I'm sad to report that the honeymoon phase with the beam feeder is over. After about three weeks I went in to clean out the burrs and a plastic price snapped off. There was a decent amount of shared stuck along the outside of the feeder. Maybe a redesign is still in order before people who haven't bought it yet place their orders. I'm not looking for a replacement using the same design and instead will go back to running with manual feeding.

I've had my WW Key for a few months. I'm wondering if what I'm experiencing is fairly normal. I'm coming from a Sette 270wi that I used for around 2 years with zero issues. It seems like there are quite a few larger grinds in the basket every time. I don't remember having grinds this size with my 270wi, and it was also easier to dial in new coffee beans with the 270wi. Some beans I've completely given up on and resort to pour over. I've also removed the burr and brushed clean, and ensured that everything is inline. There is no visible wobble in the shaft and seems to be working fine. It seems like this is producing some channeling in every shot, nothing drastic but it is noticeable. Has anyone experienced these issues as well? Thanks in advance.

Here's my process:
90rpm
RDT with 17.5g
Magic tumbler attachment and then I WDT afterwards.

I dont like the magic tumbler and experienced the same thing with it.

i switched to the blind shaker and funnel attachment and the results were so much better and consistent.

sergiyr wrote:I'm sad to report that the honeymoon phase with the beam feeder is over. After about three weeks I went in to clean out the burrs and a plastic price snapped off. There was a decent amount of shared stuck along the outside of the feeder. Maybe a redesign is still in order before people who haven't bought it yet place their orders. I'm not looking for a replacement using the same design and instead will go back to running with manual feeding.

A piece of plastic bean feeder broke off today during grinding and caused the motor to stop. I got 5 1/2 weeks out of it. That was my first espresso in the morning. Anyway, the second espresso, after pulling the burr off to retrieve the wedged piece between the burrs, I had the same parameters as the first. I don't believe the bean feeder does anything to the cup.

My understanding of the bean feeder is as a device to slow the flow of beans into the grinder so as to avoid motor stalls, with anything "in the cup" coming from a slower flow being completely ancillary. Absent a bean feeder, one can simply add beans gradually over time, rather than dumping, although this adds additional time and attention to the coffee making process. It will also add an element of unrepeatability to the pouring in process that was probably much less of a factor when using a bean feeder.

I do find that using the bean feeder (you have to make the hole just small enough that beans pass through slowly) affects grind time, presumably making the grind more uniform. And I liked the results better for my coffee. I also find the work area cleaner because bean chips really don't go flying out the top (and I don't use the little cover when using the feeder).

But, with it you really can't see if any beans are stuck to the top of the burrs and that can definitely affect shot times as well. So I'm on the fence about using the bean feeder.

Likewise I'm on the fence about the stirring paper clip too. Even if I use it I still wdt the beans a bit on the top to even it out as I find it more consistent then bumping the Portafilter until they flatten. And if I don't use it the shots seem the same to me and it's less messy and I don't have to worry about bumping it (only once did I bump the Sorry piece knocking my grounds out the bottom of the tumbler, but I often bump it somehow letting some grounds fly). I think I'm not going to use it.

I think in the end I need to keep reminding myself that these gimmicks (?) weren't the main reason I chose the grinder- it was the anticipated and realized results in the cup and the look and quality of it. The gimmicks aren't an indictment on the quality, I don't feel.

Still, if the overall experience is lessened then it makes me slower to recommend it unequivocally (much like the Decent which does everything I dreamed of but has some annoyances that make me want to add some caveats before recommending it so you realize what you're getting).

My favorite experience with Weber Workshops is their customer service and would like to give a shout out to Raymond. He is good at what he does and presents an excellent forward facing image of the company.

I found out my bean feeder was from an early batch and they have since made a small change and haven't had any of those break yet. They are sending me another one.

I'll second that. Raymond has been great answering different technical questions that I've had during the past year either about my Key or recently about my newly received Unibasket. He has followed up each time and given me the info I've needed. Bravo Raymond.

Kafana Nick wrote:My understanding of the bean feeder is as a device to slow the flow of beans into the grinder so as to avoid motor stalls

You would be correct....a lot of us Key owners had to install a $20 plastic piece to keep our $2000 grinder from stalling. Think about that for a second. Oh, and while the piece does seem to mitigate the stalling, it doesn't eliminate it. Again....think about that.

For anyone that's having issues with consistency of the grind and concerned about past comments of shaft issues or alignment issues, I strongly encourage you to try re-aligning it yourself and not to worry about damaging the grinder. Theres two videos on YT, one from WW and another from OZ Espresso Machines aligning the HG2 that will help.

Background:
I had this grinder back in May and wasn't getting the best espresso out of it. It wasn't terrible, but it was tough for me to admit that I thought my previous grinder (Niche) was pulling better and more consistent shots. At the time the grinder was new and I was extra careful and not wanting to toy around with it at risk of damaging it more. The shots were okay even though I was getting inconsistencies between shots over the months.

Fast forward to January and I'm getting terrible shots all of a sudden where I have to figure something out. After reading through this entire thread I've found that other users with issues mostly resulted in having a center screw that loosened over time. I think there were only a couple of people who mentioned about actually re-aligning the burr. At this point, my grinder has developed some cosmetic damages already so I decided to just go ahead and give the alignment a try. After doing it, it worked! I honestly think my first 5 shot (dialing it in) after i realigned it were the best and consistent shots I had in the 9 months of owning it. I've also come to realize that this machine is not made of glass; a little knock of the metal with a mallet is not going to dent it or the burrs touching briefly because you turned it a little too close when you turn on the power is not going to destroy it.

I also just want to point out that i had a really positive experience with WW customer service (Cjay and Raymond). I got the courage to do the alignment because another user on the WW internal forum posted about how easy it was to align and since I was on their web page I decided to send them an e-mail with multiple detailed questions I had about alignment and other questions I had and they responded back in detail to all my questions within 24h.