance Hendrick's review where he perceived a clear difference in juiciness/astringency between the Sculptor and SSP MP.

Great review, thanks for sharing. I've actually been wondering about this very thing. Where did you order from?

Follow up post:

I always found it odd that Fellow chose the espresso focused burr with fines teeth and high friction red speed coating over the smoother silver knight coating and no finishing fines teeth. I've long suspected the issue people have had with this burr and filter being great but easy to push astringency are the nature of the coating and those fines teeth. It makes sense if you create more fines in a relatively unimodal filter focused brew that what is going to happen is 95% of it is fantastically extracted with clarity and juiciness and then that final 5% is over extracted and leaves the drying, astringent finish that tarnishes an other ways great tasting cup.

treq10 wrote:When I first received the MP V1 burrs, I thought it was a total bust. The flat vs. non-flat edge between V1 and V2 is so subtle to the eye and to the touch that I immediately regretted buying the V1s. How could such a minimal different make an impact at the brew range?

Just replaced what I believe were defective Mizen 64mm burrs on my P64. The replacement looked actually identical. No perceptible difference in shape, finish... anything! But the results in the cup, as well as the grind setting it took to get there are night and day.

I'm convinced burrs are imbued with magic at some point in their manufacturing. That's the only way I can explain things like this.

Jonk wrote:I have the MP v1 (previously called brew and unimodal v1). I really like them, but some amount of astringency is something I've come to accept as part of the deal.. I mean they're clear, focused burrs and it's not bitterness (I think it's possible to confuse the two)

Anyway, I've also been curious for quite some time. Not enough to buy MP"v2" yet..

Haha, I know exactly what you mean. Not bitter - perhaps dry/tannic? Because the brew doesn't have much body, even the small amount of dryness/bitterness from these burrs seem quite noticeable even though it's minimal. This is how I experienced the Guatemala when making batch/single serve at the cafe. For grinders that have a wider distribution, I believe the complexity and sweetness from finer grinds (not fines!) in the mix tend to blend well with the astringency & bitterness from fines/boulders. In the MP V1/Guatemala you don't get that blending, and so you just gotta learn to live with a tiny touch of dryness.

The difference between MP V1 and MP V2 for me is that the V2 almost totally eliminates the juiciness. It's the final 5% of brew character, particularly in the weight of the beverage and the finish, but to me it's one of the most important components of a drink. MP V2 for me has produced fantastic cups of coffee, but they were never juicy.

If you have a MP V1, I don't think the answer is to get the MP V2 because you'd simply be adding more of that astringency. The answer? Let me know if you find out

JayBeck wrote:Follow up post:

I always found it odd that Fellow chose the espresso focused burr with fines teeth and high friction red speed coating over the smoother silver knight coating and no finishing fines teeth. I've long suspected the issue people have had with this burr and filter being great but easy to push astringency are the nature of the coating and those fines teeth. It makes sense if you create more fines in a relatively unimodal filter focused brew that what is going to happen is 95% of it is fantastically extracted with clarity and juiciness and then that final 5% is over extracted and leaves the drying, astringent finish that tarnishes an other ways great tasting cup.

I agree with you 100%!!!! I also wondered why Fellow decided to use the red speed MP V2 when their grinder isn't even supposed to do espresso lol. It probably had to do with SSP's decision to stick with one version for all 64mm markets which meant cheaper component cost for fellow.

I ordered it directly from their online shop. www.espressotools.com