Someone I know who works at a major NYC roaster told me the clump-crusher is a "game-changer." I'd be very curious to get people's thoughts. I'm about to get a Ceado E37S (upgrading from Mazzer Mini) partly on that basis so I guess I already have a dog in this hunt. Thx in advance for your perspectives.

chipman wrote:OK, I give up. What the hell is a clump-crusher?

If you look up the Ceado E37S, the marketing material boasts of the "SCC" - static & clumping control. The idea is a more uniform distribution of the bed for better extraction.

The E37S seems to be very popular here. Seems to be on par with all the great flat grinders out there and the price can't be beat. I wouldn't hesitate to get one but, a game changer because of a clump-crusher? Please

The excitement over the E37S is unreal. And it's all simply because it's a few $100s less than a K30. I've had both and express mailed the E37S back to the vendor when it wouldn't stop covering me in coffee grinds. It's far from a game changer. It's a nice grinder when it wasn't pissing me off.

There's an adjustable flap (for lack of a better term) between the chute and burrs that is the magical clump crusher. So if coffee spits out you can turn a screw on the outside and close the flap down a bit. At least I believe that's how it works!

I'm having a hard time understanding how bad clumps are, beyond a minor annoyance. I mean, they don't survive a tamp. Right?

Static is annoying at my location, 5600' elevation and generally arid. For some reason it's worse with water processed decaf. I don't remember the e37s doing better with static than my HG1 when single dosing. Then again, the e37s isn't designed to single dose and I was using it with a bulb from a turkey baster to blow everything out.

I think the e37s (or whatever it's called now) has gone up in price recently? To me the bigger part of the draw to this machine is the burr set. 83mm flat. That's quite a large burr set, but I guess size isn't everything. Still, in a customer's head that is 'more' for less money than a K30, but what matters is the cup. Sadly most of us don't get a chance to try two grinders side by side to compare.

Is there another grinder that has the Clump Crusher® tech?

FWIW- I went back to using my HG-1 at home just because single dosing and puffing air seemed to be as exhausting as grinding by hand It is a solid grinder though, good in the cup.

-Richard

I think this thread has gotten a little skewed. I am pretty sure the person who works for the roaster is talking about the device that NS installs on their Mythos grinder.

To my knowledge, the Ceado does not have a "clump crusher." It's SCC is not a "clump crusher." It stands for Static and Clumping Control System. The Nuova Simonelli Mythos has a "clump crusher."

Most espresso grinders have a metal or plastic flap at the exit of the grind chamber. This flap controls static. It also hold back some grinds and can cause clumping.

The "clump crusher" is a toothed anti-static flap that NS developed and put on the Mythos. It not only controls static but also breaks up clumps.

If you search around here and on the web. You can find mod-threads about people modding their Ceado E37's with home made clump crushers. I think the big one in on Bella Barista.

I have no experience with them. I am interested in hearing from people who have thoughts on them because I have been trying to find a way to mod my E6P with a clump crusher type exit flap. You know, for fun.

I've been able to use both the E37S and K30 together. Here's my take, FWIW:

The E37S is a solid grinder. I was really pleased with the results in the cup. It also produced a really nice grind that didn't require much in the way of acrobatics to get a nice, even pour. The aesthetic of the grinds sliding down the chute into the PF was really cool too. I also very much liked the push once to activate and then push again to stop feature of the PF activator button. One relatively downside is the grind adjustment was a little tedious to make very small adjustments with. Not a deal breaker, but a tad tedious given the effort required to make fine changes. This was more apparent once I had the K30 in hand which makes fine adjustments very simple to perform. The deal breaker was the spraying grinds. The grinder did great for a month. Then 3-4 times a week it would literally cover my arm and counter with a spray of grinds. I did all the gymnastics of cleaning it, not cleaning it, adjusting the flap in each direction, adding more beans to the hopper, trying a less full hopper...even changing my home's temp. After the vendor sent an 'upgraded flap' from Ceado and I still got covered in coffee, I gave up and returned it. This was almost exactly 2 years ago.

I've had the K30 since. Yes there's something sexy to the IDEA of big burrs. However, the K30 made it obvious that burr size means relatively nothing as the quality is phenomenal from smaller burrs. Perhaps we associated larger burrs as 'better' since the higher end grinders typically employed them while the more consumer level grinders had smaller burrs. Yes, we can laser analyze particle size and find differences but the reality is that a high end grinder with smaller burrs can produce great espresso. The K30 grind adjustment is the entire top lid. This makes fine adjustments simple because 1) it requires very little effort once the set screw is loosened and 2) the scale is very large given ratios of the diameter of the casing to the diameter of the motor/burrs that it's adjusting. Moving 1/4 to 1/2 a hash mark is relatively large movement of the lid (say from 4 to 4.5) and will change your pour time by 4-5 seconds. Thus it's easy to move the lid a very small increment and really hone your pour time to whatever you please. The closed chute means that if it ever sprays grinds, they go straight down into the PF and not onto the counter. The K30 has sprayed perhaps 4 times in the 2 years of daily use that I've owned it.

I would buy the K30 again in a heartbeat. I'd never try a Ceado again EVER. The only thing I wish the K30 could do better is single dose. You have to be willing to trash some coffee if you like switching beans.

To bring this back to the E37S and the 'clump crusher'...don't think of it as an anticlump mechanism. It's really about making the thing not spray (the opposite of clumping I suppose) and Ceado has made a number of revisions to improve the result. How well it works now isn't all that clear to me. Definitely don't buy it for this 'feature' as Ceado is advertising something that most other grinder manufacturers attain without overt efforts or advertising fanfare.

spearfish25 wrote:I've been able to use both the E37S and K30 together. Here's my take, FWIW:

The E37S is a solid grinder. I was really pleased with the results in the cup. It also produced a really nice grind that didn't require much in the way of acrobatics to get a nice, even pour. The aesthetic of the grinds sliding down the chute into the PF was really cool too. I also very much liked the push once to activate and then push again to stop feature of the PF activator button. One relatively downside is the grind adjustment was a little tedious to make very small adjustments with. Not a deal breaker, but a tad tedious given the effort required to make fine changes. This was more apparent once I had the K30 in hand which makes fine adjustments very simple to perform. The deal breaker was the spraying grinds. The grinder did great for a month. Then 3-4 times a week it would literally cover my arm and counter with a spray of grinds. I did all the gymnastics of cleaning it, not cleaning it, adjusting the flap in each direction, adding more beans to the hopper, trying a less full hopper...even changing my home's temp. After the vendor sent an 'upgraded flap' from Ceado and I still got covered in coffee, I gave up and returned it. This was almost exactly 2 years ago.

In my experience with the e37s it's the gymnastics you're talking about that causes the spraying. Leave the flap alone and the spraying goes away and doesn't come back until you futz with it again.

Yeah. Unfortunately part of my gymnastics was the 'do nothing' and I still got an arm that smelled like Blue Bottle for the rest of the day. I finally just found it too frustrating...definitely not what a grinder should be making its user focus on. I hope Ceado got it sorted out. Seems like there are still many happy owners.